When I was barely 15 years old, I was driven nearly five hours across state lines to Missouri by a 22-year-old man determined to make me his bride. On June 19, 2003, I was wed to this man, who then rented a hotel room where he took my virginity. It was not consensual. I was sexually assaulted almost daily in nearly every imaginable way for over a year. I was stuck as this man’s property.
Why and how could this happen? Well, I was the child of an affair between my mother and her husband’s brother. My stepfather — my mother’s husband at the time of my conception — chose to stay with my mother despite the circumstances of my arrival, as he knew my biological father was an alcoholic and a heroin addict.
When I was 14, my stepfather, who had raised me, left for work one morning and never returned. I came home from school to find my mother sobbing hysterically. My mother then turned to boyfriends and alcohol herself. Eventually, she disappeared with one of those boyfriends, and my little brother and I were left to our own devices. My brother went to stay with a friend, who he ended up living with until he was 18. I, too, stayed with various friends, including the man who would end up marrying me.
He lived in a trailer in Arkansas with two roommates. All three were in their 20s, and they regularly hung out with my friends and I, who were between the ages of 12 and 16. They gave us alcohol and drugs. The first time I ever got drunk, I was 12 years old and alone with my abuser in his bedroom. I do not recall any abuse from him at that time. However, I later learned in therapy that I was being “groomed.”
While I was married to this man, I endured more than just sexual abuse; I also endured emotional abuse. I was kept from going to school for days at a time, and even had to use fake doctors’ notes due to the extreme absences. I was alienated from my peers, my friends and my family. I had no privacy or bodily autonomy, as he often even watched me bathe. It was a hostage situation, not a marriage.
When I was 16, I got a job, saved up some money and secretly began calling lawyers, trying to find help. I managed to an incredibly generous lawyer out of Little Rock, Arkansas, who listened to me with open ears and an open heart. She helped me file for a divorce, only asking me to pay the $50 filing fees. I was so desperate to get out of the prison that I was in.
By my senior year of high school, I was divorced and living on my own. I went on to graduate from college, have a daughter and attempt to live my life. I have had a semi-successful career as a journalist for almost 10 years now, but my past has always haunted me, affecting my personal relationships, my stability, my career and everything else in my life.
At 28, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and panic disorder, both attributed directly to the “severe trauma” I experienced at the hands of my abuser and by my parents’ abandonment.
For nearly a decade, I tried to pretend none of it ever happened. But at 32, I am no longer afraid nor ashamed to speak about it publicly, as it is not my shame, but his.
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