A Lifetime of Abuse: One Woman’s Struggle for Freedom

Real life implications resulting from the sexual objectification of women

My mother should have been able to receive the hysterectomy she asked for. She was a disabled woman and a high school dropout. Instead she was economically forced to stay with my father even as he physically and sexually abused her children. I am sure it was better than the prostitution she resorted to before she met him. At least this way she could pretend like everything is okay. She was so good at being “grateful and positive” even as her children were abused.

At 8 years old, I did not understand why I wanted to die so incredibly bad. I told my mom this, sobbing, staring at my father, hoping she would draw the connection. She didn’t, instead she suggested I go to live with him and painted a bright future for me there. Confused, dissociated, and heartbroken I trusted her parental judgment. At 9 years old my father would drop me off at various houses, exchange money, and come back after I was done being sexually assaulted. Then one day when I was visiting my mom and knew my father would be taking me home later that day, I ran away and hid in the woods. My family searched for me for hours. Once they finally found me my mom promised I could come home in a few weeks. Once I was home I did finally escape this horrific chapter in my life but I never escape my feelings from it.

I went on in life to be drugged, raped, and stalked in college. I met a man while still being stalked and found safety and comfort in his presence that I mistakenly took for love. There were red flags all along but why would I see them when he did not hit or rape me. Once I was pregnant and economically dependent on him the red flags changed from a washed out pale red to a bright undeniably cherry red. I begged for changed behavior, I poured my heart out to him about how afraid he was making me feel when he broke things in our home. After our daughter was born, it got worse. I left him, then I took him back, and then I left him again. Once I realized the constant was abuse and that it just changed shape after every threat I made to leave, I left for good. I built a reality, to the best of my abilities, to protect myself and my daughter from this kind of life. The kind of life where women are abused and used. We women are not objects, we have voices, and I for one will use mine. I am not hiding my story in shame because I am not the problem. This society has failed me and many other women, the culture we live in is the problem.