Love, Lust, Abuse

Acceptance, relationships—we as humans are naturally social creatures. We strive for perfection, acceptance, and love. We try to use these skills to make new friends. Sometimes this blooms into something more. Love is a huge concern for most people. We look for it, and in most cases it happens unexpectedly. But other occasions we have it without realizing it’s not love, it’s control.

Let’s make a scenario: There’s a girl named “Jane.” She’s quiet, trying to find herself, never in any form of relationship, a little lonely because she can’t find what she wants most, love.

There’s a man named John: He's an independent worker, needs to keep in contact with his built up clientele. Jane just so happens to be one of his clients. He texts everyone he’s is relocating, Jane is unaware of who the number is and replies back. That’s all it took was one text back to begin something “magical.”

Scenario

Let’s make a scenario: There’s a girl named “Jane.” She’s quiet, trying to find herself, never in any form of relationship, a little lonely because she can’t find what she wants most, love.

The “wolf” is a man named “John”: He's an independent worker, needs to keep in contact with his built up clientele. Jane just so happens to be one of his clients. He texts everyone he’s is relocating, Jane is unaware of who the number is and replies back. That’s all it took was one text back to begin something “magical.”

John, he’s charming, a million-dollar personality everything Jane thinks to be “perfect.” He and Jane start to get serious, and in just a few months she and John are happier than ever. Until one day, Jane wanted to visit a family friend and he started to question her, asking her who is this friend? He’s never met them. Is that where she was really going? It was a guilt trip trying to persuade her to not go, and it worked. Jane felt a little alone, even though she had John she missed her friends. She felt locked away, even though she had her family and friends, but she could not see them. She was blinded by love.

She made up a white lie, telling John she wanted to see her family, but in reality it was to see her best friend whom she hasn’t seen in months. Now John catches her, then the name calling starts, calling her a liar, a good for nothing, she’s so stupid she can’t even lie good, just words that cut deep. Now you’re probably thinking, Jane really needs to start thinking about leaving John but she can’t. She’s so warped and conditioned—that in her mind, all she needed to do was, work, then come home to him. She was in “love” and was so lost in that, that she had no love for herself.

After the fight between the two passed, John had lost any trust in her (if he had any in her to begin with). He asked, Was she was getting close with the guys at her job? We’re they flirting? Did she flirt back? John was so controlling that he felt that any guy that looked her way she was cheating on him with. He took her phone, making sure she wasn’t sending any secret messages to anyone, even made her quit her job and made her find a new one. When they went out, he accused her of looking at other men.

Yes, Jane really needs to leave him, but when your confidence is so low, you think you’re not good enough, the one person who says he loves you, you just stay.

This relationship lasted over four years, until she finally got away. It was four years of name calling, suspicion of meeting other men, being locked away from the world because he wanted her to be that “housewife.” All these red flags had come up, until finally he grabbed her throat. When she addressed it to him, he got defensive and said she was crazy, making her feel even more confused than she actually was. Now, this wasn’t hitting or beating, it was a scare. But it makes no difference. No one deserves to have someone who they claim they love, put their hands on them.

Morals

The whole moral is that abuse isn’t always hitting, cuts, and bruises. It can go much deeper than that. You’ll have that voice in your head haunting you, saying you’re stupid, not good enough, and worthless. The list can go on and on. I was in a similar situation. The bruises healed; it’s the mental and emotional scars that stayed put. It delayed my future plans. I’m ashamed to say that it happened to me.

It’s been about two years since, and I still have those words trying to break me down. Sometimes I feel like I’m out of my mind, but that’s what he wanted! It takes time for everything to settle down, sometimes we never get fully over it.

Life goes on, and it’s your life. NEVER, LET ANYONE TELL YOU CAN’T DO WHAT YOU WANT! You’re your own person. Yes, it hurts, I know and you wish it never happened. No, you can’t go back in time, even though you wish there was a way. Don’t be ashamed that it happened: Learn from it. Even if they were your first love, no one deserves to be called names and be controlled. That’s not love! We as humans are so easily fooled when it comes to something that we naturally try to strive for. But don’t try too hard because you’ll fall a few times. You just have to keep moving; don’t stop in one place! You are better than that. Don’t let one person stop or hurt you! If you start moving in the right direction and keep learning on the way, then that person is going to do just fine.