Volume 100 Issue 51
Monday, April 18, 2016
www.studentprintz.com
Surviving Abuse Student finds voice to share his experience of sexual assault Joshua D Starr News Editor
In 2015, fall classes began at Jones County Community College in August, and when Kristen arrived for her first semester on campus, she was filled with excitement at the endless possibilities. Away from home, college life offered a newfound sense of freedom. She quickly made friends. There were parties to go to. And of course, there were guys. One particularly cute guy in her circle, Andrew, liked her. Kristen could tell Andrew took care of himself. She could tell he worked out by the way his broad shoulders and thick, muscular chest filled his shirts. Andrew was a couple years older than her, but by all accounts, he was a great guy. Gregarious and funny, he had an innate ability to connect with people, and he was smart, too. Andrew told their mutual friend Liam he wanted to make his move before another guy came along. He put his cards on the table and asked Kristen for her number. And in short order, they were dating. Kristen and Andrew started spending all their time together. A month into their relationship when things started to turn, their friends could tell something was off. Maybe it was because life at home wasn’t so great for Andrew. His parents were in the middle of a bitter divorce. Or maybe it was something else. Whatever was going on, Kristen and Andrew were keeping it to themselves. Now six months later, Andrew wants to tell his story. He wants to bring light to the issue of abuse he, like countless others of every age and gender, have suffered at the hands of someone he thought he loved. Looking back, he sees the signs of abuse he had been blind to early on. “In the time of a month, we grew from being completely strangers to like know our life’s story, because that’s all we would do,” Andrew said. “We would spend six to eight hours on the phone. And when you’re spending that much time with a person, you really get to know them -- when that’s all your life really is.” What at the time seemed to be growing intimacy in their relationship came to be in actuality the groundwork of dependence and isolation that USM health services counselor Michelle Howard said is typical of psychologically abusive relationships. Liam said at first Kristen seemed like a sweet girl, but slowly he began to notice Andrew was acting differently and that Kristen was becoming mean and more demanding of Andrew when they were together. “I guess I didn’t really confront Andrew about it too much because I wanted to be polite and I didn’t want to be rude and be like, ‘You’re girlfriend is kind of a terrible person sometimes,’” Liam said. “Now, I would have maybe told him that.” Howard provides group counseling for rape survivors individual counseling for students who have experienced rape and domestic violence. She said friends of victims may not hear what is all going on because the person who is abused may be too scared to say anything and may protect the abuser because of that manipulation. She said if you have
never been in an abusive relationship, it can be hard to identify the telltale signs. “Most likely the person who is being abusive wants to cut out people in their [partner’s] life that are going to be encouraging and supportive because they may see what’s going on in this relationship,” Howard said. Andrew said he remembers one of the first times Kristen put him down, focusing her insult, as she often would, on his appearance. When she called the Converse shoes he was wearing ‘hideous,’ he was taken aback, but he shrugged it off. “I was in that phase that I was starstruck,” he said. “I was like, I really like this girl. I get to play with boobs on a daily basis, let me not complain about it. And I just kind of let her stomp all over me. Now that I can go back and analyze it, that was the first spark of where it started to downturn. She wanted me to change into something that I was not. It spiraled from there. That was not the first nor the last thing that she ever did to me.” Andrew describes the change between them as the flip of a switch. Andrew said though Kristen would call him names, put him down and make him feel insignificant on a daily basis, he did not want to give up on her. “My big thing is you don’t give up on a relationship that easily,” he said. “You don’t just drop it. When something’s bad, you try to fix the problem and move on with your partner. You’re there for them with the good times and the bad.” Andrew said he tried to change himself to become the person Kristen wanted. “I changed how I looked,” he said. “I changed my haircut, I changed what I wore. I went and bought a brand new wardrobe just so she was happy.” Andrew said despite his efforts, Kristen could not be appeased. “I would come out of the house and she would see me, and I hate to use this word, but she would say, ‘You look like a f***ing faggot. You need to go back in the house and change your shirt right the f*** now.’ Just like that, for no reason,” he said. Howard said from the outsider perspective, leaving an abusive relationship seems like the obvious choice. She said, however, abusers can be deft in their manipulations, breaking their victim through humiliation, guilt and criticism and controlling their actions through the constant threat of such emotional abuse. “A lot of times there’s this misconception that [someone] goes into an abusive relationship when they see someone being mean or cruel,” Howard said. “A lot of times that’s not how they meet the person. There’s a cycle of abuse that goes on, a manipulation of power where I’m going to show you what I want to show you in the beginning. And then once you’re vulnerable,and that’s when the other person feels comfortable with being who they truly are.” As the abuse continued, Andrew began to believe he was as worthless as Kristen said he was, unwanted by anyone but herself. Andrew fell VIOLENCE CONT. ON PG. 5