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
I am not hoping to garner a pity party for this story (I do not dwell on this a lot), but I hope that when you read to the end, you will have gained some insight into what signs to look out for in child abuse/molestation. I am also hoping that after reading this, you will see a different perspective from what other survivors have written.
I am your ‘relatively normal’ happy go lucky 27-year-old girl. I am the 1st girl, 2nd child in a family of 4 children (2 boys and 2 girls) and my parents are still together. Both my dad and mum are the 1st kids of their mothers so you know what this means in a typical naija setting … they were responsible for their siblings. We had many relatives living with us even before I was born. My mum was a high school teacher so she was supposed to be around… and be able to take care of the kids right….. wrong!!!!! Just like the others… I ve a very testy relationship with my mum bcos I cannot understand why what happened to me did.
Now to the koko (nitty gritty). My abuse started around 1985 (I was 4+). We lived in a fair sized duplex in one of the surburbs of Lagos… but all the kids - 4 of us shared one huge room with 2 double beds. My sister and I on one bed and my brothers on another. My uncles had a huge room to themselves (their numbers varied from 3 to 6) and my female cousin had a room to herself.
My 1st abuser… let’s call him Main Pedophile (MP) is my dad’s younger brother…. He is 13 years older than I am. My earliest memory that haunts me till date is him dragging me to a corner and using his dick to brush my teeth every morning before I do the normal brushing up. I knew what ‘cum’ looked like at a very early age and I knew how to give a good head and handjob by the time I was 8 (a bit of humor – all my ‘ex’s will testify to these skills.. ok it is not funny).
Many of the details are a little blurry… but I remember that he will have rubbed my ‘vajayjay’ (with his hand and dick) so hard that it hurt to pee. I cant remember him trying to penetrate me… but he touched me a lot. But he never threatened me with a knife or anything… I cant even recall him telling me to promise not to tell anyone. This abuse went on for 5+ years and I grew to enjoy the acts.… but I hated that it hurt when I peed and I could not walk properly sometimes… y’all will think my mother and the many aunties will notice – nope! My female cousin did and so did some cousins who used to spend the holidays at our house… but did anyone do anything about it?? No, which is why I am telling you about it.
The other flip side of having too many young blooded men living with you is that they have friends… and they have friends that do things. I remember a couple of orgies that took place right infront of me when I was about 7 or 8. MP’s brother would skip school, bring his classmates and their girlfriends to the house, make me and my siblings watch porn, then they would fuck in the house infront of us.. ofcourse I was a pawn in the game too (I still hate porn till date… does nothing for me). I knew too much about sex too early.
The abuse was not just in my house –the neighbors were in it too - Our house was part of a twin duplex and we had these neighbors who had a lot of males in their house (2 grown uncles, 3 lil boys and 1 lil girl). One of their uncles used to do nasty things to those young boys (he would make them stroke his long thing (yuck) and pluck the hairs on it) .. aged between 8 and12. These lil boys will lure me from my house and play touchy feely; all our games involved sex - one guy lying on top of me; cant remember penetration either; but it hurt to I pee, plus they had a househelp who like to suck my tiny breasts, and she will make me insert a key/ other objects in her vajayjay; talk about detailed anatomy lessons when u r 8
Then there was my cousin’s help too liked to suck and touch and I liked to suck and touch too. I also had this other neighbors who had a lot of girls in their house and we used to perform oral sex on each other… I must have been about 10 or 11. The abuse in my early years went on and on.. but I m sure by now you get the picture. even the mallam across the street tried to get some when I was like 11… but I was wise then and did not fall for it.
To the others who have been abused… do you believe that if you were abused as a child, you may become an abuser too? Between the ages of 13 and 16…. I found myself doing what had been done to me to some other young children. I used to touch my younger brother (to my deepest regret. I love him so much and hope he does not remember the few cursed attempts I made) and lil cousin (female) inappropriately and I would find myself aroused. I was so withdrawn at this period and those who knew me then could not figure it out cos I went from Sunny to Gloomy. I drew from an inner strength (God is good) and was able to break myself from this horrible disease.
Like CNG – I grew into a curvy body - I have 34D boobs, small small waist and a 44 inch ikebe on a 5 6’ frame. I curse my body sometimes and I try to tone down what I ve got by wearing decent clothes so that I do not attract too much attention.
I started having sex ‘officially’ when I was 17 (don’t know how I waited till that long because even my guardian’s son used to try his luck when I was in high school) … and my 1st partner told me I was lying to him about being a virgin because I did not bleed the 1st time. I should have dumped his crazy ass then because I let him abuse my body (had enough ‘love bites’ and sores in the 1yr of the loveless relationship). I was emotionally abused (low self esteem) and I actually thot I was frigid cos I cringed every time I had sex. I was too ashamed of my past and could not bring myself to tell anyone what had happened to me. In my 2nd yr of Uni… my roommates and I were discussing abused kids in Nigeria and 4 out of 5 of us had had a brush with pedophiles when we were kids. One of them knew a 50 yr old man who raped a 10yr old girl. I survived a couple of rape attempts in Uni – I know every knee-in-the-groin technique and invented a few new ones myself.
Some Effects of Abuse - Till date.. I ve never had an orgasm before through penetrative and oral sex….. I was always so dry until 5 years later (and 6 partners too) a special someone took time to break down all my barriers and taught me how enjoyable sex can be (thank u S). I also invested in a vibrator on my road to self-rediscovery and I feel that ‘the abuses’ have robbed me of one of the most enjoyable acts in the world. I still struggle with my sexuality… I find myself attracted to women (maybe the house help and neighbor episodes contributed to this), but it is a monster I choose not to feed.
