My Olympic Dreams were Crushed by Abuse

Hello everyone. I have been through quite a bit in my childhood into adult life that brought me to where I am now, and where I will be in the future - this information is a bit sensitive in nature, and it is a bit lengthy, so please take your time reading my story and I thank you for just listening. Please share this story with anyone you can. You can also visit my website/blog here for the full story: http://christinasstory.weebly.com/christinas-story.html

Please sign our petition!!: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/469/338/095/stop-sexual-abuse-by-coaches-in-the-olympic-system/

You can subscribe to my YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_OsD1ZM27Mllm9UN6_Vs7Q/feed

I trained in martial arts and competed in Tae Kwon Do nationally and internationally, I was an Olympic Hopeful who placed 3rd at the Olympic Team Trials in 2007 for the 2008 Olympic Team. I was sexually abused by 3 different Coaches in my Sport including statutory rape at 14-15 years old from the second school I had attended, onto molestation at 15-16 by the next coach at the next school, and then into a manipulative relationship from 16(ish) which turned sexual at 18 with the next coach who I trusted with everything, resulting in stalking me when I wanted to move on with my life at 19 - He made the first move after I confided in him about the other 2 coaches.

Here are a couple articles on me that were in the paper while I was in the height of my career if you are interested in reading them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/02/AR2006070200745.html

http://ww2.gazette.net/stories/080807/rockspo223436_32358.shtml

I have brought forth a suit 5 years ago against organizations and an individual, to try to salvage any degree of normalcy I could. I have been battling with them as they do not want to help me or offer me any compensation for what happened to me under their supervision. They are still allowing my abusers to remain instated and attend competitions and hold schools who are registered under them. My lawyers are fighting very hard for me, and the defendant's created questions for me to answer as all lawsuits go, that were extremely disturbing for me to have to go back in time into those situations to explain the very private details of things that I have been hoping to leave behind me, but they are not allowing it by fighting me on everything. This is one of the reasons I put up my donations page, because it takes alot to rebuild a life and no one is helping me financially at all, especially the organizaton who had responsibility over me and these situations.  

