TESTIMONIALS

“The only voice that I heard was his”

My experience started when I was a sophomore in high school. We began hanging out outside of school. He was so sweet to me all the time. He would bring me flowers randomly, and cards saying how happy he was that we were together, and how excited for our "future" he was. We had so many of the same interests and seemed to get along so well.

After about a year, he decided to break up with me. He accused me many times of not loving him enough, and if I did really love him, that I wasn't showing him in the ways that he wanted me to show him. After we broke up, he made it very clear that he didn't want me to be with anyone else, but he didn't want to be with me either. Of course I was in love with him still and so any attention he paid me, I would look at it as hopeful that we would get back together. During this time he used me sexually. I thought that by doing the things that he asked, he would realize how much I really did love him.

During this time, I was not allowed to look at, speak to, hang out with, hug, or spend any amount of time in any setting with a guy. He accused me of being a flirt. He started controlling me in small ways at first. He would tell me what I could and could not wear to school. If I came with something on that he didn't like, he would tell me right away before even saying hello. He did this until I stopped wearing makeup and began wearing baggy pants and dull dark t- shirts as opposed to skirts and fitted t-shirts.

The more time I spent with him, the more he would not allow me to hang out with friends and family. By the end of our relationship, I had one friend at school, and was not involved in anything that he was not involved in. He isolated me completely, and had me all to himself. The decisions that I began to make were his decisions. At the time, I was planning on attending the same college.

We constantly fought and he would always threaten to hit me. He hit me once, and after that he threatened to hit me. He told me things like, "You deserve to be beaten," and "you will never find anyone better than me." He called me horrible names. He made me feel like I was worthless and that I had no voice. After a while, the only voice that I heard was his.

After two and a half years, I finally decided that I was better than the way he was treating me. The last year of our relationship he was out of town so I didn’t have to see him everyday. This really helped to open my eyes to see that I was a good person, and that I deserved better. I still wasn’t strong enough to end the relationship until one Saturday morning. We had had a huge fight the night before, and for some reason when he called the next morning, I didn’t feel like answering. I decided to pick up the sixth time that he called me. We fought some more and I hung up angry. I went upstairs to my room and knelt on my floor crying. I began screaming at God wondering what I could have done that could have made me deserve the things that I had been going through for the last two and a half years. I felt an urge to pick up the phone and call him and tell him that I wanted to be done and wanted nothing to do with him. I screamed back at God saying, “I can’t! I’m not strong enough; he will just twist it and manipulate me!” Amazingly enough, I felt an abundant amount of strength, and picked up the phone to call. For the first time I stood up to him and God gave me the strength to be strong. We ended the conversation and I decided that I was done. Not only did God give me the strength that day, but He gave me the strength to ignore every phone call, every instant message, and every e-mail.

God picked me up off of my knees and gave me strength. From that day out I had no contact with him. God began a direct change in me that day, and He has been healing me ever since. My passion is to educate teenagers on domestic violence and let them know that there is a way out. God does amazing things, and He has a purpose for everyone’s life. This was mine.