It Was My Fault

By Alexandria Raspanti

Women learn from a young age that their bodies are not inherently theirs. I was not an exception. I grew to understand that I live in a system where autonomy is earned. I was born to be sexualized, my breasts grew to grab, my clothes made to take off, body made to be used. I had a concrete understanding at age 13 that sex was a pivotal part of being desired as a woman. I sat in my bedroom watching the show The Girls Next Door and pushing my boobs up in the mirror. I daydreamed about looking like one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends. Tiny waist, pouty lips, bouncy hair, and big boobs. I thought that life would be easy for girls that look like that.

I met Aaron when I was 14. After one month of dating, grade 9 began. He decided that we were ready to have sex. I agreed that that weekend we would. We lay in bed and I knew that all I needed to do was get through this and wait for it to be over. It would not last forever. However, when the time came, the nerves interfered. I did not have sex that night, but he did. He left my house, went to a party, and had sex with another girl. I could never make that mistake again. I learned that my reservations make me replaceable. I was grateful to Aaron for not forcing me to have sex with him and finding someone else instead. I felt bad for wasting his time.

At the age of 15, I was in a turbulent relationship with an addict. I never experimented with drugs, but I was an expert on them. Day by day I cared for him, I stayed up at night checking his pulse, dipping his feet in cold water, wiping blood off of his face. I thought that mothering him would make him less inclined to hurt me. I don’t remember many of these events anymore, but my friends remember my recountings of them. By the time he left for good, I was 18 and he was gone, along with my childhood. He broke up with me when he was done with me. Psychopaths follow a specific routine in their romantic relationships: seduce, love bomb, bond, trauma bond, entrap, use up, and discard. Loving someone who could care less if you were breathing is an incredibly embarrassing and degrading experience. I wish I could say this is where everything changed, but it didn’t, not for a few years.

Older men have always found a liking for me, although it dramatically declined when I turned 18 and the thrill of an underage girl didn’t exist for them anymore. I was 19 and working at a hair salon, and I asked my boss if we could talk about my schedule. He said he would pick me up at 7 p.m. to talk about it over dinner. When I searched up the restaurant and saw the four dollar signs, I figured I should wear a skirt. “I love that you wore a skirt for me,” he said while I got into his car. He didn’t speak to me about my schedule that night. He told me about his ex-wife, his kids, and the nanny he cheated on his wife with. He told me that I was young and had never experienced a real man. When he dropped me off, he said “You’re not even going to invite me in? How rude.” Worried about my job, I responded, “Oh, would you like to come in?” We were in the elevator as I texted my roommate, “We’re coming up, be in the kitchen so I’m not alone with him,” and she responded, “Lexi, I just left the house.” We went into my living room where he climbed on top of me and started kissing me. He was 43 years old. I can’t even try to describe the feeling I had in my throat as I felt his tongue in my mouth. After a few minutes, I said that I had to wake up early tomorrow and that he should go. Reluctantly, he left. The next day at work he called me into his office saying he had my new schedule, and I walked into a pitch-black room. He said, “I just wanted to get some time with you.” I quit a few days later.

Eventually, I stumbled across a YouTube video on relationships with psychopaths. My eyes were glued to the screen, clinging to every word as she flawlessly described my first love. My breaths becoming heavier as she explained the hows and the whys. The questions I had asked repeatedly in my head for years. She talked about how they choose their victims, and patterns in their mannerisms. I truly UNDERSTOOD for the first time that it was not my fault. In that moment, I felt my soul clinging to my body for the first time, its hands grasping at the insides of my skin, holding me with pinching fingers in a silent promise to never let go. It was in that moment that I let go of my responsibility to men and took on a new responsibility. Myself. 

I found a lot of my power through learning. I came into college majoring in psychology with an interest in behavioral neuroscience as well as a minor in women, gender, and sexuality studies. I hoped to one day focus on the neurological underpinnings of psychopathy. My mission was to uncover irrefutable proof that abusive behaviors are unrelated to the victims themselves. Unfortunately, awareness alone cannot shield you from the harm inflicted upon you; it merely has the power to shape your responses.

I no longer fear people. I am not scared because everything that I would be scared of has already happened to me. There is a certain comfort in the aftermath of abuse – a comfort that stems from knowing that there is nothing you can’t get through. Abuse doesn't simply vanish; it lingers, leaving its mark. I deal with obsessive guilt, replaying daily scenarios in my mind, and endlessly questioning what I could have done differently to the point where I could barely leave my home out of fear that I would make a mistake. Yes, lessons were learned and at one point I would have said I was grateful for my experiences, but now, I do not. I believe that the growth I've achieved could have been attained on my own, without the help of my abusers. I now stand, not as a product of my abusers' influence, but as a testament to my own strength and resilience.

About the Author

Alexandria is a fifth-year psychology student at Northeastern University with minors in English and women, gender, and sexuality studies. After college, she aspires to go to law school and seeks to use writing as a powerful tool for advocacy and change.