SHare YOur STory 14

This is a part of the SHare YOur STory series. I recieve e mails from individuals that have been affected in some way by abuse. They share their stories , hoping that they can help somebody or prevent the same thing from happening to your child

.....never in my wildest dreams, i cant believe i am writing this, oh well here it goes.my mum is a single parent back home in naija, and i grew up in ibadan, but my dad's rich family finally pressured my mum to allow my sister and i to spend our holidays in Lagos with my dad.it was kinda cool,i finally get to meet my dad and have a relationship with him.i was ecstatic!.i have a daddy now, later that day, he said i should come and sleep in his bed, that he wants to get to know me better, i was excited, finally my dad wants to talk to me.........i was in the land of dreams, dreaming about how i have a dad, and we are goin to do cool things together, and i would be proud to show him off to my friends in skool and all

....then i felt the fingers, going thru my underwear, felt the fingers, push my panties to the side, then it felt all cold inside of me. i refused to open my eyes, scared to death to look at the face behind the fingers, kept my mouth squeezed shut, i think i was 12yrs old. and finally, a couple of minutes later i felt the trust...it hurt sooooooooooo bad. i wanted to cry. i couldnt scream, who would believe me. my step mum was on the other side of the bed. i am sure she felt the bed move...cuz i could feel her legs twitching, she did not look back.i dozed off, i woke up and ran to the bathroom, my pee hurt so much, i had to clench my inner thigh muscles to hold my pee, the pain was excruciating. i pondered what just happened. i did not even know about sex yet.this continued for the whole holiday, my sister was envious and mad,i was sleeping in daddy's bed she wanted to come and sleep in the bed too.

i would have none of it. i did not want her to go thru the same thing, I wanted to protect her with my life. she is my only sister, i would never allow her to go thru that, i would sacrifice myself.then one night, i met my sister in the toilet, and was wondering why it took her so long to pee, typical me, i was shouting on her, and she started crying, that peeing hurts too much, it dawned on me, he was doing it to both of us.the next morning, i ran away to my grandmothers house , it was a 2 hour walk, but i could endure i have gone thru worse.

my mum finally came to pick us up, and was taking us right back to my dad's house, i couldn’t believe it. she drove us up right back to the house, and demanded we get out of the car, and stop acting like spoiled brats, i started crying all i could say was he touched us, he touched us. Over and over again.my mum said i was lying, my sister refused to remember anything, she had blocked it all out, there was no one to support me, but i kept on shouting he touched me he touched me....my mum's face changed, i think she realized what happened , but our naija culture is so double sided. all she said was "it is enough, you wont remember this again, lets go get suya"and that was it, she drove us back home, never mentioned it again, and anytime my dads family rained abuses on her that she was hiding us, she would never say a word...but i always remembered, especially when i pee. i promised myself. Never again!

Fast forward I am 17ten now, just finished my SSCE , waiting for my jamb result, ready for the university, typical Lagos style there were so many unsupervised parties out there.i was at one party, my classmates older brother, said he wanted to talk to me, in his car, so i went...and i realized the dangers of central lock on a car. he locked all the doors and i was inside with him, he came at me. All eager and all...i flipped the script....i fought so hard, i scratched, screamed, punched him, tore his shirt, damaged the interior of his car....he was fucking scared. He open the door and said i should leave.i walked proudly back to the party, my hair all messed up, and told everyone that i just finished fighting off a rapist, nobody was proud of me, they all said i should keep quiet.

I was baffled. generally if you catch a thief, you talk about it, why then shouldn’t you talk about an attempted rape,.and i realized...in naija , "YOU NEVER TALK ABOUT A RAPE" , not even an attempted rape, that you fought back.i am very proud about this blog, that gives so many people the opportunity to express this repressed hurt, because it all part of the healing process, talking is always the beginning. i am so proud of you. Thank you...i am 26 now i am happy i have moved on from the hurt...funny thing is that anytime a guy tries to hold me down, or even pin my hands down during sex, my karate moves comes out, and i do my world renowned Jet Li kick, which usually throws the guy off the bed 99.95% of the time......hahahahah..lol.