There's nothing to fear but fear itself.

 As  i am sitting here typing this, listening to coldplay's "clocks"  I am so happy. i finally did it. I feel so happy!!
I am finally free!! This is just the begiining there's still momsie to tell but i am so elated right now!

i wanted to tell YOB alone, I didnt think I needed Deji's help here but Deji insisted  that he wanted to accompany me so I agreed . Deji was mainly worried aboout YOB temper. YOB has an extremely volatile temper. No one can calm him down when he is angry 

YOB had an inclination that something was wrong but he just didnt know exactly what. I really didnt know how to begin to tell him and Deji offered to tell him but ut was very important to me that I told him by myself. It was so hard with YOB, I dont know why . With Deji it was almost as easy as telling my friends but with YOB it was difficult to even begin. So I told him, I just said it simply and concisely as possible. And then I waited for his reaction. First it was disbelief, he kept telling me to repeat what I had said and kept asking " You said 11?" he just kep firing questions at me "Does anyone else know?" " yes, my boyfriend and close friends" I repled. Did you ever tell mommy? " No." Have i gone for therapy? Yes but I am okay now. How many times did he do it? Too many times to count.

Then came the wave of anger I feared. He shouted at deji , asked deji why he was so calm. I just kept trying to calm him down. he just kept shouting "I cant calm down , my poor sister, 11!" I felt horrible! I felt so horrible that I was causing my brother so much anguish and it wasn’t even my fault. Then he became irrational- he wanted to call S and tell him right from his phone. he wanted to call MY FATHER right from his phone! Deji had to wrestle the phone from his hands and practically scream at him and tell him to calm down. Deji said " This is not how to react your anger will not change anything." I agreed with Deji and told him his anger was upsetting me. he said he would try but he just kept pacing up and down the living room . he was so upset, that he couldn’t even drive himself home. Deji had to drive him home. But he wasn’t through being angry, he needed a punching bag and it was my poor friend omo naija who was his unlucky target.

She called me in tears and I couldn’t decipher what she was saying. I finally realized that YOB had called her in the temper that he was in and blasted her for not telling him about monster. He said really horrible and unspeakable things to the poor girl ! Now his irrational behavior had to stop. It would have been presumptuous of ON to tell him about monster. If she ever did such a thing I would have ended my friendship with her. I had to call him and then I gave him the tongue lashing of his life. he thankfully calmed down and he is still paying for messing up with omo naija. I hear that he has taken the girl on shopping sprees just to get back in her good graces. LMAO I understand his anger but I feel he took in to far by taking it out on a 21 year old girl ( yes ON you are stlll a baby )

Telling S was more difficult, you cant even imagine. It was terrifying. The day before we left I was shaking all over, I just had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I threw up multiple times. I knew I couldnt find the right words to say . Iknew i just couldnt tell him face to face. I called Deji and told him. He suggested that I write a letter. So I did. I wrote a long ass three page letter. I wrote and wrote and then wrote somemore. I cant post it because I am too lazy to start typing it. My brothers and I all got to S’s house around noon on Saturday . We all acted as if this was just another visit , we tried to resume a semblance of normalcy, we went out for lunch, joked that this was the first time since xmas that we had been together under the same roof. But I was dreading the moment I had to tel him everything. I handed him the letter before we all went to bed and he collected it with a quizzical expression on his face.

And then I lay on my bed and waited. I couldn’t sleep, I doubt YOB and Deji were sleeping. after about 30 mininutes, S came to the room I was in turned on the light and sat on my bed he asked “ Confused, what did you just give me?” I replied “ I didn’t know how to tell you, everything I wrote is true. YOB and Deji came into the room then because I guess they were not sleeping. Then came the emotions I have come to expect disbelief, realization then anger. S couldn’t even talk . I am the revelation was an unexpected surprise to him. deji did most of the talking. S the ever practical brother asked if we could still press charges in Nigeria. I answered No we cant, not in a country like Naija and not with Monster’s power. h ementioned that we atleast had to confront monster.he asked if I had gotten a medical examination or seen a therapist . no and yes,. He also said Monster would not be a part of the wedding or his life or he would kill him . My poor brother, life is so unfair. He just seemed so frustrated ,like he was reeling from a great shock. He was/ is just so shocked right now. I was concerned about the impending marriage and questioned him about that. He said he would have to have a serious discussion with MD, he just seemed so shaken.. I am blessed with wonderful brother . I expected him to question my story but not once did he question me. He never asked “ are you sure you didn’t imagine this ?” He took my word without questioning him. We talked for hours and hours in that room . The memory of that day will never leave me. S on the bed with me , YOB leaning against the wall and Deji sitting on the floor. I will never ever forget. I was so emotional and I began to cry. I balled like a baby. My brothers we all somewhat taken back by this because I just started crying in the middle of the conversation. And Deji , the one that understood me the most just came and held me. Weeping was a baptism for me, it was like I was letting go, each tear job was my salvation. I was crying for my lost childhood. I was crying because I had finally overcome. i was crying because I just felt like crying! I am quite sure they thought I was crazy because I was also laughing. I was laughing because I was simultaneously profoundly sad and happy. And the of the day, S suggested that we pray. That was really surprising because he has never been a strong Christian or a Christian at all. But we did and I think it brought us closer together. And I gained my freedom from a secret that held me captive for so long.

