Shelby’s Story | Magdala Testimony

Content advisory: the following contains carefully articulated details of abuse. 

Do you know abusive relationships and sexual addiction have in common? They’re both elements of our lives we are told to hide, but are battles that cannot be fought alone. 

Not everyone’s story with sexual addiction starts with an abusive relationship, but unfortunately many do, and I’m going to share one of those.

During my freshman year of college, I started dating for the first time in my life, and it was great. He was my best friend, someone I loved being with and happened to be attracted to, and I could honestly see him being a big part of my life. 

And it wasn’t just my first relationship either; it was the first time anyone had even shown remote interest in dating me. To have someone genuinely want to spend time with you, tell you you’re pretty, that they're lucky to have you, that you're worth the world to them, that they love you… it was unlike anything I had ever felt, even in my closest friendships, which were few and far between as a Catholic girl growing up in the public school system.

4 months into our relationship, he told me he had been struggling with pornography and to make matters worse, he had started thinking of me while engaging in it. 

At first I thought, “no big deal… at least he’s thinking of me instead of looking at other girls.” I assured myself that once we got back from summer break and we were together, things would change. But this thought that being lusted over was something positive—which society seems to encourage more and more each day—blinded me from what was really going on. 

Pornography was what led to the end of him pursuing me, and the beginning of him abusing me. 

Once we came back to school, I immediately saw differences in his behavior. 

He was much more controlling over my body—heavily encouraging me to work out with him and even monitoring my workout plan—and started criticizing what I wore. He became increasingly jealous of our mutual guy friends and didn’t like me hanging out with other people while he wasn’t there, even if they were girls. All he wanted to do when we were together was be physical, and I started to feel like I couldn’t make him happy unless we were.

Now you’re probably thinking, “why didn’t you notice these classic red flags of abuse?” And the simple answer is, I wasn’t looking for them. 

When you’re in love with someone, especially for the first time, and they start doing things that aren’t expected, you use everything you can to justify it. You love them enough to overlook their faults, no matter how destructive they may be. 

I saw these behaviors, I knew they were weird, and they frustrated me a lot. But they weren’t loud enough to drown out all the promises he’d put in my head of a “happily ever after.” 

Now while all of this mental abuse was going on, our physical relationship also changed. It progressed way too fast, and it seemed like we couldn't be alone together without falling into sin. He kept telling me that he wanted to change what we're doing, and I set plans in place to do that, but he routinely ignored them. 

It was like he was telling me what I wanted to hear, only to disregard what I wanted to do. 

Coercion was his weapon of choice, and manipulation was his shield.

These were the two constants that continued through the 3 years he held my heart captive. It got worse and worse and even when we “broke up”, he still found ways to get me alone—he still found ways to use me. 

After we “broke up” during my sophomore year, I was not only having to hide my clinical depression and PTSD from months of mistreatment, gaslighting, and physical trauma, but also hide the sexual addiction that had been developing during our relationship. 

No one wants to admit they’re a victim, and in less than a year I became one of two different evils. 

I tried to fight, but between the stress of my classes, the busyness of extracurriculars, and a secret abusive ex I saw every day on campus, masturbation became the only way I could sleep at night. 

About a year after the abuse started, I heard about this group my friend Rachael was forming at our college called “Pure in Heart”. Rachael had been very courageous and open about her struggles with porn and masturbation, and formed her first small group for women struggling with sexual addiction. So I joined.

For the first time, I could tell someone what was happening and know that I wouldn’t be looked down upon as used goods or weaker because of it. That group of women—those 7 women—were the start of my survival as a victim of abuse and addiction. 

They helped me start to fight back.

Our world makes it so painfully easy to fall into the snares of sexual addiction. Pornography is made easily available to anyone with internet, and we see low-graded forms of it in our basic entertainment. We are born looking and longing for love—good, authentic love—and too often we find ourselves let down by the fallen nature of our humanity and society. 

Pornography ruined my relationship, and lust tore my heart apart. But just as I thought I would never find myself in an abusive relationship or addicted to sex, there was a time not long ago I couldn’t see myself being free of them either. 

I still continue to fight each day: thoughts of self-pleasure, flashbacks from my relationship, PTSD from both. But they’ve lessened—significantly. 

Through years of healing, prayer, leaning on the support of Our Lord, and a very important year of therapy, I’ve been blessed to find people who are in a similar battle and friends I can share my story with and are willing to fight alongside me. 

Friends like you.

It was through a single relationship that I experienced suffering beyond comprehension. Truly more suffering than I ever thought I could live through. But it was also through relationships—first with those 7 women, and now with thousands in Magdala—that I continue to experience healing: positive, healthy, life-affirming relationships with friends and loved ones who seek to better my soul instead of using me for their own self-interest. 

Relationships with people who have walked through darkness like I have, and continue to strive toward the Light of Heaven.

As fallen humans, we’re limited on our own. It’s with support, community, and the grace of God that we flourish into the people we were meant to be. 

Lust is an evil that turns people into objects of use, and I’ve seen it destroy so many relationships, including my own. It’s going to take an intentional fight to rise above the snares of sexual addiction, especially when our society seems to only encourage it. But our hearts weren’t made for lust, they were made for love, and only love will satisfy them. 

The devil wants to isolate us in the snares of sin. It’s the only way he can keep us from the Truth, and bury us in a pit of shame, depression, and hopelessness. But Magdala has the most powerful weapon against isolation: community.