19 Mar Be Yourself Part 2

…So I got into a relationship with man who was cocky and insecure, an emotionally , financially and physically abusive person. This relationship was something I tried to get out of time and time again, after a month of dating I knew he wasn’t for me so I tried to break up with him. After two months he told me I was gaining weight and looking pregnant. After 3 months somehow manipulated me into paying his rent and some of his school fees. I was trapped. I can liken this situation to Stockholm Syndrome. I was in too deep, I was depressed, I was losing myself. I barely saw my friends, and when I did he would always seem to pop up in vicinity somehow. I remember a time when we argued and he broke a window, the shattered glass was all over the floor and the bed. I tried to leave but he told me that I was sleeping there tonight. So I did , I slept among the shards of glass. I cried myself to sleep. It was the first time I truly feared for my life. And I thought to myself could it get any worse?
In 2013 I was free from him, I was happy and in a new relationship.
He contacted me and wanted to talk , to apologize for the things he had done in the past.
I’d rather not go into the details, because the whole ordeal involved him colluding with people I thought were my friends, but he raped me. It wasn’t violent. But it was tormenting experience. I really thought it must have been my fault. If waking up fully clothed with someone penetrating you without you’re permission isn’t rape then I’m not sure what is. I never said yes , I never said I wanted him.
The experience did not only take my dignity but it took my fire, it took away my trust in people , it changed my perception of the world, the world I thought I was my oyster.

I spent years after that trying to pinpoint what went wrong, why he , and other men who had done similar things , why they felt the need, impulse, right to do what they did.