My boyfriend, Owen (names have been changed), and I started dating as soon as I turned 16 (the recommended age to start dating in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). We had been emailing and texting back and forth and been interested in each other for the 4 months previous. I was definitely searching for someone to be attached to who could understand the difficult things I had been through so far as a teenager.
There were plenty of red flags before we started dating and during the initial months that ours wasn’t a healthy relationship, and that Owen’s own patterns and habits (sarcasm, mocking, manipulation) would be detrimental to me, but I also felt a sense of kinship with him, since he could understand the pain I had been through, because he had been through a lot himself.
I guess this is one of the things I wanted to really share about my #metoo experience. So many survivors and victims out there paint their abusers as horrible people, psychopaths. While this may legitimately be true in many cases, it was not in mine. Owen had experienced emotional and mental abuse his entire life, and some cases of physical abuse and neglect from babysitters. I really believe that the way that he was at that time was a culmination of how he had been treated his whole life, and he didn’t really have the experience of how to experience a healthy relationship.
After the first few months, we got progressively more physical with each other. Based on our religious beliefs, we both knew we shouldn’t be doing this. But it was exciting and we were into each other. We talked a lot of times about our experiences we would have in seminary during the day – I specifically would share how guilty I felt, that I knew that we shouldn’t be doing those things and we should stop. Owen would agree that he felt guilty, too, and we’d both resolve to do better. I’m sure you all know how well that worked.
That pattern lasted for the first year we were dating. During that time there were plenty of unhealthy relationship patterns and red flags, but nothing that was intentionally manipulative or hurtful. I feel really lucky that the abuse in our relationship didn’t last the entire time – although, maybe if it had been that way from the beginning I would have got out sooner, who knows? In this time, we got to a point physically that felt like the limit for me. I knew I didn’t want to go farther than that. It was about this point that the excitement wore off and I started wondering, “what else is there to this relationship?” Most of our time together was spent making out, not talking. I felt like we didn’t really know each other or spend quality time together anymore. I was also continually feeling intense shame and guilt for doing what I knew was wrong. By this point, I didn’t enjoy any of the physical attention I was giving or receiving, but that wasn’t enough of a reason for me to say “no” or “stop.”
So, so far this probably sounds like a million high school dating experiences you’ve heard before, right? There were many, many times that I flat-out ignored my gut feelings, pushed away what I knew was right, depleted my self-confidence by ignoring myself, and started getting into the same unhealthy relationship patterns that Owen was used to. I think throughout my life I had been shown that men were supposed to be in charge of the relationship. Although I am a very strong-willed person, I felt that us breaking up needed to be a mutual decision – I felt that if I could just help him see the reasons why, he would say, “Gosh, you’re right! Let’s do the right thing. I can’t believe it took me so long!” There was no assumption on my part that he ever wouldn’t do this, and I spent my days feeling tortured like I was doing something wrong in my communicating with him because he still hadn’t responded in the way I hoped. It must have been because I was doing something wrong.
The turning point for me came when, like almost every other day, I had just finished telling Owen how guilty I felt about making out all the time and that we probably shouldn’t be together. He basically would just nod, keep holding my hand as we walked, and lead me down the same dang “make-out hallway” as always. But on this day, I was really sad about something. My uncle had just been diagnosed with cancer, and I was beginning to feel that I had just become an object to Owen. He knew I was feeling horrible about what we were doing and that I wanted to stop, but he didn’t care enough to stop.
He started trying to kiss me, and I slid down the wall to sit down and started crying. He knelt down and asked “what’s wrong?” and I said, “I don’t know.” He stood up, looked down at me, and just walked away. I cried in the hallway by myself for a long time after. The next day, he acted like nothing happened. It was around this time that the emotional abuse really began. I have spent a lot of years trying to sort through what was emotional abuse, and what wasn’t. I finally realized recently that I could just pray and ask the Lord. I could ask, “was that emotionally abusive?” And he could give me an answer. That has made all the difference for me – I haven’t felt like I’ve had to meet someone else’s standard.
Break-up Attempts
At this point, I knew that just talking to him in person about breaking up wasn’t working, so I tried a different tactic by writing break-up letters. I still blamed myself for not being clear enough, or strong enough, or something enough to have been able to break up earlier, and I thought that in letters I could be sure that what I was saying was what I really wanted to say. After the first letter, he agreed that we were doing too much physically, but said again that we could just chill out the physical stuff and still be together.
During the next three months, we followed the same dumb pattern of getting progressively more physical. Only this time, I really felt that every time it happened, he was intentionally doing what he knew I didn’t want to do. He started telling me, too, that every time I brought up that we were doing the wrong thing, it made him feel horrible. Essentially, if I shared how I felt, I was hurting him – so I just stopped telling him and tried to drown out my own feelings.
I started to feel really depressed and alone at this time, and my parents had started realizing the depth of mine and Owen’s relationship. I think they really believed that I must be missing some kind of knowledge – if I knew the truth and what I was supposed to be doing, I wouldn’t be doing it, right? This added guilt was really difficult for me to bear, and also made me feel even more like I couldn’t come to my parents. It felt like all they could see was what I was doing “wrong,” instead of trusting that I already knew, and asking what was going on that was keeping me from doing what I knew was right. But before this, I had already felt that if I did tell them what was going on, they would be ashamed of me and reject me.
