* Please note this essay could be triggering for some, as it includes sexual abuse and struggles with eating disorders.
“Mom, can I sleep at Vivi’s house?” my 17-year-old son Liam asked. My throat tightened.
Liam had been dating his girlfriend, Vivi, for a few months. They were friends who snowboarded, designed sweatshirts, played guitar, and sang together in our small Colorado mountain town. While I adored them as a couple, I was unsure about them having sleepovers. I called Vivi’s mom, Michelle, and found out they were out of town.
“We know they’re having sex. Vivi has the patch, and they use condoms. I would rather them be honest instead of sneaking around. We love Liam.” Michelle said. I was speechless and unexpectedly comforted. How different than my adolescent experience.
I was 15 years old when, walking around the White Plains, NY Galleria Mall with my girlfriends, Amy and Jenn, when a cute green-eyed guy with gorgeous black hair gave me the “I am so into you” stare. There were a few more glances and laps around the Food Court before he said in his soft voice, “Hi, beautiful.” My heart skipped a beat. “It must be a sign to lock eyes with you, for today is my birthday," he said. I blushed and asked how old he was. He said, “23, I am a Pisces. What is your sign?” I am a Taurus, loyal and true. “Can I have your number?” He asked. I skipped back to my besties to tell them how cool it was that this older guy got my number.
“Raeeeeee, some guy, Rick, is on the phone.” My little sister said later that night. I grabbed the phone out of her hand, tangling and twirling around the cord to hide in the closet.
“Hi,” he said, “It’s me, Rick. I haven’t stopped thinking about you.” Butterflies swarmed my stomach when he told me how pretty I was and wanted to know what music and movies I liked. I found him to be such a deep thinker and feeler, he shared personal things with me about his family that made me want to talk to him more.
A month later, I introduced Rick to my family and told them he was 18. His youthful charm won them over while casting a spell on me.
We played air hockey at the arcade, went on motorcycle rides, and made out under the stars. After a few months of dating, he brought me to his 1950s house, where he lived in his grandparent’s dark, mildewy basement in Portchester, NY, just a few towns south of me. We snuggled on the couch and would switch from watching Seinfeld to the NBA Knicks games, which was like no other pastime I had experienced with a boyfriend. It was comfortable and effortless. He would drive me home by 9:00 pm, so my parents respected him and that he could wake up early to go to his first job delivering newspapers, then to his second job at the deli. During my lunch periods, I would get the “143” code on the beeper he bought me to remind me that he loved me.
We did silly things. Once, we dressed up for a high school Halloween party. I was a vampire inside a walking coffin, and Rick wore a scary, bloody mask. We didn’t share our identities for hours, and it was eerily funny.
Rick knew I wanted to wait for marriage to have sex because I was a “good Catholic girl” who made the sign of the cross every time I would pass a church and a graveyard.
“I never felt this way about anyone before. I see myself with you forever,” he said. Though one time he said, “I’ve had sex with 99 virgin girls.”
Was this supposed to make me want to “give” my virginity to him?
He whispered, “Rachel, I know we will be married and have a family one day, but I honestly can’t wait years.” The night we first had sex was a blur. He pulled out, and I freaked out.
A year into this relationship, my lawyer uncle and school teacher aunt noticed my decline.
I was frail and pale from a recurring eating disorder. Did they see chewed-up pieces of my favorite grandma’s cheesecake spit into a napkin, hear me puke immediately after devouring her delicious eggplant parmesan, or miss my bubbly presence when hanging with my cousins?
“Rachel, get in the kitchen!” my mom shouted one night. I saw my aunt, uncle, and stepdad sitting around the table.
“How old is Rick?” Mom demanded. I choked.
“Twenty-four,” I said. I was caught in a lie and refused to end the relationship because my family thought he was too old; it was a year too late.
The chatter in my head of Rick’s controlling demands wouldn’t stop. I was constantly on edge.
“Rachel, remember to always call me before you come over. Don’t drive to my town, it is not safe. Don’t hang out with Amy, she is trouble. Go straight home after work. Check your beeper.”
I continued to starve myself, throwing up bile every morning before school because my anxiety was out of control. Would Rick be mad at me for something, anything? God forbid I drove to his town without telling him first. A classic sign of cheating!
When I got suspicious and asked too many questions, he bought my silence. There were tickets to Lilith Fair, starring my all-time favorite musicians, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, and the Indigo Girls. Missy Elliot got my blood pumping while confidently rocking the stage in an inflatable costume that looked like a black garbage bag. I wanted to be Supa Dupa Fly, too.
