From nowhere to now here…

I was in an abusive relationship for almost two years. We were completely toxic for each other. I met him a month before I turned 16 and we dated until January of my Freshman year. I was with my friend Amber at a gas station where her friend Jason worked, and Josh just showed up and that was it. I was a goner. I thought that at 16 I had it all figured out. I was going to marry this boy. So, when the jealousy and the anger started showing up, I recompartmentalized it as "emotion" and "love." This allowed me to not use the words "abuse" and "problems" until well after we had broken up. It started small. Checking my phone, little fights, a few more text messages than usual, but "nothing I couldn't handle. I was smart." He was older by two and a half years, wasn't in school, and had questionable morals, so I hid it from my parents. I would go over to Amber's house just like every other day and weekend, and there he would be. I was so smart. I had it all under control. 

My parents started looking at my phone bill and picked out Josh's number which was all over it, when they asked me who the number was, I told them he was just a friend of mine, "no big deal." My mother started asking about him around town because at the time we were still the new family there. His reputation was abhorable. So, on the night of my sixteenth birthday (June 14th, 2006), she confronted me at my party, took my phone, and demanded I break up with him. Of course, I told her I would. I lied. I was smart, I was in control. We told every person in town that we knew that we were broken up. The only people who knew were his best friends Rusty and Cristal and mine Amber. That's it. We continued seeing each other at Amber's all through the summer and into the fall. I thought I was good at hiding it, but I have since learned that my parents are wonderful wonderful people, who knew, or suspected, but allowed me to be an adolescent. I am very thankful for this…kind of.

In July we broke up briefly because I was tired of lying to my parents. He moved back home to prove to me that he could get his life straight and we started dating again less than a month later, still lying to my parents. In november, I really did feel terrible about lying so I broke up with him "for good." I was smart. I was in control. On New Years Eve, I was staying with my best friend Elizabeth and called my mother at around 2 in the morning and told her that I was in love with him. That he had cleaned himself up and that I wanted them to meet him. They agreed to consider it and on Jan. 8th, he came over to the house to watch the National Championship game with us. That was it. They were hooked on his charm as well, and we were inseperable. 

The obsessiveness began to show more intensely then. He would check my phone, often. I rarely left my phone around, but every time I did, he would check it. This comes in to play later. Around April, I had just declared that I was going to Mississippi College, and he had gone on the tour with me. As we are sitting in the living room one night, he begins discussing the distances between the colleges that he had been looking at 
(Alabama, Miss. State, Auburn, etc.) and where I was going to be in the fall. Overhearing this, my mother asked him what he had made on the ACT when he had taken it. When he said that he had the same score as I did, the plans set into motion for him to come to school with me. 

We moved in a day before his birthday in August of 2007. We. were. "that" couple. Always together, everyone knew us. I was loud, he was shy, I pushed him into things (Civitan) he pulled me out of things (friendships). I was smart. I was in control. I was able to keep the fighting to ourselves for a few weeks, but after that, it became obvious. He would yell at me anywhere, about anything (or any one), at any time. I was told who to acceptably talk to, I was told why I hugged people inappropriately (basically I was only allowed to side hug), I was told why he didn't trust me. I was told I would never be loved by any one as much as he loved me, I was told that we were going to get married (August after our graduation, which if you're keeping tabs would have been August of last year. …terrifying.) I was told that if we ever broke up he would kill himself (i believed him.) and I was told that we needed to stop going to church because "all i did was check out other guys there." He would call me 10-15 times in the early early hours of the morning and when he couldn't get in touch with me, he would call my roommate, when she wouldn't answer, he would begin calling anyone he knew on our hall until one of them came to knock on my door to go down and see him. 

Needless to say, I was an idiot. I thought that that was what "love" was. I began to believe that if he was obsessing over me, at least he wasn't with any one else! What devotion! What commitment. I was smart. I was in control…

An addendum must be made to this tale: I became (or always was… again, toxic) a horrible girlfriend back at him. It got to the point where I was no longer sure who was being abused and who was the abuser. I think that this is the saddest part of everything that happened. It got so debillitating that I began to lash out. I cheated, I lied, I yelled at him right back. It was an ugly, nasty scene and an even uglier, nastier breakup. I am certain that the affects of what I did back to him were terrible too, and for that I am saddened. I think that towards the final months, everything snowballed towards a terrible, horrible, no good, massively destructive end. 

It has taken me three years, but this is the first time I have ever shared this story publicly and the reason I choose to do so now is this: I now know love. I knew Christ then. I did. I will share my testimony on here soon I am sure, so that wasn't it. However, now, at the tender age of 22, I get why I had to go through all of that. I now hear the stories from girls who had been abused and COMPLETELY empathize with them. No, I was never physically struck, but I whole-heartedly believe that given time, it was inevitable. I needed to share this as an act of healing, for me, and for the girl (or guy) reading this who feels like "crazy obsession" is normal. It is not.

There is freedom available. There is joy available. There is real love available. Grab on to it. Take heart for the Lord has already overcome all of the obstacles in your life and in mine (shockingly enough, there are a lot more stories I have yet to tell.) God's plans are so much smarter than ours could ever dream of being. HE IS IN CONTROL.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8