Throughout our relationship, the immense guilt and self-blame I experienced made it almost impossible for me to see that Owen was the one at this point doing something wrong. I was too focused on all of my own failings (in part because Owen pointed them out so often) to see that. I also felt that because I had let things get to a certain physical point in the past, that that was giving him permission to go there again forevermore. I felt like I couldn’t say “no” after I had already said “yes” multiple times before.
There were two friends that I shared a little of what was happening with, and they encouraged me to break up with Owen. I am grateful to this day for how much they listened to and validated me, even if it drove them nuts that I was always talking about the same dang problem day in and day out. By December 2006, at my friend’s encouragement, I wrote him the second break-up letter. At this point, I thought it had finally worked. But I still had it in my head like so many other girls do that you can still be friends with an ex. Let me just say… this never works!
For the next few days, Owen was visibly depressed. All of his friends and our shared friends would ask him, “Owen, what’s wrong??” And he would either not respond at all, or just say, “Ask Amy.” We were still texting and talking on the phone, and I kept trying to make him feel better, while he kept trying to manipulate me. Telling him I still cared about him, I loved him still, but we just couldn’t be together. Over the next few days, I felt over and over again that it was my fault for how he felt. Owen blamed me, and kept telling me we could make it work, and if we both still loved each other, then we shouldn’t be apart. Looking back on it now, I feel like he was trying to see how far I could be pushed – how much he could manipulate and control me before we would get back together. But none of it was because he really cared about me.
We got back together. I remember after this, giving him a hug in the hallway, and he flinched. My arm had gone around his lower back, which is a pretty uncommon place to get hurt. I asked what happened, and he said, “I just got burned.” When I asked how he said, “My soldering iron.” When I pressed him about how that could have happened, he didn’t have any satisfactory answers. I assumed it was self-harm and discouraged him from doing it again. I was always a little nervous about walking past that same make-out hallway, but for a while we would just walk a different way. We limited ourselves to just holding hands for about a week, and I thought maybe things were going to turn out okay.
I don’t remember what day exactly, but when school ended that day, he wouldn’t let go of my hand. He lead me down the make-out hallway that we had avoided up to this point. To this day the overwhelming feeling I remember is confusion. It was almost as if to me, Owen was a stranger. I thought that we had reached this new positive place in our relationship of respect and understanding, but then the shock of what was happening would slam into me. When we got to the notch in the hallway that hid you from sight, he started making out with me – hard. Pushing and rubbing against my body – I remember the button on his pants hurting my hips and stomach. My lips hurt because of his teeth. He was rough, dominating, and had his arms against the wall to either side of me so I couldn’t get away. He put his hand up the back of my shirt and touched my bra, and I tried pushing his hand back out of the way. He just pushed my hand away and was even more forceful. This was almost like an out-of-body experience for me. I remember he smelled like popcorn (cue for why I don’t like popcorn anymore).
At this point, it must have been intervention, I still remember Marie Phillips (name changed) opening the door from the back of the stage that was right next to where we were. I remember she looked surprised and annoyed – it was pretty typical for couples to make out there. But my overwhelming feeling was that of “save me!” Owen stepped back from me, looked me up and down, sighed like he was annoyed at being interrupted, and pulled me into the band room after him. When we got back by other people, he acted completely normal, like nothing had happened. I don’t remember anything else after that – it was like I was in shock. Why didn’t I tell someone? Because I hadn’t even processed what had just happened to me. And whatever it was that had just happened, I was sure that somehow it was my fault.
That was sexual assault. I have struggled for a long time with the idea “you could have fought back!” Or “Why didn’t you scream, or tell him to stop?” I was taller than Owen. Physically, if it had really come to a fight, I probably could have held my own. But what I have come to understand with emotional abuse and assault, the brain isn’t always capable of doing those things. Most of us are familiar with fight or flight, but the brain also has options of freeze or faint. Think of a possum, who instinctively feels that its’ best chance of survival is just to focus on breathing, keeping its heart beating, and holding as still as possible – the speech and logic parts of your brain aren’t even functioning, because you are in survival mode.
This is how I felt. I legitimately felt afraid for my life. Not because I thought Owen might kill me or rape me based on my experiences with him, but because I thought Owen was respectful and kind, that he cared about and listened to me. To suddenly be surprised with this extreme behavior that I hadn’t anticipated in any way, to feel terrified – seeing that someone else had power over you, I felt like I didn’t know what he was capable of anymore. It felt like an out-of-body experience, where I was seeing what was happening, but didn’t have control over myself. Looking back now, of course, I can see that there were plenty of signs that this was the direction our relationship was headed, but I trusted him.
