A Different Perspective

“Nothing she did worked, because I wouldn’t let it. She knew I was the only one that could stop myself from seeing him. The first time he hit me was because I was looking through his Facebook. I caught him messaging his ex, so he slapped me across the face. He was yelling at me, telling me to get out. It escalated from there. “

In a segment from NPR’s This American Life, titled “I Can Explain,” follows the story of “Rainy,” a teenager apart of their Radio Rookies program. In the segment, the story follows Rainy, a teenager who tells her first had experience with young partner violence. Her story tells of her first boyfriend, penned “Tony” who she first met when she was 13 and started dating when she was 14 (he was 21, almost 7 years older), but was also extremely verbally and physically abusive. “She (Rainy) wanted to talk about how she had been in an abusive relationship for a long time and was trying to figure out why she stayed in it for so long,” Ira Glass .

Rainy, who would stay with Tony for four years, or until she was 17. When talking about her relationship with Tony, Rainy said “By the time we started dating, I was 14, and he was 21– six years, six months, and six days older than me– 666. It’s creepy, right?”

It was easy for Rainy to “fall” for Tony. Her best friend and “step-sister,’ Nicole talked of how well Tony treated Rainy in the beginning. Like many in a “honeymoon” or crush phase, early stages of a relationship, you’re constantly texting or talking in some way, being made to feel like you’re special, this one is different,” because of him being older, picking her up from school, public displays of affection, and of course, taking it slow and not trying to make any “moves” on the first date, like kissing.

He showed value and interest in the fact that she was smart, but also in the fact that se was “young and pretty.” And, then things began to change. “He wanted to shape me into his perfect wifey. Before I got to the age where he says girls become whores. I was getting 90s when I started the ninth grade. I would show him my report card, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He just saw high school as a place for guys to bag girls. He didn’t tell me to skip school. He just punished me when I went. He’d ignore me after I came back or show up at school and flirt with girls in front of me,” recalled Rainy.

She continued to say “He was verbally abusive way before he became physically abusive. He talked to me so nasty that I could feel it. The bruises clear up, but the words stick with you, and they change how you act. He would tell me you’re boring, you’re awkward, you’re the weirdest of the weird, you’ll never fit in anywhere.” Before this happened, she began to not only stop going to school regularly or at all, she also distanced and isolated herself from everyone in her life, including both her best friend Nicole, but her mother as well. Rainy also does tell of her sometimes rocky relationship with her mother; during her childhood, her mother was a drug addict, but at the time of first publishing, 10 years clean and fully recovered. She describes her mom now as “pretty ditzy and forgetful, but she is definitely there for me.”

Once the physical abuse did start, when her mother wanted to press charges and call the police, Rainy refused to say or write any negative statement towards Tony. There was nothing her mother could do at that point, because she was 16, and regardless if they had sexual relations before that, it was now considered “consensual,” and nothing further could happen unless Rainy agreed to press charges. Though Rainy continued to stay and reconcile with Tony after countless reasons to leave.

“OK, so my first question is, what are the signs of teen dating abuse? So what’s extremely common in teen relationships is the forced absence from school. Right? So if I’m forcing you to be absent from school, I’m affecting your grades, which will then affect how you graduate, if you graduate, when you graduate. That’s actually exactly what happened to me. It’s funny you brought that up. I should be a senior now, and I’m still not graduating. So I am usually looked at as someone who could be considered a strong female. I don’t let guys mess with me. I don’t put up with stuff like that. But then somehow I’m in this relationship that I allow myself to get stepped over. The only thing that I would change in that is the “allowed” part. People, even with good intentions, unintentionally blame victims or survivors. So we say things like, if that person just had self-esteem, it would be OK. What that tells someone is that it’s your fault because you don’t have the esteem to leave, when that’s not really the case. On average, it takes seven to nine times for someone to leave. So just because someone went back doesn’t mean that they’re never going to leave.”

NPR’s This American Life: I Can Explain