Because of what I have been through my dreams as I knew them are now gone. I trained every single day (with a day or so break every once in a while) since I started competing elitely at age 14. As I grew and trained for Olympic Team Trials I was training and crosstraining 3 times a day for a minimum of 2 hours per session, non stop. I now do not/can not train or compete in the sport I have for 14 years without extreme anxiety and it effecting my life to the point where it is just not worth it because of all that is associated with the sport, and not being able to be around child molestors and rapists when competing. Without training it also causes a tremendous amount of anxiety because it was my anxiety healer for so long. My life was taken from me. I'm separated from my family as I knew them 4 years ago, the only one who helps me financially is my dear Grandmother, who takes it out of her social security and needs it herself for her medical bills from her recent surgery, and she is the only 1 I have left from my family who I have a good relationship with. I do not speak to my mother at all, unfortunately she was effected in some way I cannot exactly say from this whole situation, but she ended up out of our house with major anger issues and control issues over my life. My grandmother (her own mother) stopped speaking to her - and my grandmother is the sweetest person in the world, the rest of the family also stopped speaking to her because of how she treated everyone, especially me after what I went through, I needed support, not drama. She ended up taking all of my boyfriends possessions and my possessions that were staying at my father's house while we were gathering where to live, because I went back to stay with my boyfriend after my mom tried to keep me from him - for reasons only she can justify because he is the ONLY man who ever treated me with the respect I should receive, and she had no reason to believe he was a bad person, she met him once with her new husband and didn't give him the time of day to even try to be nice. My mother allowed his help but only after that did she decide she wanted control over who I was with, and when I told her I'm not leaving him, she needed some sort of control. So that's when she took our stuff, including my medications that I was on for PTSD, Bi-Polar 2, Generalized Anxiety, Depresson, and ADHD, and I begged for her to just give me the medications and my laptop because I work online, and keep everything else (which includes $10,000 worth of stuff - a $6,000 TV my boyfriend had previously owned, apple laptop, and all of my clothing, which we were planning to sell to get on our feet and use as an income for a while) but she wouldn't even give my medications back, or my laptop. She still has everything I owned, and now I have been wearing my boyfriends clothes since then, since he had a few belongings in storage, which was about a year ago, also with the help of some clothing donations from his girl cousin, to allow me some form of women wear. I went through a really hard time when I went "cold turkey" off of my psychiatric medications, I had really bad mood swings, I was suicidal, you can't just stop these types of medication out of nowhere after being on them for so long, it effects you tremendously, and I told her this and she didn't care. She just hated that I went against her judgement to be with my boyfriend. My doctor mentioned to me that my mom is most likely bi polar after explaining her symptoms compared to mine, but she always did refuse to see a doctor. I am so lucky my boyfriend was there through it all. I go to a doctor to receive the medications I can afford, but the counseling is what I also really need to heal and overcome all of my emotional issues that I hope to one day progress and relieve me of taking so much medication. But the counseling is really expensive. I have tried everything to receive the treatment I need but where I live without a car or anyone to help transport me, it's almost impossible. I go to my 1 doctor which a bus takes me to, but that is the only place I can go, and I get charged 60% out of network for my insurance. I am supposed to go every 2 weeks, but I only go when I can afford it, and I still need counseling which I haven't received. I wake up every morning in panic attacks, I throw up atleast 3 times a week, I never get a full nights rest and I can't nap during the day. I need my boyfriend to constantly hold me, and I feel terrible about that when he is trying to sleep because he barely sleeps as it is, because of his injury he is always in pain. Alot of things effect me from when I was abused, such as the time of morning I feel anxious now I believe to be around the same times in the mornings when I was abused. Smells from around the house can/have triggered flash backs and moments where I will break down into an anxiety attack. I struggle to have a normal sex life as I constantly have guilt and a feeling of "non-deserving" attatched to it. I was Christina Johnson in Taekwondo, I felt I was really someone in Taekwondo, and now my entire identity has been stripped from me and it's very confusing to understand the meaning of life when the only thing that mattered to me since I was 4 years old was this dream, and now it's gone. It was gone just like that.  I have tried to hold jobs but I'll either have to leave them or I get fired because of the anxiety attacks that were effecting my work and I would have to call out, leave early, or even something as simple as going to the bathroom to call my boyfriend to help me calm me down so I could continue with my simple 3 hour shift that I couldn't get through, would get me written up and yelled at infront of the restaurant - where I felt victimized again. Any job I tried to take on had a manager who made me feel that way, which caused the anxiety to rise even further. I can't leave the house for very long or leave my boyfriends side in public without being in constant anxiety. I can walk to the store and back, but anything that takes longer in public without his protection scares me. I do not trust anyone, I get hit on in public and it just disgusts me and makes me feel so incredibly uncomfortable. I don't like when men check me out, I don't like it when they try to talk to me. I can tell their motives from so far away now that I learned my boundaries with men, and understanding their intentions, which for the longest time I had no idea what boundaries even were. I didn't even know I could tell someone to stop poking me in the stomach when they were flirting with me and it made me uncomfortable, but I can stand up for myself now, I just find myself having to do that way too often in public if my boyfriends not next to me. It even happens when he's standing there, I see the looks I get and I live everyday in public very uncomfortable. This is a huge reason why I do not wear fitted clothes, and I'll wear multiple layers including basketball shorts and sweatpants, I do not like to show off my figure or put on makeup because it will just attract more eyes that I don't want on me. Attention for a girl is supposed to be healthy and nice at times, but I'm constantly feeling like I'm being attacked. What is harmless and normal to another average 24 year old who hasn't been through something of this nature, confuses me and I shouldn't even know what this sickening feeling from male attention feels like. I was always great friends with boys my age through grade school and through training, but now I feel like any other male interraction besides my boyfriend is odd and uncofortable. 