With the arrival of AOL, Rick became obsessed with chat rooms and talking to several “online girlfriends.” As I lay on his dingy couch watching the Psalm religious channel, gazing at the waterfalls, and reading sacred texts from the Bible that splashed onto the screen to comfort my soul.
He would sarcastically chuckle, “Rachel, it’s just pretend. She lives in Ohio.” Squinting my eyes, I saw that her chat name was Sexy Lexy. My suspicions grew louder, does he think I am stupid?
“Let’s go for a motorcycle ride and stop to get those sweet potato spuds that you love at the Little Spot,” he whispered in his soft and sweet voice. Bought again.
Now, at 18 years old and taking a 25-year-old man to my senior prom, I started feeling awkward. But I wouldn’t dare leave him. I applied to the local community college to stay close to him.
Two years later, I was still lying on that stupid couch, listening to the peck, peck, peck sounds of his fingers hitting the computer keys as he planned a trip to visit an online girlfriend. She had an autoimmune disease, and Rick said it would help her feel better if they met. He spoke with her mother and stayed at their house. It's like I was living in a Dateline episode. I was disgusted.
I knew he had added Sexy Lexy to his list of virgins, yet I continued to seethe, toss, and turn on that basement couch, listening to him laugh behind the computer screen. One day in May I asked, “What is so funny?” and he smirked, “Nothing.”
“You know what?” I said as I leapt off that dingy couch. “I hate you!” I stomped upstairs, said goodbye to his grandparents, and packed up my stuff. He ran after me in rage.
“You hate me?” he screamed as he dumped out my toiletries. Then, he wrapped his slimy hands around my neck, shoving me up against the wall. I stared at my favorite Clinique mauve lipstick floating in toilet water. I broke free and squirmed my way into the brand-new white Honda Civic he bought for my twentieth birthday. I slammed the car door in his face and sped off in a sweat.
I gave him back the car. I moved to Charleston, SC to be a nanny, finish college and to get far away from him, and start a new life.
Once, when I was in my early thirties, driving my sons to a birthday party and singing “You Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story, my palms started to slip off the steering wheel. The right side of my face went numb as I tried to catch my breath. We never made it to the party because I drove right to the Emergency Room. I thought I was having a heart attack or a stroke.
My preschool-aged boys, Liam and Grey, looked at me with “What is wrong with my mommy?” eyes. My husband, Casey, rushed to the ER to learn I had a panic attack. I was embarrassed and confused because I was happily married and loved being a mother. What was happening? All the medical tests came back “normal.”
I continued regular therapy following my eating disorder recovery. My sweet therapist, Ellen, said in her southern twang, “I know you are here for an eating disorder, which we know stems from feeling out of control. But it sounds like you're experiencing PTSD. You have shared a lot about Rick over the years. Have you ever considered that he wasn't your high school sweetheart but that you were a victim of statutory rape?
My jaw dropped, and my eyes popped. I realized I had been groomed. He could be in prison for this.
Once I swallowed the truth that I was experiencing PTSD, the numbing started to fade, and the panic attacks lessened.
I'm still on the road to recovery through therapy, medication, and meditation. I celebrate that I have not binged or purged since 2004, the same year I fell in love with my chef husband. My husband, Casey, not only nourishes my soul but also feeds me sesame-seared tuna over jasmine rice and arugula.
We were out to dinner as a family with Vivi, my dad, and my stepmom at the Gas House in Edwards, CO, eating the GAME SAMPLER PLATTER when Casey asked Liam what he loves about Vivi.
“I can be myself with her,” Liam said calmly and confidently.
“That is the best freaking answer, Liam!” my stepmom said. I melted. They were real high school sweethearts.
When Viv’s mom, Michelle, said in her non-judgmental tone on the phone, "They are smart and kind to each other, and we don’t live under rocks.” I tasted the salty tears streaming into the corners of my mouth.
“Michelle, you just redeemed my adolescence,” I said. “Our kids will never know the shame and guilt that has haunted me up until this moment.”
Rachel Glowacki is an author, mindful movement educator, creative writer, and Co-founder of Move With Me Books, an innovative new literacy program. She is celebrated as the award-winning author of the Kids Yogaverse storybook app and a sought-after thought leader in children’s yoga. Rachel specializes in mindful movement for all ages and abilities, using a research-backed approach that teaches that a calm brain is a learning brain, and a healthy body is a happy body. When she is not teaching, Rachel works on her next book while living with her husband and two sons in Eagle, CO.
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Thank you - you are incredible - your story offers so many of us hope - you are brave - tenacious - and truly uplifting.
A heart-wrenching read, thank you for sharing your story <3