September, Seven Years Ago

 

I have so much to say, but sadly no ears are listening at this moment of writing. My heart is pounding in my chest even louder and even harder than it was before somehow. I’m not hallucinating, no. But I feel very sensitive at the moment and I’m reminded of every little things that happened in the past. Many parts of my past, it is, to be clearer. For example the time with that teacher, let’s call him L. I don’t know what I was thinking when I was that little, when I was somehow turned into his bait and his slave, kissing, touching, being kissed, and being touched by his filthy hands. He played me. Many thing, so many things remind me of him. It is sad. Every time I see something that reminds me of him, my heart screams of pain and I get a sudden stress and I feel like it’s hard to breathe. Yes I have learned the ways to deal with such moments, but the memories, they’re everywhere in my body. My therapist was right — the most horrible thing that happened to me that made me so traumatized was him, was that particular teacher that knew his ways around and how to get his desires fulfilled. How come I ever bought into the thought that he loved me? How come was I so innocent and so easy-to-get? I bet other girls would’ve walked their ways out of the corridor if they’ve heard the same things I heard from him, but my feet somehow got closer instead. He played on my curiosity as a little girl that just discovered sex and what it means. I was only a 13 year old girl that was indeed in the peak of her interests when it comes to such stuffs, but I don’t know what made me stupid enough to fall for his words and ended up doing what I did. I was scared, yeah, I was really scared. I still remember my heart pounding out of my chest as we were planning to kiss the first time, I still remember it was on Wednesday, he was really into doing it and I found the thought intriguing, and he was indeed a very temperamental teacher, I was so afraid I couldn’t say any negations to his offers, otherwise I would get his palms on my face, or he would hate me in class, or that he would be more angry than he already usually was in class, I somehow thought I could save the class from his anger by ‚taming’ him. I somehow had the feeling that he wasn’t satisfied with something in his life, and that he needs some release. Sure wasn’t my job and wasn’t my place to make sure that he was satisfied with his life, that he’d feel better about himself, or to let him let go. But I somehow thought I wanted to help him, my 13 year old’s innocence told herself that she wants to help this miserable guy out of his misery, out of his thirst. Really, can you ever blame this pure girl for what she did? 

So there I was, the nights before the first kiss happened I had learned how to kiss right, because L had a specific need and he literally had a manual on how to kiss properly. Sure I was still very young, I never kissed anyone like that, not the way that he explained. He was always so proud of his past sexual experiences with his exes and he would always brag about him being a very sexually active man, he always thought that I was more mature than my age, that I always had the right things to say to him even though I was only 13 at that time. Sure I was flattered, somehow also very flattered by the fact that he said he loved me, that he never found anyone as ripe as I was in that age. I probably was in oblivion with myself, I of course took it very highly that such comments were made by the most furious teacher I ever had in my life. Yes, I should admit, that was very flattering. Somehow I have a good reputation on taming teachers like him after knowing him, maybe in the end he did teach me something in life, like how to tame such people. It was quite useful, I’d say. Also the lesson about sex and whatever it was that he told me about, those were nice while it lasted, I liked knowing all those stuffs, especially because where I came from it’s hard for a girl to have so much access to technology and to those informations in the extent that I’ve achieved with him. He also regarded me in my ‚sophistication‘ with sex as very mature and sexually smart, like as if I was ready for marriage or anything. In fact he actually almost proposed to me. He always told me something like „I wish you were 4 years older than you are now, I would’ve proposed to you for real and make you my wife, I love you so much“. For the record, he was 37 when he was with me in 2014, a 24 years age gap between us didn’t seem to shake him down, he didn’t even think it was weird to be with somebody so young like me. Now I really wonder if he actually ever asked me whether it was weird or not. Probably he did ask me that before, whether I found it weird or not, I bet I said it wasn’t, because again, of course I was really afraid of him and I was afraid to hurt him. 

What? 

Seriously? 

Yeah, I was afraid of hurting him. But what about him? 

