Matthew Buroker, My Abuser

 TW: abuse, DV, sexual assault, rape, trauma

It has been over half my life since the abuse had began… And, I could never bring myself to speak about it publicly. He isn’t even here anymore, and I live in fear of the outcome of speaking my truth, and shedding light on what I endured from a very young age. I am getting my tattoo covered that includes my abuser’s name. I refuse to live with a constant reminder of the pain he caused, and continues to cause in my every day life. I am very conflicted about my feelings on this matter, as you will learn as my story continues. This might get extremely graphic. My family doesn’t even know all of these details.

Where do I even begin?

I guess I’ll just start from the very beginning. We were both in the marching band together (I was in color guard, he played the baritone). We basically ended up meeting and talking through a mutual friend though. I didn’t really pay him much attention… He just wasn’t my type, and I knew my friend liked him. I really felt I forced myself to find him attractive.

But, as we all know, manipulators and abusers tend to be obsessive, and always end up getting what they want. No matter what. I’m not even sure how he got my number, but one night, I got a phone call on my super cool, pink Razor flip phone. It was a random, local number I wasn’t familiar with. They said their name was Matt. That was as much identification as he gave me through the entire call. At that point in my life, I only knew about 6 Matts, and was on friendly terms with all of them. I was about 14 years old at this time, and still super kind to absolutely anyone. #NAIVE

Needless to say, I didn’t really have any idea who I was specifically speaking to… That’s how out of the blue it was. We ended up chatting for a few hours. The entire time, I was trying to be polite. Little did I know, it was Matt Buroker – my friend’s crush, whom I met when we all went to church together. He told me it was him the next time we saw each other. Oh, to be young, and completely dumb. The rest is basically history, so to speak. He started trying to hold my hand in church, and I kind of just let it all happen because I was so young, unaware, and inexperienced.

The first 4 months of our relationship were amazing. We were inseparable. He even got close to my family, and wanted to include them in all of our plans. We went on many walks, talked about our futures, and spent hours just simply hanging out. And, just a side note: my mom did pass away when I was 12, so my family was already a little weary of outsiders. His obsessiveness with me eventually led to my dad setting some boundaries. When my dad wanted there to be rules and guidelines, is really when I started to see Matt for who he was. Things started getting weird… No one could tell him what to do. This entire situation basically turned into the classic abuser story.

The control started with small things – I could not speak to any guys at school, in band, or in any of the many extracurricular activities I was in. I could not wear shorts, tanks tops, or anything “revealing”. If he didn’t like something, I couldn’t wear it (even if it was modest). I couldn’t so much as comment on, or message, someone of the opposite sex. He eventually started alienating me from my friends as well. He pitted us against each other, lying to all of us… Separately, of course, so we never had a chance of knowing truth. I frequently looked at other couples and wondered if all of this was normal.

I also feel it’s important to mention, that at this point in our relationship, he was also seeing other females behind my back. This is something I didn’t even definitively learn about until very recently. He was meeting up with our previous mutual friend, but of course he severed that friendship. I have no idea how many other females there were at this time. After high school is another story entirely… It was way easier to keep it on the DL at that point.

Things continued on that path for a while… My junior year, my dad sent me to live with my sister in California in hopes to get me to see what life could be like without him. Matt and my best friend at the time, let's call her Fiona, tried to vandalize my dad’s car so he couldn’t take me to the airport. She may have been coerced, there’s no telling… He also broke into my dad’s house (after asking for my house key – and never really telling me why – but if I didn’t do it, would something worse happen?) in an attempt to steal the plane ticket my dad had purchased for me. Looking back, I know my dad was just doing his best, because he was at a loss. I totally get it. Obviously, I was too. But, how completely insane of Matt…

I’d also like to interject here to mention the sexual grooming I experienced. I was still extremely religious when we started dating and was wanting to wait until marriage to have sex. Period. I felt very pressured from the very beginning to do things I didn’t even have an interest in at the time. I was 14/15 years old, and extremely religious. Obviously, it just wasn’t a top priority for me at that time. Needless to say, a majority of the time, it felt like I was being coerced into it. I also want to mention that he was 16-23 for the duration of this story. I was 14-21.

He frequently manipulated me into skipping school, going out of town with him, shoplifting, etc. We eventually got caught – big time. I will forever have in-school suspension on my record. It wasn’t like I was young and dumb, and just doing whatever my boyfriend wanted me to… It was deeper. It was mental & verbal abuse, if I so much as disagreed, or did not go along with his plans – if I said it was a “bad idea”. This was mostly my sophomore year (his senior year). I’m lucky my grades didn’t suffer more at this time. I’m still surprised I graduated high school.

