Fallen Apart

Mine is a long story so here goes:

I am a 26 year old Caucasian female and I live in South Africa. I joined this forum last week as a result of my life falling apart.

In my final year of high-school I was sexually assaulted by the church elder who was supposed to teach me how to drive. I went to a psychologist but my parents did not want to pay after 10 sessions and I stopped.

At 22 years old I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression (It runs in my family so I have no idea why it took so long) and started taking anti-depressants. My life was not going according to plan: I did not get into the University I wanted to or study what I wanted to. I had trouble trusting men but that same year I met my future fiance. Our relationship has always been rocky due to the depression and the fact that I have such a low self-esteem but we somehow made it work.

Earlier this year (17 May, to be exact) I discovered my fiance had regressed back to watching porn, after two previous incidents where I told him to stop as it made me feel horrible to be compared with those girls. But after 2 months of me trying to help him battle his addiction, he chose the porn above me. I was shattered. In SA a white girl can only get married if she is a virgin and since I gave my virginity to my ex (I really did think we were going to get married ) I now have no hope of finding someone who would love me.

When I cried to my best girl friend about never finding someone who would love a slut like me she was shocked and threw me away. She simply could not risk her current boyfriend thinking she was friends with a filthy slut like me. She completely cut herself off from me.

A week before my ex told me he never wants anything to do with me again my best guy friend got into a horrible car accident and suffered mental damage. His family forbade me to contact them again since they want his friends to remember him the way he was and not the way he is now.
I am still bruised about my ex leaving me and then Sunday 8 Sept. this guy friend sends me a message on whatsapp. Never mind being shocked to see that he recovered enough to type, I had to learn that he just wanted to formally tell me that I am too weird and he doesn't know why he ever became friends with me. So it was like losing him all over again.

My family condemned me for two reasons: Mental Illness is regarded with heavy suspicion and mistrust in this country and because I am no longer a virgin they condemned me to Hell.

Despite their condemnations I had nothing else to cling to and I turned to God. I am still sore, bruised angry, sad, upset, hurt, feel betrayed, feel abandoned and hopeless for my future, but I can at least write in this forum and it really does make me feel better.

Thanks for being my online diary.

Hi Thexena,
thanks for sharing your story and i am sorry that you are going through such a difficult time.
Sometimes it seems that all the possibly negative things come together.

what surprised me more about your letter, is that you, or your friend, or your society would think of you as a "slut" after having one partner. You know that almost anywhere else, it is not like that anymore.
Most places when we are in our teen years, we lose our virginity to our first love, and then come others. Not very different with guys, who start earlier. On this side of the world you would be consider a very conservative girl, with only one partner experience. So it depends where you are. Do not put unnecessary burdens upon you, life is already hard enough.

sometimes there are things issues underneath, and when an external event happens, all seems to be derived by the same event, but maybe there were already some difficulties.
You need to be on your own team...do not work against yourself. since you have turned to God, as I read, remember that he said..He first, and then..love thy neighbor as yourself!! you must be included. So treat yourself with patience, with respect, with admiration, make a list of the positive things, in yourself, in your life....and some of this difficult experiences will come to past. God bless!

Hi Louise,

Thank you for your kind words but in this country, and more specifically, my culture, a white girl who lost her virginity before marriage is a great embarrassment. Guys can ###$ around as much as they want before marriage but girls not... That's the problem.

I wish God could just give me hope that someone would love me again one day... I want to be loved so badly...

I tried to move to another country to make a afresh start but I can't find work anywhere else.

Hi Thexena,
you live in a very conservative area. In the big cities, this type of problems seem to disappear.
Maybe now, you do not need to emigrate to another country, but see posibilities to move to a big city, where you will not feel outcasted by your experience.

I have the feeling, that the way you feel about yourself, might be as important, if not more important over what others feel about you. Our lens towards life and ourselves, is coloured by our culture and religious beliefs. If you see how Jesus reached the sick people of his time, those outcast, then you see how much he wanted to give their dignity and self esteem back to them.

if you walk around with a feeling of emptiness, of low self esteem, you will be an easy target.
Look up! your name is written in God's hand. He wants you to live, in peace, happy, and loved. But you need to start with yourself.
Sometimes we can put a small stone in the right direction so that others might follow. Write a blog, do something, i am sure that there are thousands if not millions of girls that are suffering the same injustice. Take your time to heal! This will pass and you will come out stronger!! i assure you of that.

Thank you Louise but I already live in a big city. And it really is just the racism and sexism against white women we have to face in this country. I Appreciate your words of encouragement but it is hard to think yourself worthy when everyone around you condemns you.

Thexena wrote:Thank you Louise but I already live in a big city. And it really is just the racism and sexism against white women we have to face in this country. I Appreciate your words of encouragement but it is hard to think yourself worthy when everyone around you condemns you.

Dear Thexena,
the reality you describe is totally new to me. I belong to a conservative society and it is very common for women as for men to have sex before marriage. Of couse there is that dubbel standart, that with men sex is praised and with women cursed.
Listen, in this forum noone will judge you. How could we. Your life, your choices are not different to ours. So do not despair. i agree that very painful things are happening in your life at this moment. I care to think that people who abandon you are not worth your sadness. they are or too ignorant or too selfish, or too afraid.

through internet you can see that life in other places is not like that. it is not perfect, but somethings are less notorious than in other places. where i now live, interracial relationships are very very common and the children that are born out of this relationships are amazingly beautiful!!
there is a beter world in the process of being done, do not despair. Make tiny little steps in the direction of your heart, in the direction of goodness, try to see with kindness first your own self and the the others. this painful time will pass!!!

After about 2 weeks after posting this I must admit I had a rebound - a very nice guy I met on a chat site. But he was only interested in sex and although I really fell in love with him I decided I cannot engage in another sexual relationship ever again. I had hoped he would understand but he didn't and now I am even more lonely than before. All my friends are so busy and no one has time for me. The rebound guy did make me feel less pain about the betrayal of my ex but now I miss both of them so much...

Hi Thexena,
you have made a wise decision. I also have my struggles. i would like to have a partner, but i have three children and i am alone. so i have chosen to educate them without bringing other risks into the house. i sometimes feel lonely too but my choice gives me some peace. you are a smart woman and you are making the choices that will make you strong.

meet guys, not in chat, but in a place where you might share something in common,
some theme that you might love! because the common interest will not be your vulnerability, but your strength on that specific theme.
take care ! and i see that you are doing it!!

The problem is that I am an introvert, so making friends is already hard.

The guys at my church are all married - no single guys will go to church or bother with a plain-looking girl anyway.

The only other interest I have is also my ex's so I can't go to conventions and meetings without running into him and feeling all the pain and rejection again. I tried to find new interest but because it is the end of the year in my country no one gives classes till next year and meanwhile I have no friends to talk to or hang out with and nothing to occupy myself with.

Thexena wrote:The problem is that I am an introvert, so making friends is already hard.

The guys at my church are all married - no single guys will go to church or bother with a plain-looking girl anyway.

The only other interest I have is also my ex's so I can't go to conventions and meetings without running into him and feeling all the pain and rejection again. I tried to find new interest but because it is the end of the year in my country no one gives classes till next year and meanwhile I have no friends to talk to or hang out with and nothing to occupy myself with.

i guess you are temporarily stuck with us !