He did hurt me?

Well, believe me, at the moment and on the months that it happened, it never seemed to me that he would hurt me or that I was hurt by him, no. The troubles only came afterwards, slowly and steady, where the secrets became bigger and bigger and even bigger that I couldn’t hold it for myself anymore. That I had to lie in front of my best friend, or my sister, that also went to the same school and that was also taught by the same teacher, that knows the teacher very well. It was hard for me to have to leave my friends playing outside just to be called by him to come to his office for whatever alibi he put out there which were obviously not true. I had to satisfy this man’s needs behind closed doors, in a dark room, just me and him in secret, while my other friends are out playing with each other. I would then come out of the room in a messy condition, my lips all red, my eyes blurry, my hairs out of my veil, and my heart beating very fast, because I just had something big with somebody and had to cover it all up in front of everyone else because they’re not allowed to know about what happened, nor about what was going on between the two of us. I had to always lie and cover my one lie with another lie, pretend that I was all fine and that it was all good, smile in front of my friends and laugh alongside them even though deep inside I was destroyed, I was aching. I was screaming for help.

Coming back to that first Wednesday, where he tried to kiss me for the first time, I never had any other memories from that day besides that I was so nervous early in the morning because the night before I had finally said yes to his continuous offers on kissing me that he sent me via chats. I wasn’t ready, I was scared, I didn’t feel like I had learned enough about kissing yet to meet his standards, because of course he made himself sound as if he was the God of sex. At that moment I was even questioning if I were crazy or if I really just had to do it to avoid future problems. He did annoy me quite much with his constant pleases, he was always really manipulative and he somehow always tried to make me say yes to whatever it is that he said, and tragically enough, of course, I said yes. So on that Wednesday, I was trembling as I was walking down the hall alone on the first pause of the day, all my friends were busy with their own foods and friends, and I just scooted my way out unnoticed. The whole way I was thinking that maybe I should just run away and not show up, but thqt would be really disappointing for him and I knew for sure that he would be very mad, in fact, I didn’t show up the days before because I was scared and I made my excuses, and as I thought, he was furious saying that he already spared his whole day waiting for this moment of me kissing him and that he just wanted that to happen. I felt bad enough already, so I lowered my dignity and ego and toughed myself up to come up to him in his room, it was pretty secluded, a perfect office for a predator like him. I was cold in my whole body, I smiled awkwardly and I stood in front of him that apparently was already waiting in front of his door in this pose that somehow screamed „you’re not getting anywhere anymore from me now“. I felt like I was caught, I couldn’t turn around anymore. He then smirked and laughed a bit at me. I couldn’t help but to laugh along with him, that was a painful thing to feel, like you could’ve gone away but you didn’t, like your feet were captivated by his stare and like they were glued to the floor. I felt so trapped, a horrible feeling to feel, and especially as he began questioning me about how I’m doing and stuff. I was answering trembly, my voice wasn’t clear like it was vibrating because I was very nervous, and he said that he was so nervous as well. I could see that clearly, he was also trembling just like me. Then he moved and stepped closer to me, I guess to cut the crap because the pause was almost ending and I obviously hadn’t had my meal yet as I was too stressed to even get food in my system. He walked over to my direction and made our 3 meters distance shorter until he was literally in front of my face. The corridor was open and everyone could’ve walked in on us but I didn’t know why he picked that spot specifically. He reassured me that nobody will cross that corridor, he even promised me safety. So he suddenly came in with his face into mine so quickly that I was shocked and I went back a few steps out of reflex. He really almost kissed me — his face was so close that I could feel his breath on my lips before I stepped back. On that split-second-moment I still remember how the world somehow turned dark for me, how the light of my life was dimmed by his presence, how I was somehow losing to somebody else that’s more mighty than me. I was in no way escaping from him, he’s way stronger than me. I thought he would flip out after I stepped back, but no, he didn’t say anything bad, he wasn’t mad. He kindly asked me if I was unready or if I wanted to do it another time. I forget what I said to him, but somehow he agreed to me that we could do it another time. So I went away from him in such big disappointment and pressure in myself. I felt like I had failed to perform. What was that even? I know I shouldn’t have felt that way, but believe me I feel like I was a loser, like I was only this huge talker that never realized her ideas and what she had instigated. Oh, before we went away from each other, actually a fellow student walked to the corridor and was so surprised at how close we were talking that she was only standing there watching us, also maybe because of course to talk in such distance with such a killer teacher was very unusual to see. I could tell you that this student was as shocked as we were and almost walked back where she came from because she thought she was disturbing us, well, actually in my heart I felt like she was an angel that saved me out of this trap, because she came, I was able to also find my out of the situation.

