Child Abuse Story From Nina

by Nina
(Minnesota, USA)

I was born into a very dysfunctional family. My dad was an abusive alcoholic and my mom very co-dependent. For the first five years of my life, I watched my mom being abused and would sometimes "get in the way" of my dad's rage. I had concussions and a broken nose. She suffered more, and I was always there to take care of her, that was my job. The worst was the demeaning things he would say.

When my mom finally left, we were both in such a low place. All we wanted was a "good" man. We found Adrian. He was a recovering addict/alcoholic. He was nice and fun and everything seemed to be going well. He really respected my mom, and I could tell that she loved him very much.

When I was about 10, Adrian started sexually abusing me. I told my mom, but she was in denial and ignored it for a while. Finally, she kicked him out, but I always sensed that she didn't want to. After he went to treatment for sexual abuse and served some time, she invited him to move back in. I was shocked! She was my mom. She was supposed to love and take care of me, protect me! This was the point in my life when I stopped caring.

For the next 5 years of my life, I would allow anything and anyone to take advantage of me. I began doing drugs and drinking. I was very depressed. I overdosed 4 times in attempt to kill myself. I sought male approval and accepted sex as love. I felt the need to be wanted by a male. To receive attention.

My freshman year of high school, I met Marc. He was fun and liked to party. He was into drugs and I didn't see a problem. As time went on, he became very controlling and started doing more and more drugs. It only got worse. He forced me to do very horrific sexual things. One time, he tied me to the bed and began to cut me with a knife on my arms, legs, stomach, and inner thighs. He smeared the blood all over and had VERY rough sex with me. I was crying and screaming. This was just one of the many things.

After about 2 1/2 years, I found out I was pregnant. I told Marc, and he was excited. I was confused by this, but went along. By this time, he was a full-blown meth addict. After about 6 months he had killed my baby. He was high and beat me. This is when I finally left. I was so traumatized and depressed that I got very involved in drugs. I wanted to control my life and have fun. Ha! My life was everything but fun.

The summer before my senior year, I met someone else. Erik was fun, cute, respectful and a pastor's son. I thought he was perfect. He listened and understood me. Everything was going ok, until about 6 months ago when I realized how depressed I still was. I had never really worked out any of the chaos in my life. I just hid it all away. I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with severe depression, post traumatic stress, and anxiety.

After treatment for my mental illnesses and drug abuse, things were looking up again. Erik and I were, and still are, doing great. I really love him. My mom and I are building a relationship, and I am starting to go back and look at all the shit in my life. I realize it's not my fault. I'm learning ways to accept and understand things.

I will be eighteen years old in less than one month. I don't know where my life will take me. I am still at the beginning of my recovery. But I have confidence that I will not learn how to survive life, but live it.

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