Growing up, I lived with my mom, who struggled with many addictions. She was always with abusive men, even my dad who I watched from an early age physically abuse her. My dad was never in the picture, he would just come around when he wanted to. I used to look up to my dad, not knowing how bad he was. My dad is a raging, abusive alcoholic. He would physically abuse me, my mom, and his other girlfriends while drunk. I never knew how to tell anyone as a kid, I just stopped going around him. By the age of 4, I was living with my grandma and great grandma because my mom was financially unstable. My grandma was a mentally abusive addict. At the age of 7 my mom passed away due to heart failure. She had heart surgery shortly before her death, when she was released, she went to a hotel, where she relapsed and died. Ever since, I’ve been battling depression and anxiety with the fear that I’ll lose everyone around me. I’ve always struggled explaining my emotions due to my mentally abusive grandma. By the age of 8, I started stress eating because I didn’t know how to express my emotions, so I found happiness within food. My abusive grandma would tell me “if you don’t slow down you’ll be as big as a cow.” Not only her, but kids at school would bully me and call me names because of my weight. By the age of 12, I always tried to be in sports in school to lose weight. I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder since a very young age. At the age of 13, I lost 40 pounds in 3 months by starving myself. Nobody around me knew how much I was struggling. People would complement me on how good my body was starting to look, not knowing how much I was drained. At the age of 15, I was sexually assaulted by someone who said they only wanted to hang out. After that event, my depression started to get even worse, and I started to self-harm. 2 months after, I got into a relationship with someone who ended up being physically abusive. During our relationship, his friend got shot in my house, right in-front of me. My boyfriend was very manipulative and would tell me that it was my fault. He would cheat on me and abuse me if I brought it up. He cheated on me the night I watched his best-friend get shot. He would manipulate me and tell me that he would end his life if I left him. I tried to leave him in August 2022, and he chased me and my friend down trying to shoot me. He then got arrested, and ever since I’ve had horrible PTSD and nightmares that he would come back and hurt me. It’s hard to wake up every day and live knowing that all I did was love him and he treated me so horribly. I struggle with substance abuse, and I don’t know how to express my emotions. I’ve said more about my experiences here than I have in my life. If you made it this far, thank you for listening to my story. Know that you’re not alone, and you are loved.