But the guilty feelings and the suggestions that I’m a lame person continues to roll in my head. By the way, to make this even worse (or better, your choice), my school where this happened was a strict Islamic school, we had classes from 6.30 am until 17.00 pm or even later, that was still excluding assignments and projects that we usually also had to do at school, so we usually had to stay until late night to finish things, and this teacher was always there with us. When he’s with his favorite students (usually the students that are in the band or the ones that are really good in math or IT), he’s actually a really fine man, he’s very likeable by every of his favorite students. Because of the hours we had to spend at school we saw our parents way less than our teachers. The teachers felt like a family, that sense of togetherness and closeness was hard to top. That was also the reason why I had to keep my mouth very shut because once a word was out, it would turn into gossips and everyone in my school would know about it, and of course, L didn’t want to lose his job. But I was allowed to lose my friends and lose my freedom of many things due to him? Hmm, seems very unfair. But of course such things didn’t cross my mind. I just don’t get how I was living with my older sister that also went to the same school, we slept in the same bed the whole years we were in this school, we went to school and home together all the time, I really wondered how I managed to keep such a big lie behind my facade every morning when I woke up and when I felt scared to go to school or when I just did something and went home and had to pretend like I was all fine and that everything was okay and that I didn’t have anything to hide. I still don’t know how I could pull that off, isn’t that so hard to lie like that? And my sister is the closest person in my life at that moment beside my best friend. How could I go unnoticed like that? In fact she only found out what happened literally almost 7 years after it happened. It’s crazy how much it had affected me and how little people actually knew that I was suffering, or still am suffering, at least I’m suffering from the consequences. Until now I still can’t talk about this to my parents or to anyone to the real core. Of course my parents would be so hurt, they sensed that something was wrong, they warned me, but somehow it still happened. They must also feel the same sense of failure that I feel each time that I think back of that time in my life. it was probably the longest 3 months of my life, or the most memorable 3 months of my life, in a negative denotation, to be exact. 

