Betrayed By a Loved One

My parents had me at the age of 16 years old. Ever since I was a child, age around 5-6 my mom was always gone at work. Which resulted in my dad being the “stay at home mom”. He prepared me breakfast and do my hair on good days. He became very abusive towards me. He became hooked on drugs and would lash out on me every chance he could. My mom would call him to take me a shower and he would fill it up with the coldest water and grab me by the back of my head and stick my whole head under basically drowning me. I would hit the water until my hits started to weaken. He would pull me back up for a minute and continue. He has also thrown me across a room to the point where I slammed into a wall. After we moved in with my grandparents I rarely saw much of my dad. He was either out with his friends or he was in jail. Cops were always looking for him and checking our house all the time. By the time I was in 8th grade my dad went to prison for about a year and a half. He then returned and I remember the long walk home. Everyone was excited that he was back however I knew he would never change. Things were good as usual in the beginning. He let me go out a lot with no further questions. He would even take me to events. Then my sophomore year of high school was when things got bad. I was 15 years old. My dad claimed to be very religious while he was committing all the crimes you can name. One day, he was making me read the Bible with him. It was the story about a father that slept with his daughters in order to keep their generation consistent. I left into my moms room to read alone I was laying on my stomach when he suddenly went on top of me. He was saying that he was giving me an example of what a man is capable of doing. He made it a joke and I didn’t think much of it because he has never gave me any sort of disgusting outlook. He then pinned my hands down and told me to try to break away. I felt him harden behind me which made me nervous so I then tried as hard as I could to break away. He didn’t loose grip. He then started to touch me in my private asking if I liked it. I started crying in shock that this was really happening to me. I screamed and asked him to get off. He slapped me with lots of force and made my whole face numb. He flipped me over and asked if I needed another slap to be quiet. I held in my cry and a closed my eyes as tight as possible. He then raped me and it was the most painful experience in this whole entire world. When he finished he choked me a threatened to kill my whole family if I say a word to anyone. He acted as if nothing happened after that. A few months went by and he would do it once in a while. Towards the end of the year it was everyday. 5 to 10 times everyday. He then became obsessed with me saying if my mom and him didn’t work out that he would have me. Telling me he was in love with me. One time I got a text friend a friend that was a guy that simply said was “hey.” I got beat to the point where I was gonna die. I was dragged all over the floor. Spit on, hit with a metal bat, and baking pans were bent on my head. I felt like I wasn’t even living my life anymore. He was controlling my every move. He would make me ditch school just to rape and beat me. I am barely graduating this year because of my credits. I felt like I was his sex slave. I fight depression everyday. This barely ended last year.

— Jazmin Hernandez, age 17