Monologue Monday: Ms. Anonymous Part 1

Hi ladies and gents,

How’s your day going??? Hopefully it's going good. I'm still kind of tired even though I went to bed early last night....ugh!

Anyway, recently I asked all of you if you would like to share your story with others as a source of encouragement and insight for our Monologue Monday posts, (and that opportunity is constantly available if you would like to do so). Well, shortly after that I received a really great story from a young lady who wishes to share her story but wants to remain anonymous.

Since the purpose of these posts is not for people to just ‘put their business out there’ for the public to hear, but rather its to encourage, inform, and inspire others out there who may be facing similar situations and not know how to handle them, I have no problems honoring her request.

So she wrote and submitted her story to me, and I will be posting it as a two part post. This Monday you will see Part 1, and next week I will post Part 2.

So here it is- Ms. Anonymous’ story in her own words:

****P.S. Ms. Anonymous, thank you so much for wanting to share your story with us. I hope that someone else can relate, that it brings you healing to talk about your past, and that your future be better than anything you could have ever imagined. Thanks for your openness and honesty J*******

Ms. Anonymous Part 1:

I wish I could stand here and tell you that I was one of the few who managed to wait until marriage.

Who truly understood why sex should be left to the confines of marriage, and what it could do to you if you didn’t. But the sad truth is, I can’t.

My story is very different than most though. When I caved, it wasn’t because I thought it wasn’t worth waiting for or because I was more willing to give into my desires than listen to God. But in order to bring you to why I did it, I must first recount my story.

I grew up in a home where sex was never spoken of unless to continuously remind us that sex before marriage was wrong and that it would lead to bad things with God. While it was never said between both church and our parents, it was highly implied that God would want nothing to do with us.

During my teen years, I had no trouble staying abstinent. I avoided kissing any of the guys I dated, and didn’t have my first kiss until I was 18.

When I got to college, I became obsessed with the idea of getting a boyfriend. I was lonely, and to be honest, I had grown up feeling unloved. Guys hadn’t really paid attention to me up until then, and I wasn’t quite able to grasp the concept that my worth wasn’t measured by whether or not guys desired me. I tried so hard to trust in God, but started to slip away during my first year of college. There was so much going on in my life, and I was hurt and confused.

The first guy I ‘dated’ in college left me because I wouldn’t sleep with him… The next guy was one I had liked for an entire year. Problem was, I knew he had a tendency to get drunk and fool around with girls. I wasn’t the type to do that, so I tried to get more involved physically with him in order to keep him. I felt like I had to prove that I was as good as these girls he would go out with at night… He left me for another girl.

By that point, I was a wreck. I had been struggling with alcoholism and depression, and feeling like I held no worth. I wasn’t really eating and had dropped down to the smallest I had ever been. But suddenly, I started getting male attention. A co-worker at the school kept hinting that he was interested in sleeping with me, and a friend of a friend started to pursue me. He told me all the right things, we got together… and then it changed.

It started with him telling me he wasn’t sure if this would lead into a relationship, so we should just see where it was going to go. Then, he would only see me late at night. He wouldn’t hold my hand or acknowledge he was with me when we walked through the hallways at night into his room. I was so smitten by him, I didn’t pick up on the fact that he was ashamed to be with me.

He was very good at manipulating me; making me feel guilty for not doing things with him, for not being more sexually active with him. He never came right out and said it, but he not so subtly hinted constantly that he would leave me unless I started doing more. I was desperate to hang on to that attention, and started feeling like maybe, that’s what women were supposed to do in a relationship.

I never caved to sex with him, though I came close, and eventually he tired of me and just stopped speaking to me. Treated me like I didn’t exist.

 I was broken. Unfixable. I felt ugly and worthless.

The final guy I attempted to date in college ended things with me because I wasn’t worth putting any effort into if I wouldn’t have sex with him.

It was at that point when I finally realized that my worth should not be determined by what I am willing to give to a man. I swore off dating, and decided it was time to start pursuing God, to have Him show me my worth. It took years, but by the time I was 24 I decided I was confident enough in my worth to start dating again.

****It doesn’t end there... She endured a lot of pain and heartache, but she decided to just stop with everything and to seek God. She took some time off from dating, did some self-reflecting, and then finally decided that she wanted to give this dating thing one more try. Stay tuned next week to hear the final part of her story. I promise, you won’t want to miss Part 2!****