Weirdly enough, in that period of time I felt somewhat proud of taming the renowned killer teacher. Especially after the successful attempt that we did a day after the failed Wednesday. The whole night after that Wednesday I was just thinking to myself about how much of a coward I was, that I was weak, that I was too scared, that I could’ve done this or that, that I could’ve been a better person. I damned myself really hard because of that ‚failure‘. So the next morning I was motivated to make it up to him. I don’t know what on earth made me think that I should ever make it up to him. I technically didn’t do anything, right? I didn’t owe him anything. But let’s admit that he was successful on making me feel super guilty after I failed him that Wednesday. So I told him that we would meet at the same time like Wednesday, on the same spot like the day before to try again. I came there slightly braver than before, I stepped closer to him and this time I didn’t twitch, nor did I back down. I went in. My crazy mind stopped. It was awfully the weirdest thing you could do with your teacher. This time he did learn his lesson though, we didn’t do it in the corridor anymore but near his door, I was in his dark room and only a slight of light could come in, I felt safer — well, at least compared than the trapped feeling the day before, yes, I felt secure. He kissed me exactly like how he exhibited it to me through our chats. But it felt weird as it was now a real person in front of me and not only me biting my lips out of nervousness. It wasn’t the longest and sure wasn’t the best kiss that he ever had in his life. How do I know? Well, he actually said that to me openly afterwards. Quoted „your lips were still a bit stiff and you didn’t really answer to my movements, not the best that I had and it was pretty confusing to me but we can work on that, good for your age“. I took that very personally afterwards. Though he was always so good in dirty talking and he somehow bought my attention so that I would work on it and come back later to him by grabbing my hand before I went and putting it on to his hard penis. I was so shocked and I felt so impolite to have done such thing but he really wanted me to do it and asked me if I had ever touched a penis before in my life and I was hesitating and I didn’t want to touch anything from him but he just grabbed me in like that and smiled like an evil man after seeing me getting so shocked and surprised and slightly overwhelmed by his disgusting gesture. That was very unforeseen. That was also not in the chat, we didn’t plan on doing anything that involves touching at all. In the end it was brave enough for me already to have gone there and to have done the dirty deed I did. But of course, you know it, one touch leads to another touch, the desire adds up each time we cover a new stage. By that being said, it was guessable that I would come again to him and do the things. It did happen like that too in real life, I would come everyday on the time that we agreed upon and we would kiss and pet each other (well honestly more like he was petting me dominantly, this is awful to remember), and when he’s done or when he felt like he had enough for the moment or if it would become too much for him that he would have to ejaculate, he would stop what we’re doing. It’s not without a reason that it’s like this, and why he never wanted to finish, it’s because in Islam if you’re ejaculating, that means that you’re dirty and unholy, and therefore you won’t be able to pray without having to shower yourself beforehand with a specific series of showering-steps. This was to him of course way too much, because he was the leader of the prayers at school and for sure he wished that nobody would figure out how ‚bad‘ he was that he would have to shower himself in order to pray. That was pretty understandable to me, but although this rule also apply to women, he didn’t take me into account. He always just started and ended things how he wanted it to be, whether I finished or not, it wasn’t his problems, seemed like. So his prayers could always be accepted and whether my prayers would have the same privilege was none of his business. That was very unfair of him, and I figured that it was unfair, but of course I knew what I could do about it — nothing. I could do nothing about it, he controlled my life. How powerful he was.

So it went for me. Days and days and days have gone by since the first one happened. We always planned things in advance and we worked on our ‚lessons‘ — in the end, his first intention of doing it to me was to mean it as an ‚exercise‘ or as a ‚lesson‘. I didn’t know who would’ve benefited on this ‚lesson‘ of his, I guess he just wanted me to live up to his dream of what a nice woman/wife should be. He was by the way a divorced man, he had no kids and was only together with his wife for 6 months before they got divorced. His ex-wife was always described by him as „beautiful but not serving me well enough and she didn’t want to have sex with me most of the time, that I can count with the fingers on my hands how many times I’ve had sex with her“, and I still remember that the number is 8. They never did anything wild as husband and wife, but his previous lovers were way wilder than the wife herself, and for a man like him, I knew why he wasn’t satisfied with her at all. They got divorced in 2009, but it seemed to me that the hurt and pain that he felt was so deep and somehow he also projected it on me. I was surprisingly proud that he picked me to tell his story to, he was always the mysterious man that nobody really dared to ask around about. I was the only one held accountable for his story being spoiled, which was a huge deal for him and for me as well. His expectations showed on me. He really tried to perfect me in everything I do, like he was preparing me to be his future wife already. He did everything so meticulously. Even he weighed me up by lifting my body and he would always tell me that I should lose some weight, so I did so many workouts when I was with him, on that period I was a sudden gym-rat at home. My family must’ve noticed that I was doing insanely huge numbers of sit-ups, push-ups, back-ups every single night after school so suddenly after not doing so for so many years after my athletic career. In fact I guess I remember my mom asking why I was doing such things at home, I told her because I wanna lose weight, but it was really was just because I had the pressure to live up to a divorced man’s expectations of a perfect wife to him. He literally made a specific schedule of workouts for me to do in order to achieve the goal weight that he made for me, his reason was „so that I could lift you up easier“, in other words, he meant that I was actually way out of shape for his wife-figure. Actually I was one of the more sporty students, I was in fact already so toned in that age, I got enough muscles because I trained hard when I was younger, I just had a bit of fat on my tummy, but he always made a huge deal out of it, pointing it out so I would feel weird and insecure about it, making me believe that I wasn’t good enough, that I still had things to achieve, that I wasn’t beautiful, although at that moment I was actually super content of my body, I barely had insecurities because I know my body and how hard I trained it, but somehow L always got his ways with words and he convinced me that what I view in myself isn’t true, he wanted to always correct the wrongs I had by replacing my mindset with his mindset and planting it and water it so that I will grow to be like him, or so he hoped.

