I was about eight years old when I first met my ex-boyfriend. I was very young, and we began dating when I was about 13. I don’t know if you can really call it dating, but we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I grew up in Suburbia USA, so everyone in my high school knew everyone else’s name. I was kinda the shy girl, but in my junior year of high school I kinda started coming out, started getting to know more people, and kinda had a crush on one of the "popular" boys. We met the summer after my freshman year when I was home. And at first he was so nice and amazing. He would always open doors for me, and he would call me all the time. He kinda started to romance me and started to bring me flowers. I’m a big romantic. I love chick flicks, and I love flowers. And I love anything like that. So just the dream. Everything a girl could ever want. So we went to this party, and we had a good time, and he kinda saw me socializing. And it really bothered him to see me in a social setting talking to other people and giving other people attention. We started going out a lot more and I noticed that when he went out, he got really, really drunk. And when he got really, really drunk, he always wanted to get into fights. When we would walk down the hall holding hands, I felt more like I was being handcuffed because I worried about the guys I would talk to, and I worried about the people that I would meet. Because I thought he’s going to get mad at me for it. He’s going to tense up about it. He started saying things. He was lik You’ve gained weight. You need to lose weight.” “You are acting inappropriately. You are a liar. I know you are lying about things. I know there are things that you’ve done that you don’t want to tell me about. I know there is something. I was losing weight like crazy because he was telling me all these things and I was feeling depressed and everything. And it’s not like it was all at once. So it’s not like I really noticed it. But it was just little by little, he was completely taking everything out of me. So, without really knowing what was going on or where this was leading, I wound up getting myself stuck in this situation. And before I knew it, there was this act of violence all of the sudden. And he took me by the arm, and he threw me to the ground. He was asking me these questions, squeezing my throat, sticking his finger down my throat. He took me and he dragged me down the stairwell of my apartment building. And I opened the car door and I was dry heaving because of the pressure on my throat. And he pushed me up against the entry way hall and just slapped me across the face. And I felt a foot on my back and I went flying out of the car. He kicked me out of his moving car. He must have been going about 40 miles per hour. So I went flying out. I must have done a somersault, I felt like, in the air, fell, smacked my head against the asphalt, and saw white. I think I just eventually realized that it was one of those things where it’s never going to be a happy situation. And it felt good to think of me and what was going to be best for me and my situation.