District 2, TROY COMMUNITY ACADEMY 2005

Narratives and drawings by the students of Troy Community Academy.  Click an image for larger view.

Steven, age 18

I knew this guy and girl who were in love with each other. After four months of being together the girl became pregnant. Suddenly she started spending more time with her girlfriends. Out of anger and jealousy, the guy started to call her all types of names and dumped her. She was heartbroken. The guy did not realize what he had done to hurt her. Later on that night, when it dawned on him that he made a mistake, he went to her, but she did not want to take him back. Now the guy is hurting a whole lot because of what he had done. The way this story will end, is hopefully she will take him back

Lienist, age 18

I have a friend whose mother goes from one abusive relationship to another. She’s been abused so many times that she just endures any and everything. The abuse runs all through the home involving everyone, especially my friend who is the oldest child. My friend didn’t like any of her mother’s past relationships, and she doesn’t like the most recent one either. Her mother has just come out of the closet with her girlfriend. The girlfriend seems to have her own issues and frustrations and whenever she gets angry, she verbally and emotionally abuses my friend’s mom by screaming, shouting, yelling obscenities and calling her all sorts of names. I know it hurts my friend and makes her very angry. I feel the same way. My friend’s mom has six young children under the age of thirteen who witness the abuse and my friend hates that the most. I feel that her mom should wake up from the nightmare she’s in, but no one can get her to move on but herself. 

Blum, age 18

One day I was in the Project with my boys chilling when a man called Fruit Man who lives across the street was arguing with his wife because he cheated on her. She tried to attack him with a knife and he shot her nine times. We were just looking like “Damn, why did that happen like that?” It made me feel so sad due to the fact that the wife died, Fruit Man went to prison, and their child now has no mother or daddy. 

Nakeil, age 17

I had a relationship with this girl that lasted about a month or two. For weeks we kept arguing about stupid things, such as why I didn’t call her or why I came to her house late. One day when I called her she was angry at me. She said that I’m a no good person and that she wished she had never met me. At the time I felt down and stressed. I kept explaining that we need to settle this problem or move on with our lives. In my heart she was the one for me, but then she told me that she didn’t want to be in my life any more, and she called me all types of names, f-nigga, I’ll kill you and I don’t want to see you no more. Until the day I got over her and moved on with my life I felt like I was surrounded by bars and was asking for help.

Lady O, age 17

I have a friend (a girl) named Poo-Poo. She has a girlfriend named Jo-Jo. Every time Jo-Jo talks to another person Poo-Poo gets mad because she’s very jealous. One time a friend of Poo-Poo tried to go with Jo-Jo, but instead of Poo-Poo confronting her friend, she got mad at Jo-Jo. Jo-Jo got mad at Poo-Poo for being jealous because she felt that she told her the truth about her friend and Poo-Poo should not be mad at her. The point that I am making is that Poo-Poo is a very jealous person. When Jo-Jo keeps something from her she gets mad, and when she tells her the truth she still gets mad. They fuss all the time until they are about to fight. The reason why Poo-Poo said she is very over protective is because someone hurt her before. This jealousy and fighting is a good example of an abusive relationship. Do you get my point? Well, great!!!

Slim, age 18

I was a witness to an ongoing physically and verbally abusive relationship. A close friend of mine met a guy who no one liked but her and her kids. Drugs played a major part in the escalating abuse. Her four kids were too young to understand the reason for the violence but they knew that their mother and her boyfriend had now become drug users. Their experience was frightening because the bad outweighed the good. There was constant moving and once in a while homelessness. The aunts and uncles were very mean towards the boyfriend often beating him up and letting him know he’s no part of the family. The Department of Children and Families (DCF) stepped in and removed the kids. The mother and boyfriend split up eventually. Although their experience was upsetting, her five kids grew to love her and her happy ending. She cleaned up her act and regained custody of her kids. None of her kids repeated the violence they saw every day. They used it to make opposite decisions and know there’s no acceptable reason for abuse.

Clarissa, age 18

I had this friend J (a girl) who was in a relationship with this guy T. Both of them were abusive to each other. There were times when T called J names like stupid, ignorant, and other inappropriate names, and he would tell her that she’ll never amount to anything. Why did she accept this foolishness? I have no clue. But on the other hand, J would physically abuse T. When we would go to the park, they often would get in an argument and words would be said. J would react with violence. She would slap, punch, kick and hurt T. It was a good thing that J never hit her back, but he often tried holding her down, which never seemed to last long. Why did he put up with this? I have no idea.
Watching this very unusual relationship made me a better person. I learned to communicate better with my partner and work things out. 

Shan, age 18

I know a girl who has an abusive boyfriend who always beats on her. There’s not a time when her boyfriend doesn’t say “you are always spending time with them hoes.” As soon as she tries to respond, he slaps her or, at times, he even punches her. One day my friend’s boyfriend was listening to all us girls talk and he thought my friend was talking about another boy. He started abusing her for no apparent reason. Therefore, I took action trying to break it up and he charged at me. I was going to fight him back if he would have hit me, but he didn’t. My friend’s boyfriend gave her a curfew of 2:00 a.m. but he wouldn’t come home until 7:00 a.m. That’s not fair. I think that if a boyfriend acts this way, the girlfriend becomes an “abuse awareness speaker”.

Ruby age 17

My father is a very, let’s say “difficult” person. He’s always liked to control people. Nothing I have ever done has ever satisfied or pleased him. He’s always putting me down and he’s always angry. He yells and ridicules me in my face and if I raise my voice to talk back he beats me up. He’s even given me stitches, but the day I slapped him back, I was sent to juvenile for parental abuse. Now I’m the one on probation with a battery charge, when it was my mother who called the police on him. I’m still scared of him and his temper. I never know what he’s going to do when he gets angry and he just loves taking it out on me. Ever since I was little I can always remember my father angry at me. What ever happened with child abuse? 

Mooka, age 16

I was in this relationship. It was wonderful at first but she lied to me and lost all my trust. Now I treat her not so good anymore. As much as I say I’m going to change I still don’t. I love and want to be with her. It hurts me to see me treating my future wife so mean. I told her that “when I change I’ll give you a call.” She says she needs me. When I try breaking up with her, she cuts herself. It’s not that I feel powerful or anything. It’s just when she lied in my face I felt really hurt. But love is pain. If there was one slice of bread and we both didn’t eat for three days, I’d give the bread to her. But I had to let her go for the best and right now it’s killing me. She is so nice, pretty and smart. I really don’t want to hold her back, but if I ever change she says she’ll be waiting. That means no more bossing her around and talking rude. I should be making my girl happy, not sad and down.

Bling, age 18

I had a girlfriend that was kind of crazy. She would use drugs and go out a lot. I used to go out with her everywhere. We started getting into fights because we were together so much. One day I stayed in my house and she thought I was cheating on her. We kept fighting and fighting until one day we just broke up.

Phil, age 18

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