After this, I wrote my third break-up letter to him. I was angry with him in the letter for doing what he did, but I didn’t have the framework to define it as sexual assault. Any time I would have flashbacks to what happened or remember details, I would immediately push them away, try to forget, block them out. I gave him the letter after seminary and he read it while he was in class. I was waiting for him outside the door when class was done, and he came over to hold my hand and started walking down the hall, like nothing even happened. I asked him “Did you read it?” “Yeah.” “So? What do you think?” And he just shrugged.
For a while, every time we would get close to the make-out hallway, the anxiety and dread in me would well-up and bubble over. I felt like I was going to explode and would find anyone nearby to latch on to and have some reason to get him to let go of my hand. After several days of that, when we came to our lockers, no one was nearby, no one to keep me safe. I knew what I said didn’t matter, he would do what he wanted to anyway. We went down the same hallway, with every cell in my body screaming “I don’t feel safe!!!! What is he going to do??” When we got there, he was soft and gentle to me, almost like he was apologizing for what he had done. While at the same time still making out with me, like he knew I didn’t want to.
I felt really confused again. How could someone be so gentle and loving at the same time that they were completely disregarding what you really wanted? We talked on the phone that night and I told him some of how I felt. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he was using his soldering iron. I asked if he was hurting himself again, and he say anything in response, but he winced. I said things like, “You need to stop hurting yourself” and tried to say things to help him feel better. He winced several times throughout the conversation and said, “I just don’t know what I’d do if we weren’t ever together.” I tried walking down that path verbally, saying everything would be fine, but he just said, “I have to go.” And we finished talking. I was worried he was going to commit suicide if I broke up with him for good.
I realized then, even with all of the emotional manipulation that had previously been happening, that I had to get out. I knew it wasn’t going to matter what I said, he was going to take advantage of me and that what he wanted would always be more important than what I wanted. I wrote him another letter, which I think he just threw away. At this point, I felt unsafe and anxious around him all the time. I started avoiding him or hiding from him. I remember planning out where our normal paths crossed, and chose to go different directions – I still remember laughing at myself because I got lost at the school I had been at for 3 years from heading down an unfamiliar hallway. I was in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, trying to anticipate where he was.
There were several times during the next month, January 2007, where I wouldn’t see him coming and he would suddenly be holding my hand, hugging me, or touching me somehow. I have one very clear traumatic memory where I was standing in a circle with our group of friends, laughing and talking, and then suddenly he was behind me. He wrapped his arms tight around my waist and wouldn’t let go. The conversation continued, he laughed and joined in, all while he knew how terrified and violated I felt in that exact moment. No one realized that anything was happening at all. And I felt like he completely enjoyed being able to make me feel scared and powerless. For about a month, I felt like at any moment, he could be there and do whatever he wanted to me with no consequences or remorse.
Walking past the make-out hallway made me feel physically nauseous and anxious. Smelling popcorn, seeing black suburban-type vehicles when I was driving, the sound of a hacky sack hitting the ground, or ballroom music or dances triggered my flight reflex in a split second. I’d be fine one second and then feel like I was having a heart attack and couldn’t breathe the next because I felt so afraid. These PTSD symptoms have continued, though lessened, even now, 12 years later.
By the end of January, he had stopped trying to touch me, but I still felt unsafe and afraid all the time at school. I still worried what would happen if we ever happened to be alone together. In February, his mom mentioned “I keep telling Owen that he needs to ask you out to prom!” After I told her we had broken up, I felt like things finally had some closure. I don’t know if he thought I would tell his mom if something else happened, or maybe he worried what I had told her. Either way, I felt like he didn’t look at me with a sense of power after that.
He moved on not too long after that to dating someone else. I always felt a great sense of pity for her – there was no way she knew what she was getting in to, and there was no way I could stop what was happening between them, either. Owen went on a mission, and he is married to the same girl today. Like Kesha says in her powerful song, I hope he has changed and finds his peace by praying, and that things are different in his marriage.
About a year after this, I told one of my friends that Owen had been abusive to me. Without any questions or a minute to respond she said, “Owen would never do that.” And that was the end of that conversation. It has replayed in my mind probably a million times since then, and may have done almost as much damage to me as the actual assault. It has made me feel that no one would believe me, my story isn’t worth sharing because it isn’t “bad” enough, and that everyone will see that I did something wrong. I finally decided to start going to therapy this year, and want to take control now of how these experiences will continue to influence me and my future.
I have spent most of the past 12 years trying to forget what happened – which I think mentally I buried pretty well most of the time. But emotionally, I still struggled with being triggered, having nightmares, and not being able to pin down why I felt so damaged. I spent a lot of time telling myself that what happened was normal, my fault, or just going a little too far physically. But none of those things are true.
My hope is that by sharing my story, other people who have been in relationships like this can see the truth in their worth, seek help in healing and forgiveness, and give themselves compassion for being human. I hope that for those who may read this who haven’t personally experienced abuse or assault, that you can think through some of the false expectations and perceptions we have as a society towards men and women, abusers and victims, and what you can do to be supportive and compassionate to people who are suffering. And if Owen ever reads this, I can also say: I forgive you. I hope you have pursued help and healing from your own wounds you carry.
Amy Bowen