I lived in California for about 8 months my junior year. While out there, I was a loner most of the time, and just resented my family for taking me away from the life I had known for 17 years. I stayed cooped up in my room reading books, and watching movies. I think this is really when my transition to an introvert began. Everyone in that place had established lives, and had known each other for YEARS. I’m still friends with some of them today though, and I honestly wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, looking back on it. Everyone out there was extremely kind, and really seemed to care about what I had going on. I did meet a now ex that I feel needs to be mentioned for the sake of this story… I met Steven while living in CA, and he was the cause of a few fights.

I had some friends in CA that were apparently relaying information to Matt back home… They had found out that we were “together” and they felt the need to message him on MySpace, and “call me out”. Had they known he was very abusive, I imagine they wouldn’t have done this. But, they told him about Steven, and notes I had passed back and forth with other friends I’d had out there. Ugh. PLEASE, if you take nothing else away from this, please just reach out to your friends before confronting their SO. Any victim of domestic violence would always recommend this. You really don’t know ANYONE else’s situation.

My sister decided to move home after having my niece (her second child). Understandable. Funnily enough, we moved into the exact apartment complex Matt’s family lived in. I ended up hanging out with him a bit, but we had to be supervised, or we weren’t allowed to hang inside. My family did not want him in their houses after he broke into my dad’s house, and attempted to vandalize their property. He was always trying to push the boundaries though, and my dad had had enough. I ended up moving in with Matt’s family. This would end up being the worst decision I’ve ever made.

Once we lived together, the physical abuse began. My friend, Fiona, had also let me know that they had dated, gotten together, slept together, whatever you want to call it, while I was living in CA. He manipulated her into believing we broke up, or decided not to do a long distance thing/hold out for each other. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Regardless, he was successful in making her believe it was true. So they saw each other for a few months after I moved. I confronted him about it, and he vehemently denied it. He denied it for the remainder of the time I knew him. He had WILD stories & explanations for everything I ever brought up.

I also want to add that his family enabled his behaviors & actions… They also backed his stories and excuses with some sort of possible logical explanation because “that’s how he is”. There were times, living in his home, that things got very violent. One time, he was dragging me up the stairs by my arms, and I was screaming to his brother to call the police. I went completely ignored. The reasoning? I wanted to be downstairs.

That was just one of the many occurrences I can recall. I have blocked out a majority of the trauma… Which is both good and bad, I guess. There were times he would “play” or “tickle” me, as a means to turn it into violence – repeatedly hitting me in the head (so no one could see bruises/proof). Which also typically ended in some sort of forced rape. When he was scared I might be pregnant a few times, he would beat me in the stomach to attempt to “kill it” - another HUGE reason I’m pro-choice. I’m so glad I didn’t have his child.

I have a vivid memory of him full on fighting/wrestling with his dad in his bed because they had a disagreement. Maybe this was a learned behavior? They also loved to PROUDLY tell the story of how he grew up in a hunting family, and fileted his PET GOLDFISH on the counter as a child. I really wished I had heard that story earlier… I would have ran, so fast. Maybe?

One time, I was innocently texting someone from craigslist (back when CL wasn’t so gross – lol) that I had befriended somehow, and he found out I was texting a guy and chucked my brand new side-slider phone across an entire parking lot. Luckily, it wasn’t completely ruined, and it only got a little messed up on one corner…

He also LOVED to bring up the drama from CA any time we fought, or I mentioned anything involving Fiona, or any other females around school. He frequently changed the subject by accusing me of cheating on him with Steven… Which never occurred.

There were times when we were in school together that he made me extremely uncomfortable. He would spy on me in the windows of classrooms. There was a time that he was spying on me WHILE I was doing a project presentation in front of my entire class. It was so distracting that my teacher had to go out in the hall and tell him to go away. (If the teacher reads this, she knows who she is. We're friends on Facebook.)

He also saw me “acknowledge” a guy in my class, and wouldn’t speak to me for an entire day. I practically chased him down the hallway after that. Why? I honestly don't know.

When leaving me for class, he would literally say, “NO BOYS.” Every single time.

Basically, if I wasn’t doing exactly what he said, going exactly where he wanted to, or acting the very specific way I was told to, I was doing something wrong, and deserved to be “punished”.

This was my first love, people.

There were also many rumors going around school that Fiona was pregnant with Matt’s baby (more than once). Then, I believe our mutual friend was upset we were still together or something, so she was also starting rumors that I was pregnant. I guess she wanted to tarnish my reputation. For the record, I have never been pregnant.

Fiona and her friends would also bully me, regularly. Her bio on MySpace even mentioned me by name. Her sister wanted to fight me. It was just super gross. In the long run, I don’t blame Fiona, but there’s a lot of trauma there. We’ve never really spoken about it, seriously, as adults though… I was very bullied my entire senior year. I never felt comfortable enough to go back to my extracurricular activities. She was there too. The home I left was not the home I returned to. I don’t think anyone realized what things were also like for me outside of school. I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself.