I am lucky to have my loving boyfriend, but his story is also complicated, I will breifly explain why he cannot work. When he met me and took me in when my life spiraled downhill 3 years ago, he was, and still is extremely injured with a back injury, he has multiple herniations and protrusions, spinal stenosis, painfull and ongoing nerve damage all the way down to his foot that fills his back, hip and left leg. He now has stress fractures in both shins and knee damage that is unkown without an MRI in his left knee because of the back injury getting worse over time, because without insurance, he has not been able to recieve the treatment or surgery that doctors told him he absolutely needs. He has been to the emergency room so many times, as per his lawyers instructions, they finally did an MRI 2 years ago on his back without insurance, and told them after that they wont see him anymore for his back injury. He was hurt working at a Church, and has been battling the workers comp case against the Church he worked for since before I met him 3 years ago. He was supposed to have setteled shorty after he met me, but the lawyers were wrong and they are still battling a settelment, because it is disputed, no one on any side will pay for anything untill the case is settled. The Church told him he was insured through them and now they are claiming he was an independent contractor. His lawyers, and the lawyer that he switched to, and his doctors all refused him to work. He is still battling for his disability to be approved after filing and appealing.

Any donations are appreciated, and will go to my healing process as of now. I need counseling and a more affordable and better doctor, if I can even afford higher bus, taxi, or ride transportation I could find a counselor to go to atleast once a month, in hopes I can afford the co pay. Once everything is in place with me where I can move forward, and with all of your help I believe it can move quickly, I will be petitioning and fighting for laws for the safety of Taekwondo and all children, to have not only my abusers removed, but others who are known abusers that also need to be banned. This sport along with all other sports, need a better athlete protection program. In Taekwondo there are known rapists and child molestors who walk around competitions and train minor female athletes, who subject them to sexual abuse constantly, and they need to be taken out of the sport and away from young girls.

Please help me recover from everything I have been through in any way you can. If you cannot donate, please share my story on Facebook to your friends, and request that they also share the story with their friends.

Here is the story:

The picture of me in the red shirt is my school picture at age 15. I was an Olympic Level Athlete, with a very high success level and Olympic Dreams that were crushed by these men. Unfortunately the National Organization has not yet banned any of these men, even after having a restraining order against the 3rd coach for stalking me, he still attends competitions - and around young girls. I am worried for everyone who will be involved with these people.

I have so many goals and dreams that I need a voice for, but because of this situation, my family got torn apart to where I barely speak to my father and I haven't spoken to my mother (except for when she's suing me) in 2 years, and the only person who could save me was my amazing boyfriend of almost 3 years now, and was and still is very injured - he did not have anywhere near the means to take me in, but took me in anyway and loved/loves me like no other. He now eats less so I can eat, he has gone without medication so we could afford mine, he works with me with my sexual issues with the gentlest of respect and patience. I will confide in you about something here that is very personal and hard to talk about, but I want the world to know how Sexual Abuse effects a persons life. (especially as a minor who is so naïve, vulnerable, and easily influenced by the abusers/authoritative figures who pray on us)

For about a year or so after the restraining order and Crisis Center visits, my life spiraled into something that I never thought I would experience. I was taking terrible jobs and putting myself into negative situations thinking I was perfectly fine to move on with life, and handle whatever came my way. But I was in for a rude awakening realizing how I was set out to hurt myself, and I didn't know why.