I never knew what it was to be truly free. Free from shame, lies, free from a debilitating fear. I once read somewhere that “ There is nothing to fear but fear itself. “ Fear crippled me, made be unable to move on with my life, made me immensely ashamed of my past.

I was so afraid that my family would call me a liar that i preferred to stay silent. At least that way , one of my greatest fears had no possibility of being realized. In some ways I was still under the psychological control of monster- I can still remember his intimidating voice telling me that no one would ever believe me. And why would they. the monster that came into my room or cornered me when i was alone was starkly different from the monster that my family saw. My brothers loved that bastard which makes the situation even more tragic. he was the "cool dad:" a foster father, someone who would act just like one of the guys with them. The bastard was/is a paragon of society, unbelievably good looking, charismatic. I mean who would have believed me.

But I did what I was afraid of last week . I faced my fears and I was triumphant. I faced what I have been running away from all my life. Secrecy thrives in the dark. By keeping “the secret secret” , it still has immense power over you. It controls your thoughts, emotions and actions. I have told my secret now, not under the viel of anonminity , but I faced each of my brothers and told them what happened to me. The burden has been lifed , monster has no more power over me .. the secret which inadvertedly linked me to has been broken. I am profoundly elated yet I cannot shake off a great sadness I feel . Maybe because I should never have been put in that situation anyway.

I tried to be as honest as possible, to write without editing my thoughts. But I am really unsure about exposing my family like this. Who knows who might be reading this? What if this information gets into the wrong hands? These are the questions that continue to plague my mind. But I have this feeling that my yet untold story might affect someone profoundly. I know so. Something keeps telling me I am speaking to a young child that is going through my nightmare presently . I don’t know what is true but I have this feeling that will not leave me.

I have changed. I have changed a lot. From my first emotionally fraughtDamaged Silent Bloggerpost to the culture of silence post . That day, something clicked for me. Its funny I have been searching for healing for so long and one day of self – reflection changed my paradigm. I just thought to myself , “hasn’t monster destroyed enough of my life?” “ why should I give him this part of my life to destroy?” So I just simply changed by paradigm on life. I like to think that my life changed on that day because of this blog . How many people can pin point exactly the day they changed their lives. I can….. .I decided o start blogging when I found out S was marrying MD, I mean I was like " How the FUCK could this happen, there has to be millions of other women in the states and he chose her!!! But i found the growth and maturity that i have been searching for my whole life in 3 and a half months of blogging. Life can be funny sometimes. Maybe because i had finally found my voice, I didnt have to keep all those volatile emotions within me anymore. I had my emotional outlet. i didnt have to cry alone, I was tired of crying alone. Therapy wasn’t working, I had experiences that put me off therapy. I mean at one point in my life, my friends were monitoring me closely because they feared I was suicidal. I was engulfed in depressing darkness. i was filled with rage. I was so angry . have you ever felt rage so palpable you are physically hurting. I felt it. No matter how much I tried i could never escape it. But no body knew the full extent of what I felt. You always had to smile and act as if you were not emotionally hurting. Everyone around me suffered, my friends, family and especially my boyfriend. The precariousness of my moods, my moods would swing form one extreme to another in a matter of minutes. I was in a constant state of apprehension, pain and frustration. it was always there, never leaving me. But they all stuck with me. everyone one of them and for that I am eternally grateful. To everyone who left an encouraging comment or prayed for me i am also grateful.

On June 22 i turn 24 . I will be one year older but it seems like I will become 10 years older. I have changed, I have changed , I have changed !!!and I love the person I have become. That angry and scared little girl is dead. But she will always be a part of me, so I can remember who far i have come. I am not perfect, I will never be perfect but at least now I am truly experiencing what it means to love yourself and emmerge from an experience that was holding me down . I cant change my past , I cant control my future but I sure as hell can control every living moment of now.