 

Let’s fast forward…

So he graduated 2 years before me. After high school, I decided I would rather move back in with my dad and pay rent. I promised him things would be different. I was an adult now, and I wanted space to be my own person. I ended up reconciling with Fiona, and we chose our friendship over a guy. We decided to hang out after talking alot about what had happened. He asked where I was because of some made up story…. And, he showed up at the mall, took back the phone he had given me (that he had STOLEN from his cell phone employer), told me we were done, and left. IN THE MIDDLE OF JOURNEY’S WHILE FIONA WAS BUYING SHOES. ....what?!

I was numb. My abuser was leaving me? Wtaf!? I frequently wonder how things might have gone, had this NOT occurred. Would I have ever mustered the courage to leave, or end things, myself?

After we broke up, we did continue to see each other… I had a trauma bond, and most definitely did not want to end things. Looking back, I’m so glad we never got officially back together. We would go for drives, late at night… We would go to Bluegrass and skip rocks. We’d also just sit in his truck and talk for hours. At one point, it really felt like he had turned a new leaf. I’m still not entirely sure if that’s even true. Lol. I still couldn’t believe a word he said. Was it just more manipulation? No telling.

One of the last times we hung out, he told me he was considering buying a house in Princeton, IN, since he had been working there, and he wanted to know if I wanted to move with him. He said it could be our last chance to be together, and no one else was me. I was a little shocked. At this point, I had started moving on with my life. I was making new friends and having new experiences. I was seeing other guys, and really learning who I was… I didn’t have any interest in getting back with him. I was just having fun, and couldn’t really let him go. I was under the impression at that time that he was still full of it anyway.

That was the last time I saw him. He died the following weekend. He was in a boating accident while bow fishing. He was 23. I’m still haunted by the fact that I bought him his first bow.

I’m not sure if I feel he deserved to die. I mourned his death harder than any I’ve ever experienced. Maybe it was the trauma bond… I don’t know.

What I do know was that I learned a lot of his secrets in death, and that his family treated me awfully when he died. I was their punching bag.

When he died, I learned that he was probably seeing 3 or 4 females at the same time. He probably even told them how special they were, and that he wanted them to move with him to Princeton. LOL. I spoke to one after the funeral, just expressing that we were both victims, and she called me a liar. Yes, I totally love lying about abuse, and talking badly about the dead. That’s exactly who I am. The sad part about her, is that she hung out with us when we dated, and she saw how awful he was to me. He didn’t hide his verbal and emotional abuse in front of some people he thought “didn’t matter”. I’ve had others come forward saying they could tell something wasn’t right. Anyway, there were just too many females that were VERY upset at the funeral. You had to be an idiot not to notice or know what was going on. I could list them by name, but that’s not my thing.

His family also accused me of being a liar. I’ve been blocked from his old social media accounts (which I gave them the passwords to). I would post memorials (back when I believed he was worth memorializing) and receive comments accusing me of inaccurately portraying what our relationship was at that time. They asked me for song recommendations and photos, yet I was cropped out of every single one. He only spoke to some of his family once or twice a year, and spoke to me absolutely every day. But, yet, my abuser and his family were always right, and our memories didn’t matter. The truth is, no matter how I handled his death, in their eyes, it was never right. I became the sole reason for his death. Their anger toward me helped it make sense for them… And, I will never understand that. Ever. Grieving is already hard enough. Why judge anyone for how they choose to handle it? At least I was handling it with grace, I guess. I think, through it all, they really knew the truth, but have been too stubborn to admit it. After all, they asked me to come up to the casket for private family time, and I said no. If they read this, and wonder why I said no, it’s because they were so absolutely nasty toward me. If Matt had a single ounce of real love for me, he would have been BIG MAD.

The feelings I’ve had surrounding his death have been extremely conflicting. One day, I miss my friend and wish we could talk and hang out. Other days, I realize how horrible he was and how he manipulated, and hurt, absolutely everyone I cared about back then.

It’s been almost 10 years since he passed away, and I am just now finding the courage to share what I went through, and what I endured. I’ve posted vaguely about what has happened to me, that I’ve been abused. I’ve posted standing up for domestic violence survivors. But, today, I am naming my abuser, regardless of the consequences. Ours was not a fairy tale love. It was not a first love I would wish on anyone. Most people only saw the façade we allowed for you to see.

My abuser was Matthew Buroker.

 

I have grown SO MUCH as a person since this childish relationship, and I can proudly say I have come out on the other side. I am still affected every day by my trauma. My dissociation is even strong as I type this… It’s only going to take more time and healing to get to a better place, which I deserve. I never deserved to flinch at a loving touch.

I would like to GREATLY thank my beautiful, inspirational, and warm husband, Brandon, for helping me get to this point in my life. He has truly shown me my worth and has helped me to grow. He inspires me each and every day to be a better version of myself, and that includes confronting this traumatic experience I endured. I love you.

I would also like to thank my amazing family for all of their help, love, and light during these awful times in my life. My dad, sister, and cousin were specifically important in helping me realize that my situation was not okay. Thank you all for your relentless love that I do not deserve. You guys are the OGs. I love you all.