In my freshman year of highschool, I met a guy who I thought was amazing. He was incredibly charismatic, and he seemed to be very sensitive and caring. I had never met someone like him before; I was in love. By the end of freshman year, we were dating, and I was so happy to have gotten that chance with him.

However, in the first few months of dating something changed. One day, I told him that I was going to hang out with one of our mutual friends, who happened to be a guy. He told me he was jealous, that he didn’t want me to be alone with him because he was afraid he would try something. I told him he had nothing to worry about, and went to our friends house anyway. A few days later at school, an acquaintance told me that he had sent dirty pictures to her and her friend and begged for some in return. When I confronted him about this, he said that he was sorry but it was ultimately my fault. He told me that I had made him so jealous, that he started drinking, and that he hadn’t really cheated on me because he had been intoxicated.

I believed him. I had never been in a real relationship before; this was my first love! Of course he would be telling me the truth. So, upon his request, I stopped hanging out with our friend unless he was with us.

Any time we disagreed on something, he would give me the silent treatment. He made me think that he would leave me if I didn’t apologize, and this attitude would often result in me sobbing and begging his forgiveness. He made it very clear in our fights that I was the problem, and I believed every word. He loved me, so why would he lie?

After about 4 months of dating like this, he began to pressure me into doing sexual things with him. I had only ever kissed someone, and felt incredibly nervous when it came to going further than that. He started by telling me that kissing him without letting him ejaculate gave him “blue balls” and complained about the pain endlessly. I felt so guilty for causing him pain, but I told him that I wasn’t ready.

He started to do things to me anyway.

I told him no, asked him to stop, and tried to laugh it off when he didn’t. He was just a boy, and as people often had told me, they couldn’t help it. It was probably my fault anyway. That’s what he always said.

This pattern of emotional manipulation, isolation, and sexual assault ended when he broke up with me eight months later, but my warped mindset didn’t. He left me a deteriorated puddle of the strong woman I was when we started dating. It took me over two months to realize that what he had done to me wasn’t what normal partners did. It was abuse, and it wasn’t my fault that he did it. I became immensely afraid of ever seeing him again, for fear that my mind would go back to how it was when we were together. I started to have panic attacks when I would hear his name, or even think about seeing him in public. I had nightmares to the point of being nearly unable to sleep, and began to be somewhat of a shut-in because I was worried that if I went out into town, I would see him.

I told my friends about what he did to me after months of being afraid to do so, because they all liked him. I told them with tears in my eyes that I had been diagnosed with PTSD by my therapist because of what he did to me, that I was so afraid of seeing him because he might do those things again, and that I needed someone to believe me because I had to talk about it with someone who knew what he was like. One by one, they told me they didn’t believe me, or that I was exaggerating to get attention, or even that they did believe me, but he was still a good person and was probably just confused when he did those things to me.

Since then, I have lost every friend I had at that time because of him. I have made new friends who try to understand what happened to me, and I have been working with my therapist on getting past what he did to me for almost three years.

Getting through all of this has been the hardest thing in my life. But what I really want people to know is that it can be done. While I still have PTSD right now, I am stronger despite what he did to me. I notice red flags in relationships much sooner than I once did. I stand up to the people I love when they ask something unreasonable of me. I am more empathetic towards other people who have been traumatized because I have been there. And most of all, I love myself enough to get out of relationships or friendships that I know are unhealthy, even if I am scared to be alone.

Comic illustrated by Sarah Myer