I grew up in a backwards southern town so small that new ideas flee from it in fear of suffocation, in a broken home full of violence, poverty, addiction, neglect, molestation and willful ignorance.
I was living with my father the summer I turned 14, when one of his closest friends began grooming me. When my father found out I was being sexually abused by his friend, he threatened to kill me, accusing me of ruining his friendship. I hid in a closet all night, and in the morning, my mother came and took me home with her.
The relationship continued while I lived with my mother. Though we moved often, he continued to visit us under the guise of being a generous family friend. He paid for us to have a telephone in the house and would send me money for food or clothes. He paid for our electricity and bought me a car when I turned 16.
At 16, I accidentally got pregnant. It was an ectopic pregnancy, and I was told I would die unless I had an emergency surgical abortion to remove the fetus from my fallopian tube. My abuser reminded me not to tell anyone at the hospital about us and not to call him for a little while in case someone was watching.
Afterward, I became depressed and refused to do go back to school, so my mother called my abuser and threatened him with exposure unless he “made it right.” The three of us went to the courthouse in Northwest Florida to get a marriage license. It took less than 15 minutes to fill out the paperwork. Though the age difference made our relationship a felony, I never spoke to a judge, and no one did anything to intervene. On the way home, we stopped at a thrift store and bought a wedding dress. That afternoon, our family pastor married us in my grandparents’ living room. I was 16; he was 44.
I couldn’t enroll myself in high school because I was a minor, so my husband had to sign as my legal guardian. I tried to go, but he made it difficult. Every day when I returned, he would interrogate me until I was too tired to keep defending myself for my imaginary sins. By the time I was 17, I was a mother and a high school dropout. I started to feel the edges of the trap I had walked into.
I ran away several times, but usually never got much farther than the next rest area on the highway. I’d always return, begging forgiveness and promising to be a better wife and mother, anything he wanted, if he would just take me back.
I would sit in the dark closet, cradling his gun in my hands, alternating between pressing it against my throat or my temple. I watched his slow breathing from the shadows, wondering if there would be any end to the nightmare. I imagined myself turning the gun toward him and pulling the trigger, wondering if the world would see me as a hero, or if I would become the monster.
I knew I had to leave, but I didn’t know how. I had little education, no money or job and, worst of all, nowhere to go. I looked for work, but I had an infant and a toddler, and daycare cost more than I could make on minimum wage. So, when a Navy recruiter asked me what I was doing with my life, even though I knew nothing of the military, I enlisted. I would have a guaranteed career, health care, training, college benefits and, best of all, I could finally be independent. I signed up that day in secret, and a few weeks later, I shipped out to Chicago to begin my new life.
It wasn’t easy to leave my children behind; it took me many long months to get them back. Ultimately, in exchange for my children and my freedom, I gave my ex everything we owned and agreed never to seek any kind of support from him for myself or for our children.
I moved on and up, eventually moving to Massachusetts with my new spouse and my children. I was able to access mental health resources, and eventually, through many years of difficult work, I began to heal.
For decades, I never told. I kept the silence that I had promised as a love-blind teenager, until a Facebook post came across my feed and changed everything for me.
A local NGO was looking for someone to attend a judiciary hearing and read their statement opposing child marriage in Massachusetts. I couldn’t breathe. What did they mean, child marriage in Massachusetts? I came to this state to raise my children in a kinder place, a place that valued human life. How could this injustice happen here, in this place? I reached out and asked if it would be helpful if I told my personal story instead. I wondered if I could make a difference by spilling my horrible secret, by putting the worst parts of my life on display for strangers, in the thin hope that someone might care. And more importantly, I wondered if I was strong enough, healed enough, resilient enough to get through it intact.
The first time I told my story, I had no experience speaking with, or even meeting, legislators. I tried to explain how parents who loved me decided that marrying me to my abuser was my best chance. How a gifted child was robbed of her childhood and given away to a monster just because she became too difficult to parent. How a pedophile was not jailed for his horrific crimes, but instead rewarded with a bride. The room was silent throughout my speech, and more than one person wiped tears from their face when I sat down. My voice shook and my stomach clenched, but I just kept thinking of the 300,000 children I was speaking up for, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, no matter how hard it was.
When I joined this movement, I had no idea that it would take years of advocacy or that I would have to tell my story so often. This work has pushed the boundaries of my resiliency in ways that I had not anticipated. Every testimony brings back new memories that wind their way into my dreams, pulling me back into the nightmare. I sobbed uncontrollably when I watched a child actor portray just a fraction of my experience. But I persisted.
Though we won the fight in Massachusetts, Connecticut and many other states, the work isn’t finished. I have a powerful story, but I want to be more than just a victim. So, I started studying for the LSAT and applied to law schools. Now, I am incredibly proud to be the recipient of a full-tuition merit scholarship to the University of Massachusetts Law School. I have a long, hard road still ahead of me, but the future is bright, and soon, I hope to have the tools to change even more lives for the better.
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