Until one day he got his hopes crashed, I suppose. I forgot how long we’ve been with each other at that moment but I never would forget what he said to me. It was when we got more touchy with each other already, when he somehow convinced me that if he touched my bare skin it’s fine, and when I touched his it would be totally inappropriate. But I couldn’t fight at that time, like any other times, I just played with his games again. He started groping me on my chest and touched my breasts, and somehow he slipped his hand in to let his skin meet mine. Imagine this happening in a very Islamic school, where seeing your hair as a woman would mean the end of the world, imagine having to show - or in this case ‚present‘ - your private areas to your killer teacher to be touched and molested. You might think I could’ve said no. I wish I could’ve. But it wasn’t the case for this one. He managed to get what he was meaning to go for. He touched my on the chest and his first comment was „why is your nipple so small?“. I stood in shock after he said that. I found it super rude for anyone to tell me such sentimental thing about my body, right after I let them enter my private realm that I actually rather have not shared with anyone at all, after the huge prejudice that I’ve already put on myself for being dirty and for being a whore to him and to my hijab that I tried dearly to keep, that would do such filthy stupid thing even though my religion told me not to. I felt super harassed at that time. He thought it was only a nipple, but to me it was my whole life and my whole dignity on the line being crushed by him. I was so speechless that he caught me with my jaw dropping as I couldn’t answer his stupid question. Though I really almost flipped out in the place at that moment, I was so close to screaming to him that he should’ve known from the start that I was only a 13 year old and I was still going to grow, and so would my breasts. What did he even expect? That I would be fully grown by that time already? I don’t know if he also harassed other young students like me before, but if he had compared me with his ex-lovers then yes, of course, I was the youngest, and he should’ve also realized that in the first place. In that moment I realized about just how deluded he was the whole time that he was being with me. He was sick in the head himself. He made me sick after his disgusting comment on that day. I never saw my body the same way anymore ever since. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough for anyone, like I was this and that, and apparently also my private parts weren’t good enough — at least according to his stupid standards.

