I was raped at 14 years old, by someone I didn’t know. I think that experience made me feel like I wasn’t worth much.
I found someone who treated me so well to start with. Classic love-bombing which then quickly turned into limiting who I saw, isolating me from my friends and family, telling me what I could wear. I had no money unless he allowed it. I couldn’t go out, even to the shops, unless I reported to him when I left and when I returned and he would often call when I was there to check up on me. I felt like I couldn’t talk most of the time because I could never say the right thing.
He never hit me, but the threat was always there. He told me that I made him so angry. He told me I was stupid and worthless and that I was lucky to have him, because no one else would want me.
He left me after I had my first child. He started a relationship with a girl in her late teens. I was broken to start with, but gradually realised the sort of life I had been living and being a mother made me fight so hard to rebuild.
I’m in my 60’s now and have been in a happy relationship for over 20 years. But that experience never quite leaves you.