One of the hardest things I am trying to overcome now/and have been for 3 years now (this is very personal and hard to talk about - but it needs to be known) is learning how to Orgasm with any sexual stimulation - I never have before with another person. Because of the patience, trust, and concern from my boyfriend we have worked toward my recent success in orgasming with outside stimulation, but I still have yet to experience even just 1 orgasm through intercourse. This is so hard for me to not be able to experience a pleasure that should make me feel good about myself, instead there is guilt and a lot of confusion associated with it, I will enjoy it but then the act of feeling good sexually, just ends up in nausea. I can't tell you how many times I have cried in my boyfriends arms after something sexual, for a negative or positive reason. It also hurts me deeply to know I am unable to share that pleasure with the one I love - even though he is more than understanding, patient, and supportive, there are no words for him, and without having met him, I cannot say for sure that I would be here right now. Why do I think I can't orgasm with intercourse? I am still working out all of my issues behind this to overcome it, but I know that no one cared before to even teach me how to be pleased, I was picked up, used and spit out for personal sexual gain, and thought that was supposed to be love. But I am very close to breaking through this problem with the love and trust of my boyfriend. I am finally experiencing, beginnings or signs of an orgasm with intercourse, which is only coming down to the forgiveness of myself and realizing I am allowed and deserve to experience the wonderful joy of normal healthy sex without motives by the other partner.

At 14/15, I was just gaining my bearings in my sport when I was involved with the situation of the first coach who abused me - from my second school in the sport, not only did he "cheat" on me, he let me know it when he did, and I later on found out not only did he "cheat" on me with his fiancé, or should I truly say cheat on his fiancé with me, he had sex with his student/coach ex girlfriend, and other younger students, and parents of the kids at our school. He bloodied my nose and beat me against the wall in practice - He was a 36 year old man who hid behind his awards to allow people to think he was good at his skill. He possessed skill but only that of a 36 year old man over a 14 year old girl. I thought love was allowing the man you care for to use you because you want him to be happy and care for you, and to get what he wants, because getting what he wants makes him happy, in a manipulative state - that is your only goal. But he just used me for his own satisfaction and I didn't even have a full sex drive yet, actually, I had never even experimented with myself by this time, my first sexual experience EVER was with this man, and I wasn't even treated well at the least (except my first kiss at 12/13 which I am thankful I was able to grasp under my control before he took that from me too) - but at the time I thought I was special and thought the way I was talked to and treated was just normal, until I experienced love as it truly is with my boyfriend now. I actually later found out and realized he was constantly on drugs and withdrawing and drunk and hung over, constantly missing practices, he used to withdraw and be hung over right in front of me at his house. I was around a drug addict using drugs and didn't even know it.

A few months after the transfer to a different school, I started being molested and touched by the coach there. Mainly inappropriate touching and flirting on his part would occur, pressing up against me with himself in areas, providing lotion on bare skin massages where he would penetrate me with his finger and feel my entire bare breasts. I cannot speak for the others as far as exactly what they experienced, but I cannot imagine it being much different from what he did to me. I won't get too into detail about this situation as of yet, but I was not alone and many others have gone through the same types of things with the same person when I was there. None of us knew what to do. After leaving that school, I had to see this person again at a competition, and the 3rd coach who was supposed to be protecting me, easily went over to him and talked to him like they were besties, and he continued to speak with him on the phone until I expressed extreme distraught and anxiety over it.

The trust my boyfriend has had to fight so hard for from me and the things he has put himself through to just get me healthy, is because of the amount of times and different ways I was hurt and used by the men I trusted and at such an influencial age. Anyone who competes with a coach - I know you can understand how trusting you need to be and you basically give your life and soul to the sport and your coaches trust, because they teach you and guide you and help you become so incredibly successful, so why wouldn't you trust them with your lifes dream at 15? Which in my situation wrecked my life in trusting all of these men, because they turned the trust in my professional adoration into something sexual.

I am unable to work a normal job because of my PTSD and extreme Anxiety, so I do my best working online with my boyfriend, because my life went so far off track from being an Olympic Hopeful, to almost homeless when my family split from this, resulting to the loss of our house. My grandmother tried to keep it for both of us when my parents left (we all lived together,) but she could no longer afford it.

I also have yet to have a full nights sleep without waking up in panic/anxiety, and many nights (weekly) I throw up from it, in years.