Days had gone by and this double standard killed me inside. He was always so free in what he wanted but I was never allowed to do things back to him. Also at the same time he wanted me to do stuffs for him and if I did it wrong or badly or not good enough he would make comments that were very hard to take. I really learned how to hide my emotions, I was not in the freedom of expression in any kind, also not for my hands or legs, they weren’t mine anymore, somehow I gave my own life up and let somebody take over and doll me up to what he liked. I wish I had known this was the case, sadly I only realized this after years have gone by, slowly but steady I gained my memories back of what happened and somehow the big picture started to become clearer. It’s the same process that I had to undergo until I could break free from his nets. I was so insecure and quiet at first and then I opened up and I got angry and I felt a rebel inside of me trying to set herself free, and I started making strategies on how to free myself from him. I figured, in order to reach him in his mind, I had to level myself with a 37 year old divorced man, I learned how he thought, what he wanted, how he spoke, what he focused on, what he liked, what he hated, what made he happy, what upset him, and in the end I was able to control him back. After approximately 2 months of the whole student-and-teacher thing, I started making sure to him so he knew that I was taking our ‚relationship‘ very seriously. That I was considering him as my husband and that I knew how to handle the situation for myself, that I made sure nobody would find out about us. He somehow bought it, he gained trust in me and after those 2 months, I turned a killer teacher into a some kind of ‚boyfriend‘, though I barely want to call him that. I somehow got the hang of his mind and I started controlling our timings, I made him pick me up after I hung out with my friends, I told him what he should do for himself, I even invited him to my house to level him to me, I made him feel like he’s an equal to me, like he was a friend, like he was the same age as me. I ended up turning his world upside down. He was no more the dominant, I started to gain my voice, I started to give comments back, I started to speak up to him, I told him what I liked and what I didn’t like. He was of course very unhappy about my rise to power. He was always very mad and annoyed about me gaining control, he didn’t want to lose it for himself, but somehow I stole his control and he was in no way getting it back from him. He was especially very mad because I told him that I was gay, that I like girls and that my first kiss was actually with a girl. He was so mad that he was obliviously saying that my history with a girl wasn’t true, that it didn’t happen, that the kiss didn’t count, that my feeling was invalid, that it was all wrong, and the rightest thing was to molest and use and enslave an underage student, was it? What an unfair thought! Since that moment onwards, I began feeling very mad at him. I resent him a lot for telling me that there is only one right way to love and ironically, he wasn’t even the best example to take in this case. But somehow the anger in me managed to push me through to rebel and to break free from him.

Three months into our ‚relationship‘ — or shall I say relationshit?, he was never as calm as a cucumber before. He was so friendly, he was talkative and close to his students, I saw good changes in him, I felt like I served my purpose of taming him. My friends started to like him and enjoy his presence more and more, he was also no more a danger to society, as he wouldn’t prey on other girls because I had him in leash, but then something in me broke out. I knew for sure that I have tendencies to girls and that it’s always been my real attraction. But having him around made me feel like I was so suffocated, he wanted to control me so bad, he wanted to wife me so bad, but I thought to myself, do I want that for myself? I somehow started treating him less and less of a person, I started to pretend like he never existed, we did our ‚routine‘ way less and if we did it it was only him that was having fun, I was mainly annoyed and disgusted by it, he also noticed that and he was of course very angry of the fact that I started to treat him with less and less respect. That time I was just thinking about how to regain the person that I was but with a stronger comeback. I cleverly used his spells against him, including the ones he said to me about being a good leader and example for others. On the end of the year of 2014, I was elected the vice leader of the Student Union. I used this huge momentum to bounce out of his life and to regain my life back as who I am, a queer Muslim girl, representing other students in a strict Islamic school. I told him that, as a vice leader, I should show my peers a good example of what a leader should be like, what representing my friends should look like, and being with him, especially after what he did and for everything that it was, wasn’t the way to go. So in that sense, I probably even had shown him that I had more balls than him, which was, for the record, the vice headmaster of the Islamic school himself. 

