7 Months

I met my boyfriend at a party where there were many people. We talked the whole evening, he was discreet and nice. He listened to me and was showing a great patience. We snuck away to kiss at the end of a large garden. We lay in the wet grass, and he started his first negotiations. I did not want to sleep with him, not the first night, but he insisted so much that I accepted. My knees were so red because of the irritation made by the grass. My dress was wet, and I remember crying out loud while we were doing it.

And then I went out with him for seven months. This guy is called a “narcissistic pervert,” or in other words, a manipulator (this is the diagnosis of my shrink). I was his victim for 7 months, but he had many others before me. He won my confidence smoothly, and while I told him all my secrets and shared with him my pain. He used it against me.

As soon as I did not want to make love, because I had my period or I was tired, he was suddenly acting like a child who cannot have a toy. He was crying, insulting me, turning his back on me and accusing me of cheating on him, or not loving him enough, and after hours of crying and shouting, he asked me to “let him do things to me, even if I wasn’t moving.”

Initially, I did not accept that. And progressively, imprisoned by its handling, I agreed. Whenever I saw him, he wanted me to do things for me to be forgiven for not wanting to make love to him. I had to give him blow jobs. He haggled any sexual act. If I resisted, he threatened that I would die.

It’s very difficult for me to make people understand that I experienced intense suffering moments. I was used as an object by a madman. I was raped by my own boyfriend. I’ve always been a very independent, very combative woman, which would never have left pushed around by a man. And someday, a man I trust turned my weaknesses against me.

— Survivor, age 24