I want to start living normal again, I want to have a normal sex life, I want to grow and become stronger and have higher self esteem.This fundraiser is to help me get into a living situation and back on my feet so I can continue with my voice to be heard and do the best I can help prevent sexual abuse and provide care to sexually abused minors. I once had an Olympic Dream, but It's not just a gold medal for me anymore, it's winning along with all of the other girls and boys out there who need to overcome what I have - that is my Real Dream.

MY GOALS AND DREAMS
-I want to change the laws and athlete protection programs in my sport (and other sports as best as I can)
-I will be writing/having someone write a book on the full true story of my life (not based on - fully true)
-I want to have a place for abused minors to run to when they need to talk
-I want parents to be more informed so they are more aware of the safety of their children with trusting the wrong people

Personal Life Goals:
-I want to marry my boyfriend
-I want to own a house with a backyard and a pool
-I want my cat and Granny to come with, and add 3 dogs
-I want a telescope so I can sky watch
-I want to meet Bono
 
My boyfriend and lost our apartment, 2 years ago
because we couldn't afford it and we have been homeless ever since, except for the charity given to us by loving friends to allow us a place to stay for free. It's very hard as 2 adults to feel even a shred of independence when we can't afford to take care of ourselves, let alone help out the people we live with. It feels much like I would imagine it would feel if we had to move back home with our parents (which also were not an option.)

I don't want to sound like I am ungrateful for the gift of the
place we have been given to live, and by the caring people who have given it to us, but it kind of falls under still not being able to take full control of my own life and appreciating the smallest kindness even as bad as it is, the same way a battered woman appreciates a day off from a beating.

The hardest part about living in a lifestyle where I can have no bearing or no say is that fact that I cannot always see through to the light at the end of the tunnel, I feel like we are never going to have a place of our own, and I am never going to be able to stand up for what I believe in.

But of course, we are keeping tabs of the original rental agreement we had and we will be paying them every dime because they deserve it and it's the right thing to do.

I want to start living normal again, I want to have a normal sex
life, I want to grow and become stronger and have higher self esteem. I need to get back on my feet so I can continue with my voice to be heard and do the best I can help prevent sexual abuse and provide care to sexually abused minors. I once had an Olympic Dream, but It's not just a gold medal for me anymore, it's winning along with all of the other girls and boys out there who need to overcome what I have - that is my Real Dream.

I haven't mentioned, I have been without my heart and soul "“ my kitty, Numba - (he is a beautiful F4 Bengal) for 3 years because he is unable to live with us. He was my support, best friend, and comfort when I was dealing with the restraining order and crisis centers, and family issues. Although I am very grateful that he is staying safe with my father and I believe in my heart that we will be reunited very soon with some help. Another unmentioned amazing person who I truly miss every day because I cannot travel to see her nor her to see me, is my True Mother, Guardian, Best Friend, who has been my ultimate protector through childhood into adulthood My Granny. She is the reason we eat.

But often it seems like there is just too much darkness and no available help to get me into a living situation where I can be calm and healthy and have the proper head I need on my shoulders to be strong enough to continue with this dream of helping sexually abused minors. I can't help people to the best of my ability if I am in darkness myself, which I am fighting very hard against because I realize I do have things in life that are worth living for, my Granny, my Boyfriend, and my cat that love me. So with the support of them and a few other relatives who are there to talk if I need, I am able to stay strong enough to keep my head up and continue on this journey that has only just begun.

I would like to thank you for reading my story and thank you in advance for any donation you make - even a kind word is still a donation. Wisdom from my loving Grandmother, my motto, and ironically enough my boyfriends motto before we even met, which we all 3 have tattooed on ourselves "Believe"

Written Personally by Christina Johnson.

If you are unable to donate and still want to help, you can spread the word! Please take a second to share my story on facebook or any other ways you can.

You can like my page at facebook.com/christinasstory