I'm 19 years old and have been dating my boyfriend for about two years. I've been living with him for about this time, after my physically and emotionally abusive mother kicked me out of my family's home when I was 17. After moving in with various friends for months at a time, I finally moved into my boyfriend's home although we hadn't been dating for very long. In the back of my head I knew that being so young and making such a serious commitment as living with one another was NOT a good idea, but the position that my mother put me in left me feel hopeless, and I desperately wanted somewhere to call my home.

This of course was very traumatic being 17 at the time. I loved my father, brother, sister, and even my mother so much but I couldn't bare to have her treat me so poorly anymore. My boyfriend assured me that I was safe living with him and that his home would always be my home, I felt very content with my current living situation and as I became more distant with my mother and grew up, our relationship became much better, which was something that I had always wanted.

Shortly after moving in with my boyfriend when we had tried to undergo intercourse, I noticed that something was really wrong with my body because of the excruciating pain that I would be in, exceeding to the point where sex between us wasn't even doable. I saw many doctors, and after being misdiagnosed twice, undergoing a cystoscopy and laproscopy, more ultrasounds than I could even count, with people constantly poking and prodding in such a sensitive spot of my body, I was finally diagnosed with a bladder condition that is ultimately chronic and currently has no cure for. I tried everything to fix this in order to try and do anything to help my relationship with my boyfriend, because I didn't want anything more than to be intimate with him because I cared about him very much and wanted our relationship to work. I tried four different types of medication, I've had my bladder inflated four times, gone on several diets to improve the pain, trips to the emergency room to try and get through the pain. I've been undergoing weekly physical therapy visits for eight months now. It's been a lot to deal with, and unfortunately none of these things have helped me and I am still left unable to undergo having intercourse.

My boyfriend was very supportive at first, assuring me that he understood what was going on with my body, driving me to all of my doctor's appointments and being with me whenever he could... That sort of thing. But after a while things stopped being like that. He would make it a point to tell me that our sex life was "boring" and "unsatisfying" and that he wished that things weren't so redundant and were more spontaneous. Obviously hearing something like this when you're going through something completely out of control with your body at such a young age is so upsetting and disheartening. All I wanted was to show my boyfriend that I loved him and wanted to be with him like that and the fact that my body wouldn't allow me to do those things made me feel so horrible and inferior. And the worst part about it was that I would voice to him about the number that this condition has done to my self esteem and confidence, and even through knowing that he would still put me down for not being able to do what he would like me to.

We started arguing a lot more, and over time things escalated. My treatments still weren't working and he grew more and more frustrated with me. His patience for this situation and my condition grew so thin, and it showed through by the way he was treating me day in and day out. At first he just stopped being nice, making rude remarks when he could. And then it turned into him flat out telling me how unsatisfying I was sexually and that I didn't care about my condition and wasn't doing enough to try to fix things for him- which really hurt a lot. He told me that not being able to be with him that way made him resent me for my condition and he became more and more angry and frustrated with me.

Soon afterwards, he started getting physically violent with me when we would argue. When it first started happening, I was so taken back because it was so difficult for me to believe that somebody who loved me would treat me that way because I could have never imagined treated him like that... It was hard and I was a wreck about it for the longest time, and he promised me he would never do that or lose control again, and I believed him. I shouldn't have, but I did.

It's been almost a year now that he's become extremely emotionally abusive. He uses my condition and the way he knows that I feel against me almost every day to degrade me and make me feel even worse about myself than I do. He tells me that nobody would wan't to be with me for my condition and that he's the only person that could ever put up with being with somebody like me. He kicks me out of the house almost weekly which breaks my heart because I truly don't have anywhere else to go- I don't have many friends and my relationship with my mother is still rocky. He does things like tell me to get the fuck out of the house, he calls me horrible names that I wouldn't even say to my worst enemy, then "confiscates" my car keys so that I can't leave the house and I'm forced to stay with him while he continues to verbally berate me. Sometimes, he corners me in our bedroom just to scream in my face, and empties out the drawers of my dresser and then takes each article of clothing and throw them at my face. He stands in front of the doorways and won't let me leave or get by despite my pleading for him to move just so that he can yell at me. He puts holes in the wall, destroys my things, he even threw my easel and artwork in progression down the stairs with me at the bottom, intending to hurt me. He pushed me out of his car once on the middle of the road, then taking my cell phone, throwing it at me through the window and driving home without me, forcing me to walk home. He chases me out the door when I do get past him and he screams at me and pounds on my car window or stands in the middle of the driveway so that I can't leave when he gets really violent. The amount of times he's put my hands on me is insane, I've really lost count at this point. I've lunged to grab my keys out of his hand and he shoved me away and pushed me onto the bed. He's violently grabbed me by my shoulders and shook the snot out of me. One time when I got past the front door, he pinned me up against the door, smashing the back of my head against the door in the process.

His words are the worst part, though. It hurts me so much when he tells me to leave the house because this situation is exactly what happened with my mother, and he knew how badly that effected me. He welcomed me into his home and I felt comfortable enough to make it my home and then he rips it away from me just because he knows how badly it will hurt me. It's taken me so long to try and feel comfortable and safe in a home and once it happens it completely backfires, leaving me hurt each time. He tells me that he doesn't love me and that he hasn't even liked me as a human being for a long time, that because I can't show him that I love him through having sex that he's grown to hate me for it. In the times that I have threatened to tell people about his physical violence towards me in order for him to stop, he tells me that "nobody will ever believe you" because I've gone through something similar with my mother. And it's true, nobody would EVER believe me because he is the most unassuming person and you would NEVER think that he could act that way upon knowing him on the surface.

It's extremely screwed up. I've been dealing with this for so long and I know that I shouldn't be, and that because I'm so young I should get out of this relationship and move on. It's so much harder than that, though. After months of him telling me that nobody would ever want to be with me because of my sexual dysfunction, I want to think that it isn't true but in my heart I know that it is. What kind of guy wants to be with a 19 year old girl that can't even have sex with them? It's humiliating. I'm so young and I should be able to enjoy myself and have a functional relationship and at this point I think that it's truly impossible. I've wanted to move out for so long but my relationship with my mother has improved so much since I have left home that I don't want to move back home and ruin what we've created and strengthened over the past two years of being separated.

I don't know what to do. I want to help myself. I don't want to be treated this way by anyone anymore and I don't know why I keep being wound up in situations where the people that I care about the most end up hating me and hurting me. My confidence and self esteem has never been this horrible and if I leave my boyfriend, it will be impossible for me to ever meet somebody again that can even kind of accept my illness. It's so hard. I feel trapped. I don't know what to do anymore and I don't know why these things have been happening to me. I have been trying so hard to fix my body and make things work out and being told every day that I'm "not trying hard enough" has been so difficult. I don't know how to get out of this relationship appropriately and feel okay about myself and my condition ever again, and I don't want to feel that I'm doomed for bad relationships for the rest of my life. Being 19 years old has made this so difficult and I just need somebody to know what I'm going through and understand and resonate with me. If anybody has any advice on how to exit a relationship like this and start feeling like a woman instead of a sexless (less) of a human being, I would appreciate the help so much. I really need some body.