I Believed That It Never Happened For Years.

I was 14 years old when it happened. My brother had just gone to prison, and my mom was so caught up in him that she never paid any attention to me unless it was to punish me. She was a horrible woman, she never cared for us at all, and I blame her for what happened to me, I blame her for my brother going to prison, I blame her for where both of us are now. I had met this guy through a mutual friend; we started talking on the phone all the time and he was really nice, always made me laugh. When I met him I didn’t think he was attractive at all, but I was overweight, tormented by my mother that I should be thinner, and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I was just happy someone had any interest in me at all. I started going to his house and hanging out. We would talk and watch tv, we would also smoke marijuana, lots and lots of marijuana. My mom caught onto what we were doing and stop letting me go to see him, even though my mom smoked marijuana every day, she still does. So I asked her to take me to the mall every weekend so that I could go shopping with my friends. I know that she knew what I was doing, but I don’t think she cared enough to do anything. After a few months, he asked me to be his girlfriend, still confused, I said yes. We started holding hands and talking more, but we were still smoking weed, and after a while, it was expected of me to smoke. There were times he would talk bad about me if I couldn’t take a whole hit. The verbal abuse was the first thing. Him being my first boyfriend, I didn’t know any better. I couldn’t talk to my mom about anything. He started bringing up the idea of sex, he claimed to be a virgin, and I don’t believe it anymore. He pressured me and pressured me until finally I said I would do it. It was on my brother’s birthday, I went over to the mall like I always did and went to his apartment. We got into bed and took our clothes off, as soon as I turned to him I burst into tears. I was so uncomfortable and I felt so pressured into it, I told him I didn’t want to. He told me it wouldn’t take very long and got on top of me. I remember it being so painful, like a knife being jabbed into me. I kept crying and begging him to stop, too scared and in shock to stop him, but he kept telling me he was almost done. His father was downstairs; I find it hard to fathom how he couldn’t have heard the screams and cries coming from his son’s bedroom. He had the tv guide channel on while it was happening, I watched the time go from 8:00pm to 8:45pm, then finally he stopped. He went in the bathroom and I sat on his bed crying, feeling so much shame and guilt I couldn’t stand to be around myself. He came back out and started to comfort me, convincing me that everything was fine and nothing bad had really happened. I believed him. My mother came to pick me up and didn’t say one word to me. She knew her daughter had been raped but didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything to her; she would probably call me a *****. I didn’t tell anyone for three years. In-between that time, I had sex with every boyfriend I had; I thought that that was what you were supposed to do. I thought that sex wasn’t supposed to feel good for a girl and I was just supposed to make him feel good. How wrong I was. To this day it affects me, I can count on one hand how many people I’ve told, I had one boyfriend tell me I deserved it. After that, I quit telling everyone. Sometimes I want to scream to people "I was raped! I'm not a *****, I'm a victim!" But on the inside, I know that it's something people don't want to hear. It's good to know that I'm not alone though, that there are others like me. My attacker still lives about 20 minutes from me, has a girlfriend, a perfectly normal life. I don't think that he even knows he did anything wrong. I don't think that telling the police or having him put in jail would do any good. I'm 26 years old now and the damage is still rearing it's ugly head. Sometimes it's too much to bear.