The next group of posts will all be descriptions of events which happened while dating Jared, they span over a two year period (16-18 yrs. old) Not sure how many posts I will need to divide it into, but I will number them in case it becomes confusing what the order is. A big chunk of events/emotions that I feel I need to recover from, come from those 2 years, so I will be spending a good amount of time on this subject.
Before I knew it, I had fallen hard for Jared, and I was back into one of my "happy & in love" kicks....but that wouldn't last long.
I started feeling decent again when it came to my depression, so I eventually stopped going to counseling (partially because I didn't want to attend anymore, and part of it because I didn't feel like I needed it much at the time). We started getting serious pretty quickly, a lot quicker than I had planned for, and things got out of control fast in a lot of ways.
Looking back now, I can see that there were so many things that he lied to me about, about who he was, what he did, who he was with, what he wanted from me, etc. But at the time, I was trapped in his lies of thinking he actually "loved" me, and so I fell back into my routine of bending over backwards and doing anything to be with him. I had the mindset of thinking that I could change him, that I could help him become a better person, and bring him to believe in the church, and everything would work out in the end. Boy was I wrong...definitely had the mindset of a teenager. Not only was I unable to "change" his ways, but instead I started slipping downward fast onto his level. Since my standards started dipping again, and the way I was being treated started getting worse and worse, my depression also returned in full force. Normally he accepted the fact that I did not want to have sex until I was married, but that changed after a small incident.
He ended up coming to school one day on crutches, I was concerned of course, and when I asked him what happened this was his reply: "I was hanging out with some of my guy friends last night, and accidentally lit my pants on fire. I forgot I had spilled gasoline on them earlier, and so when I got too close to the fire my leg caught on fire." His entire left leg was completely covered in 3rd degree burns. Though the answer he gave me didn't quite seem to add up in my head, I chose to believe it since I try to trust the greater-good in people. Later I would find out that he was at a party drinking, and willingly let other guys catch his leg on fire (that's how drunk he was) I'm also pretty sure he was cheating on me while there. Anyways, because of these burns, he was on some medication for the pain, and this seemed to alter his personality quite a bit. Not only was he trying to get me to stoop a lot lower in doing stuff with him, but he was abusing the medication he had been given (and would later find out that he was selling it too).
Regretfully I eventually ended up sleeping with him, and that sent me straight back into my depression cycle. Part of me gave in because I was scared I would lose him if I told him No, and I was so in love with him at the time that I didn't know if I could bear letting him go, I'd never felt closer to another person. Of course now, I see that I would have been much better off if I didn't give into him, and I let him walk away. I would mess up with him, feel horrible and get severely depressed, try to change, and then end right back into the same cycle because I wanted to escape the depression and feel loved. There were multiple occasions that I decided and told him that I did not want to be like that, and that was not what I wanted; so he would agree that we wouldn't have sex, but then always ended up pressuring me back into again and again. Of course I can see now why church leaders always warn not to participate in any type of intimacy before marriage, because among a lot of other reasons, it messes with your emotions BIG TIME. I felt so connected with this guy, I wanted so badly to be with him, my naive mind wanted to marry him, be with him forever. And what was he giving me in return? Nothing. Nothing but using my uncontrolled emotion against me, to trap me with him. Things started getting out of control, he started treating me a lot differently, didn't care about my feelings or that doing stuff with him left me feeling completely HORRIBLE about myself. His main concern seemed to turn to; "Well I still want sex, so I just need to act like I love her so that she will stick around." Truth is, I did love him, way more than I should have; but eventually I realized that this is not what I wanted in a relationship. I wanted love, not lust; I wanted something real, not just giving into him for a night so that I could feel wanted for a moment.
When I realized that as much as I loved him, he could not respect my boundaries, I wanted out. Problem is, he didn't agree with that, he was not ready to lose me. He wanted me to stay in his life and went to the extreme of being willing to do anything to manipulate me into staying with him. If I would threaten to break up with him, and walk away, he would threaten to hurt himself. He would threaten to commit suicide if I left him. Not to mention, in the mix of all of this, he also told me that he wanted to marry me, we planned to get married when we got out of high school. So there I am, one side is the part that is desperately in love with him, and cleaving onto the idea that he wants to marry me, and somehow we will make things work and live "happily ever after" ( Yes, I know, I was very naive). Then there's the other part which sees he's using me, I'm stuck engaging in sexual activity when I know that it makes me feel so hollow and depressed, and I can see that he's slowly turning into a manipulative/abusive boyfriend. Oh, and then you have to add the fact that my natural personality is one where I am dying to help people, to be the "hero" in a sense. So you add that to the fact that I see my boyfriend struggling with depression, threatening to kill himself; and I feel so inclined to stick around to help. Which is why his method worked out perfectly, he knew that I wouldn't dare leave him, because I loved him too much, and could not stand to live with myself if he were to kill himself because of me.
Things got to the point where our relationship basically turned into a suicidal game. I was depressed, he was depressed; I felt stuck, but I could not leave out of fear that he would hurt himself. There would constantly be threats of one or the other killing them self out of one reason or another. I wanted to literally die because of what he was putting me through, and what I was stuck in, I thought death was the better alternative. And he wanted me to stay with him so desperately that he threatened to kill himself if I even thought about leaving.
To understand a little bit about where this guy is coming from, he was definitely sick in the head in one form or another. He struggled with depression, anger issues, an abusive past, a bad family life, etc. He was stuck in a crowd of friends "the cool crowd" that really weren't friends at all, they openly admitted that they only kept him around because he was the entertainment. They would always make him do stupid stuff at the gatherings (getting lit on fire, letting them put out their cigarette butts on his skin, among a million other stupid things) and he would let them, for the life of me I do NOT know why. My guess is he just wanted to be accepted by them. Bottom line is, they didn't care at all about him, and they would admit that; and his family life was no better. Deep down I could see the good in him, I saw glimpses of that guy throughout our relationship, and that's what made it so hard for me to leave. Deep down he was smart, caring, fun, honest; but he kept letting the alternative side take over, and eventually win. So basically between his issues, and my own issues, we were what you could call a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow.
We were the perfect match for chaos, and we managed to bring out the absolute worst in each other because of our issues, and because of how codependent we both were. I have never been so depressed, lost and angry in my life than I was during that time frame. I was a very mellow person, shy, timid, never swore. After being with him, I would engage in fights with him screaming at the top of our lungs, swearing every other word, physically fighting, hating everything and everyone. He was so good with mind games; one moment it was "Kelsie, I love you so much, I can't wait to marry you," and us planning out our life together. The next moment was him forcing me to do stuff I did not want to do, screaming at me, treating me horrible, abuse, etc. It drove my teenage brain and emotions completely insane.
I hated life, hated the situation I was stuck in, but somehow I was still in love with him. Really? Talk about messed up. I always thought it was so crazy to hear stories where a lady will get abused by their boyfriend or spouse but they don't leave...well now I understood why. I was stuck on so many different levels, I somehow still loved him and sacrificed my safety and sanity to stay with him, plus he would not let me leave because of his threats. I had gotten to the point where I was that girl, I was that girl that was dealing with every type of abuse possible, and yet was still staying with the guy. My life was a nightmare.
No comments:
Post a Comment