Relationship Violence Story From Shayla

by Shayla
(Alaska, USA)

I was 17 and in a relationship with a man who was 34. He was sweet to me and nice. At the time I was a runaway. I had nowhere to go and he offered me a place to stay. I moved in with him. At first it was fine. I had my own room, my own bed and sometimes I slept in his bed while he was at work.

One night he came home and I was sleeping in his bed. I woke up and he was on top of me having sex with me. Then he started expecting me to have sex with him. I had nowhere else to go. He would drink every night and would get upset at me when I wouldn't do things for him. He threw a fit when I refused to give him a blow job. But I had a boyfriend at the time and that was when I just quit talking to him, and didn't want him to find out about what was happening.

I had had sex with my boyfriend and one other guy when I was 15. After this started happening I didn't know what to do. I quit caring about what people did to me. I put myself in situations, and let myself get hurt multiple times. I finally left his house and moved to live at a homeless youth center. I had gone to a party near there and was raped. Guys had tried raping me at parks, in alleys, behind buildings, in hotels, on sidewalks. It got to a point where I figured this was normal. Guys were going to do what they wanted whether you wanted it or not. I had gone and let a guy have sex with me that was 45. I didn't want to but after everything, I quit trying to fight it or say no because that frustrated them and made them aggressive. So when guys would do things to me I would just lay there and find something and space out from everything else. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't get myself to say no. I'm working on it now.

I was proud of myself last week because this guy had stopped me and I was talking to him and he got on top of me and held me down. He tried pulling down my pants. I was almost 7 months pregnant and he held my arms down. I kept using my elbows to push him off of me. But it wasn't working. I kept saying I have to go, I have somewhere to be. He kept saying he would let me leave in a minute while he was struggling to get inside of me. I was wearing elastic band pants so he took my pants and wrapped them over his back so I couldn't turn or move so I just squeezed my knees tight around his waist and he kept telling me to relax and be quiet that he loved me and wasn't going to hurt me. He kept kissing my stomach saying he was kissing the baby and that he couldn't wait to see him. But he never got inside of me. He finally gave up after about 45 minutes of trying. BUT HE WASN'T SUCCESSFUL.

And for some reason I kept going back to the 34-year-old's house. I felt safe there in a way because it was the only place I had stayed without drugs or selling drugs. Yah he drank but he was of legal age and I didn't know where else to go but every time I went back it happened again. My boyfriend at the time I really loved him but I didn't want to tell him about anything that was happening.

Now I'm living at a house owned by the State for pregnant or parenting teens. I'm 18 now, 7 months pregnant and now I don't know who the dad is. I got back with the guy I was with before all this started happening. He still doesn't know everything that I went through and he was really upset at me for being pregnant. But hopefully we can work through what happened.