So, I decided to take the time to write something not so… volatile, about my situation. I understand the way I have written about it in the past may have angered some people, which I understand - although it isn’t justification for how angry I acted, this is something that I’ve dealt with pent of aggression for, for a very long time.
This is kind of hard for me to write on account of the fact I I haven’t had the best luck in coming out about my abusers, so I’m an anxious mess doing this, but I know this is going to be a very big step towards me getting past this and moving on with my life and my mental health.
Also - I know with my last post, there were those of you who sent it to Alexie. I don’t mind you doing it again. While I don’t understand what your intentions were in doing so, this is information I’ve told him before, and when we spoke about this, he said he supported me doing whatever I need to do to move past this - including coming forward about this.
Last year, during late spring/early summer time, I became involved with Alexie Hernandez. We dated for a very brief period - the relationship was pretty poisonous, and he was pretty manipulative and not the best person towards me. Still, I was pretty infatuated with who he had been when we first met and began talking. He had initially acted very sweet, understanding and kind, and seemed very in touch with his emotions and there was something different about him that I was just very attracted to. This initial image of him, the image I had come to care for, made it hard for me to detach myself from him.
Flash forward to maybe a few weeks after we had broken up. I went to a party at a mutual friend’s house, and he was also there. The night was nothing short of awkward, but I still had feelings for him, so when it was suggested by another mutual friend that I try and talk things out with him and leave with him, I went along with it. I ended up going home with him, and we started having sex.
While we were having sex, Alexie began to slap me very, very hard across the face. These slaps and backhands eventually turned to closed fist hits. As soon as it had started, I said no and tried to shift away. He continued to strike me, and I continued to say no, stop, please stop and attempt to shield my face from his blows, though he would just push my hands out of his way and continue to hit. My vision started to blur and all I could hear was a loud ringing in my ears. I tried, again, to push him off, and he in turn dug his shoulder into my throat and whispered that he was just showing me who I belonged to.
At that point, I was incredibly light headed, could taste blood, was having trouble breathing through my nose, and couldn’t see straight. But, Alexie took me by my hair and guided my head to his genitals and had me engage in oral sex with him until he finished. I felt very sick and in pain, but I wanted him to finish as soon as possible so I could pass out.
The next morning, Alexie looked at me and seemed uncomfortable. I looked at me, and I felt uncomfortable too. My nose was fractured, I had a black eye, a fat lip, lots of facial bruising (especially around the mouth), an inch long incision inside my lip where my tooth had gotten caught on it during a strike, and I later found out I also had a concussion.
He gave me some of his mom’s makeup to cover my marks with, and I went home.
I will be honest - I initially lied about how I obtained the marks. I did not want people to know it had been from Alexie, so I told some friends of mine that I had just gotten in a fight with my mom. It is pretty well known that my mother and I do not get along. I was humiliated by how it had all happened, and didn’t want to become ostracized from Alexie and I’s mutual friend group, so for a pretty long while that was my excuse. Eventually, I came clean to some close friends about the situation. The response wasn’t always that friendly.
One friend I attempted to talk to told me flat out they had no interest in hearing anything that was going to make them dislike Alexie. Another said that, regardless of what happened, he was a “lit guy” and she wasn’t going to stop associating with him. This was very upsetting for me and made it even harder for me to come out about the story.
Flash forward to now, and what is prompting me to write this.
It is very, very, very discouraging to see people pick and choose which victims they want to support and which abusers they want to separate themselves from based on the convenience of it all. Just because the abuser is their friend, or they don’t like the victim, or it’s easier to shrug it all off and continue to associate with the person, people determine whether the situation warrants their support or not, and that just isn’t fair. The popularity of the abuser or the victim, your personal feelings towards the abuser or the victim, none of that should matter - at the end of the day, some of you are making conscious decisions to support people who have hurt and traumatized others in ways that will stick with them for a very long time.
I have seen people who have doubted my cases of abuse publicly support other victims, and I have seen people who have shrugged off my cases of abuse talk a big game about how they are anti-abuser. This hurts, more than I can say. Many many many factors have come into play in making me feel uncomfortable about talking about this, and I still feel so uncomfortable and almost guilty in trying to obtain peace of mind by putting this all out there. It isn’t easy.
What has prompted me to finally put it all out here like this, is the overwhelming lack of support from people who were supposed to be my friends, who would rather continue to party with someone who violently hurt me than support me.
Recently, I found out that apparently everyone in Alexie’s and I’s friend group knew, or so Alexie says, but there was “nothing they could really do about it” thus them ignoring it and never speaking up about it. Whether this is true or not, I’m not sure.
Yes, for a very, very, very long time I excused Alexie’s actions and gave a free pass to our friends who continued to talk to him. I still cared about him and didn’t want to get him into trouble, and I didn’t want to lose friends over the situation either. But I never quite got over it, and how badly it hurt me and the complete feeling of being alone and unsupported in the ordeal.
I have received an entire slew of attacks and implications that I deserved it, from people I never really expected to say things like this to me. I’ve been told I asked for him to be rough, that I like rough sex so it couldn’t have been that bad, that I continued to associate with him so it obviously wasn’t a big deal, that because it was one instance of violence it was not actually “abuse.” Some people simply state that it just did not happen.
While Alexie and I had engaged in rough sex in the past, it had never been THAT rough. Alexie has also stated that I did not ask him that night to be rough with me.
It isn’t any secret that my sexual tastes are a little on the… darker side, to say the least. But, someone’s fetishes, and their sexual history with their abuser, do not determine whether it was actually abuse or not. Yes, I have fetishes, but they are only my fetishes when the act is consensual. Just because I enjoy being choked or slapped or hurt does not mean I will always 100% want that with no prior discussion before the act.
Yes, I continued to talk to Alexie. He was important to me, and it was hard for me to initially see what he did as abuse because I had been made to feel like I had asked for it and deserved it and it was my fault it had even happened, especially when people are piping in your ear, “well I thought you liked rough sex.” It wasn’t even until very recently that I finally exploded on him about it.
Alexie has (though I’m still not sure whether it’s sincere or not) owned up to it recently to me, and apologized and stated that he was in support of me doing whatever I needed to do to come to terms with what has happened and eventually forgive him and move along. I’m not positive whether his apologies were from the heart or just an attempt to sedate my anger and prevent me from coming forward, on account of the fact he has gotten kind of aggressive with people defending me, but regardless, I am writing this with a few different intentions in mind.
1) I know finally putting it all out there and talking about it and coming clean about it will be a big step for me in overcoming the ordeal and hopefully not dwelling on it and being haunted by it like I was previous.
2) I have seen a lot of other brave victims recently come forward about their stories, and it has given me the motivation to do so as well.
3) I am hoping that other victims of abuse see this, and get inspired to come out about their stories too. We deserve to be heard and we deserve to have support.
4) I want to call attention to the hypocrisy of some victim supporters - you do not get to pick and choose based on how convenient it is to side with victims or not. There are people I absolutely detest with every ounce of my being, and if they came out about being assaulted, I would push my personal feelings to the side and completely support them. There are people who I have been friends with who have been abusers, that I completely cut out because I do not support that at all. It has not always been convenient or pleasant for me, but I know it is infinitely more unpleasant for the victim to deal with seeing people stand by their abuser and shrug off the situation and not take sides.
I know the response to this won’t be overwhelmingly well received, because a lot of you are friends with him, and a lot of you aren’t particularly fond of me, but I’ve been silent for far too long and it has eaten me up inside and I’m hoping some good and closure comes out of doing this, even if it’s just a little bit.
Thank you for reading.
(Source: anvil-chandelier)
