I let all these things happen because I thought THAT was who I was supposed to be

I just wanted to say thank you so much for starting this project. I spent my eighth and ninth grade years as the “school slut” (as well as the terrifying girl that everyone thought was going to blow up the school) before I ever even slept with my long-term boyfriend (I dated the same guy on and off from 7th grade on until we divorced when I was 20). In truth, I half-way earned it. It was an incredibly abusive relationship, and he often “paraded” me around in front of his friends (sometimes with little-to-no clothes on). He once had me sit on his friend’s lap and let him touch me wherever he wanted (he got a little invasive) because the guy had been injured in an accident. I lifted my shirt/got topless for more boys than I can remember because he wanted me to “prove they were real” (I was a late bloomer, but I kind of… er… exploded when it happened).
I never slept with anyone else, or performed any sexual act on any of these boys…but it’s not like I could convince anyone else of that. It was my word against theirs, and most everyone knew that I would do “certain things” so obviously that meant I’d do anything. I did these things not because he hit me (that he saved for marriage), but because he would threaten me with disappointment and rejection, or sometimes just by telling me how worthless and “bitchy” I was for not doing things “his way.”
I hated myself so completely during those years, and attempted suicide more than once (not well enough, my family never knew). By the time I hit tenth grade I had to be home-schooled, partly for my health (I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease), but also because of the sheer amount of bullying. One of my best friends from ninth grade (a girl I also dated my ninth grade year, partly to appease my then-boyfriend, partly because I yearned for some kind of affection that wasn’t tainted) decided one day that she hated me, and started sending me death threats (I even turned one of the letters into the principal, he laughed about it and told me not to take things so seriously… she had described, in detail, how she would kill me and bury me). We later reconciled, but she never did explain why she hated me so much (she just said she did, and that she didn’t know why)… but naturally our friendship didn’t survive completely intact. We’re friendly, but not close. Actually, the only reason we spoke again after I left school was because of the same boy who abused me all those years… he gave her my cell number several months later, after my telling him not to. My middle/high-school career was short, but it was hell.
I let all these things happen, so I take responsibility, but I let them happen because I thought that THAT was who I was supposed to be, and that I would never be anything more than that. Maybe if I had had someone out there telling me “hey, it’s okay to be you, it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to do the things you want to do… and things DO get better” I might not have put myself through all that misery, and the nightmares I still deal with today. I wish I had kept a diary during these times, so that I could share them… if only with my son, so that when he’s older he’d know what it’s like to be on the other side of the fence.
I think it’s absolutely wonderful what you’re doing, and I hope to help spread the message as much as I can. Anyway, sorry for the terribly long message—keep doing what you’re doing, it’s a beautiful thing.