I have decided to write about the time before I started lifting and describe what led me to it. It involves a lot of pain and I thought it would be helpful for myself and all the young women out there who may find themselves in a similar situation.
I was always the good little girl until I turned 16. At that age, I fell apart. I was tired of being teased in school and having the "good girl" image. I started hanging around the cool group and started smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. During this time, my parents tried to get me involved in modeling, which never worked out.
By the time I was 17, I had made a complete turnaround. Every day would involve me skipping school to get stoned, getting into trouble, and running from people. I even got my driver’s license suspended after having it for less than a year.
I dyed my hair various random colors from ice blue to fuschia to hot pink. Sometimes I spiked it or put it in a mohawk. I wore super short skirts and chains with 5 or 6 necklaces and bracelets up to my elbows. I guess most people would have called me a punk.
I enjoyed going into mosh pits and concerts and sometimes started them up at school.
I was outside having a snowball fight with some of the girls, which the boys were enjoying, and I saw the one who would be my first and only serious boyfriend.
At first, he treated me like gold, telling me he loved me and would do anything for me. Soon, his attitude changed. He would control every aspect of my life. He told me how to dress, get rid of all my friends, not to go back to school. He wouldn’t even allow me to find a job. He’d force me to do things I didn’t want to do.
He emotionally abused me at first, calling me a whore, b*tch, slut, and others. I was scared to break up with him because he said if I did he would kill me. I never told my parents about how he treated me because I was scared to, and he always put on a good act around them.
That summer he threatened me into going to Pennsylvania with him for a few months. I managed to get away from him for a short time when my family needed me to come home. He left a short time later and came back to me. He told me he came all the way across the country for me and I better not break up with him.
I took off from my house for awhile and he came with me. It was there that he hit me for the first time. I wanted to get a job and he started flipping out, which led into an argument. He hit me in the face three times.
I moved out of my house a few months later and he insisted on living with me. He had been weightlifting the entire time we were together, and he wouldn’t allow me to do it unless I used a 5 pound dumbell.
He hit me a couple more times while we were in the first apartment and I tried to break it off with him again. He unplugged the phone and came at me with a knife. I stood there and stared at him, realizing he couldn’t do it.
He held the knife against his own throat and started to scream out that he would do it. I grabbed his arm and told him not to. I couldn’t break up with him if he was like that.
I had to go to the doctor a few weeks later and she said I was having trouble sleeping because of lack of exercise. I told him that and he agreed that I could start lifting. He just wouldn’t allow me to leave the house on my own, which he rarely allowed anyway.
A couple years, later we moved into a townhouse. I was getting good results from my lifting and was secretly wanting to compete, though I never told him those desires.
My 21st birthday soon came and I gave myself the best present possible. I realized I was stronger than he was and he didn’t love me. I wanted to break up with him and move on with my life. I told my mother what I wanted to do.
I remember the exact words I said to him. I also remember the stunned look on his face when I said it.
"I can’t be with you anymore. I don’t care if you kill me or kill yourself. I will even give you the knife to kill me with if that’s what you want because I would rather die than live the rest of my life with you."
I think it was the weights that gave me the courage to break up with him. Before I lifted, I feared for myself every day and cried myself to sleep.
He watched as I went back to school and started to go out with my family again. He was angry the day I went to talk with Carla Sanchez about the PR team. Last time I spoke to him, I told him I was prepping for my first competition.
This all ended a few months ago, and I’m looking forward to the future. I’m hoping to get into journalism and start traveling. I want to see everything I never was allowed to see with him. I get to live my life now.
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