That was my way out of the situation, temporarily. I was prouder than ever to be queer and I started advocating to my friends about homosexuality, bisexuality, and other kinds of labels we have for different sexualities, the importance of awareness and self-defence against sex predators and perpetrators, I also tried breaking the taboo of sex by talking about it openly to my girl friends, so that they are daring enough to speak up about assaults that might have happened to them and to make it a normal thing to discuss, so nobody would have to end up like me. I wish I could be as glad as it might’ve sounded in this story. I was utterly broken inside. I was scared of him shitless. Every time he would come to teach in my class I would have blood rush through my head down to my toes, I would freeze and I won’t be able to look him in the eyes, I wasn’t able to tell anyone what happened as well, so that was a very confusing time for me to be in. My friends always asked me what happened, because it was so clear that I felt like I was very anxious and stressed out, I couldn’t sit straight, I was hiding behind my friend’s back whenever he looked at me and I always had to answer their questions as if nothing ever happened in my life the past three months. I always said, „no, there’s nothing“ and laughed a bit, not because it was funny, but because it was scary, and he would always stare at me to make sure I didn’t tell anyone about what happened accidentally. That drove me super crazy because I was getting mentally deteriorated, so did he. I was stronger than him for once, I bounced out, and I got super scared in all of a sudden. Even more scared than the first Wednesday that we kissed. I always almost crying because I was very scared to meet this man. I still remember that it was my birthday, which was in April, and the last scandal with him was somewhere on December, I still remember how scared I was that I had to back off in class because he went closer to me to give me a birthday present, openly, in class. I was so shocked and speechless that he even dared to make such move. I was in no mood to talk to him, I hadn’t talked to him in person again for some time, but I guess he was scared that I was gonna spoil things to everybody, that’s why he shut my mouth with that birthday gift: a bottle of perfume and a black blouse. Very weird, right? A teacher giving such things on a student’s birthday. That got everyone asking instead. He kind of blew up his cover himself. I ended up telling my best friend about what happened. She wasn’t even shocked. I was shocked that she wasn’t shocked. Apparently she knew already that something was going on between me and him. She was indeed mostly there when I was there, and when I was there, he was also there, so she listened to our conversation and apparently she decoded our conversing codes. He was a smart man, of course, he won’t talk about things openly, so he established specific abbreviations when talking with me. For example ‚FK‘ for french kissing, tinggi which means high in English to express if he’s horny, he also called me with different names and we also established some kind of sign language for each other. My best friend apparently heard the word ‚FK‘ more often than I thought, and she knew that that was exactly what we were doing. She was mad and disappointed at me but moreover at him for doing what he did to me. She said she also noticed that I was doing weird and going out of class in specific timings but wasn’t to be found in the canteen, and she also noticed that one day after he bit me too hard that my lips were reddened and swollen, and she already got the signs by then that something wasn’t right but wasn’t able to do anything either, same helplessness in the end. But at least she was my door to speak up. After her, I started to speak to my other friends about him, some were so in disbelieve and defended the man instead, they thought I was lying, but I thought, the more likers you get, the more haters you’ll also get, so is that as well with believers and non-believers. I just knew inside of me that I would no way have the audacity to make up such stories. It was way too messed up.

I can’t begin to express how much he had changed my life and me as a person. I struggled with my self-worth for so many years and I also felt so bad for doing what I did. I felt so disgusted by myself and I felt like I was unable to be forgiven by anyone ever, not even by God. I have been struggling with guilt feelings and feeling hopeless and helpless, and anger and loads of resentment towards men like him. But one of the most painful one is the pain to be kept in silence. To have no say over myself and to have things done to be in a daily basis that were against my will and against my sanity. That I have to watch myself numb up each day that passed by, that I went clueless of myself and my purpose in life, that I even felt like that was it for my life, I would be able to achieve nothing but him as my man. That pain to be forced to settle so small and that pain for lowering yourself to the level that you never thought you ever would reach. That pain to feel like I was nothing and that I was weak and powerless and used and unheard. Years after years I had to live with only myself to hold on to, as I was getting harshly bullied by all my friends and close friends just a few months after my birthday on that year, that I was completely lonely because I lost not only myself but also all my friends that I thought would stick through with me. I was on my lowest point, I had to move houses far away and plus I had to deal with having nobody else, as I also couldn’t tell my family about it or they’d go crazy. Apparently it all has its latent effects on me. Now it’s all starting to make sense in my mind that everything that I went through did have a role in my life, even until now. But finally, now after 7 years, I could look back and see my strength and perseverance amongst the hurtful memories rather than only my weaknesses. L wasn’t the last man that did me wrong, nor was he the first man. I’m still sorry that it had to happen to me and that it had to affect me this way but I will keep on working on myself as my journey isn’t finished yet, I’m still recovering, and I have enough reasons to be grateful for myself for surviving and still existing. I am stronger than what happened to me, I am stronger than what I faced.

Heidelberg, 9.9.21