I have told very few friends about the ‘curse’, but I will not discuss it with anyone in my family. I do not feel the need for revenge but I observe all my lil cousins closely to make sure no one is trying any nonsense with them. If you met me in person… you would never know I dealt with that kind of crap as a child and I will say I have grown to become my own person.
‘MP’ is still my family member and I think he prays that I do not remember what he did. I spend time at his house with him and his family. He has not attempted to touch me since I was 11 and I sure hope the hell that he did not lay a hand on my sister…. I tried protecting her back then but I do not want to remind her just incase he did touch her. She is happily married now. MP lived with us till 1999 when he got married (he has 2 beautiful boys who I adore)… I still don’t how I found the will power to break his perversion when I got into high school in ’91 but I knew it was wrong and I snapped … when he tried to touch me I just pushed away and told him that I would scream if he tried any funny business.
I bear no grudges in my heart towards him anymore because I have made my peace with it, but I am not having any relatives or domestic staff living in my house with my family. I have also promised that I will involve myself in every aspect of my children’s lives (Insha Allah) but I will tell whoever I marry about what happened to me because it will go a long way in helping him understand what makes me who I am today.
Please watch your wards, teach them the meaning of inappropriate touching, and show them all the love.
This is my story – it’s a long read but I hope it impacts everyone of you in some way.
Peace… LB
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Jude Dibia's Unbridled
Hello,
My name is Jude Dibia and I am a writer in Nigeria. A friend of mine pointed me to your blog after he read my new novel 'Unbridled', a book that tackles family constructed abuse (sexual and otherwise), spousal abuse and women issues in our society.
I think you are doing a great job enlightening people of this wrong in our society... I was doing the same in my book. I hope you can send me your mailing address so I can send you a copy of the book. I have pasted below an excrept that maybe shared on your blog.
Warm regards,
Jude Dibia
***
Memories.
It's amazing what sensations we retain in our hearts and in our heads; it is also amazing how we recollect them. As far back as I could remember my memories had always been clouded with shame, sadness and denial.
One of my earliest memories was my mother plaiting my hair methodically, double strands woven together, under the embracing shadow of the guava tree in our village-home. Ezi was a village in every sense, tucked away in the down southern region of Bendel State, in the beautiful Igbo-speaking part of my childhood land. I still recall the red earth that reliably left its orange stains under my bare feet whenever I chose to play outside, the profusion of trees, the numerous farms, and the long treks to a cool stream to fetch water. Most of the villagers lived in identical mud houses, only a few affluent families possessing cement houses with tin roofs. And of course I remember the missionary school where I learnt all that a child needed to learn. Or so I believed once upon a time.
My mother used to love plaiting my hair because it was naturally long, unlike hers or anyone else in our family. She used to tell me that I was different. I was special, she would whisper into my ears as she plaited my hair.
"No one is as fair as you in this family," she used to say lovingly. "You can see that we are all very dark—I, your father even your brother and sister."
"Why am I different?" I would ask.
She would sigh quietly and then proceed to tell me about the heavy rain that fell the night I was born. By the time I was twelve years old, I must have heard that story over a hundred times. I never knew how much of it I believed, but she always told it with such conviction in her.
"It was a unique rain and no one had expected its ferocity, not even the village rainmakers who had all been worried about the absence of the rains and the devastating effects it was having on agriculture." she used to say while she plaited my hair.
"What is agriculture?" I would ask and she would shush me, telling me it was the farms and all the things that grew on them, like papa's cassava and yam farm.
She would go on to explain that it had been a trying period for the villagers and many had begun to worry that the land was cursed. And so that fateful night when traces of the coming rain could be smelt in the air, there had been some sort of euphoric fervour that swept across the village. This was short lived however, for as soon as the skies opened up and the first wave of the treacherous rain came lashing down, all things fell apart.
I have been told that some lives were lost that day in the flood as well as property, farm animals and hope. Till the day I left Ezi, Nne Achili still mourned her missing five-year old, Amadi, who hadn't been seen since that fateful night. Like many other children of his age, Amadi had run outside in anticipation of dancing in the rain. That was the last anyone ever heard of him. He was not the only child reported missing after the flooding, but Nne Achili always stood out in my mind because she had lived close to my father's house and I had endured a childhood of scorn from the bitter old woman, who always glared at me with an evil eye and rolled her hands over her head and snapped her fingers at me in a curse whenever I passed by.
I had also learnt that I was the only child that was born that fateful night in the entire village. This had been the reason why many believed that my birth was in a way tied to that rain. The village elders had all come to that conclusion and when my father had been summoned to their midst, they had warmed him to be careful of that daughter of his. "The gods must have been angry when she was conceived, hence the catastrophic rain," they had warned him.
I used to go to bed at night feeling guilty. I would hear the voices of the missing children screaming for help in my head and I would also hear the bleating, mooing, clucking and braying of the lost animals. I had many nightmares as a child.
It was my mother who had named me Ngozi. Technically it should have meant "Blessing" or more appropriately "God's blessing". But what that name had always meant to me was simply "God's blight."
Memories could be such lethal things.
Then there was the day my life took a drastic turn. The morning started off like many other mornings with mother waking Nnamdi, Ofunne and I for what would be several trips to the stream to fetch water. The night before I had hid some dried pepper underneath my pillow and when I heard mother shaking Nnamdi awake, I quickly retrieved the pepper and chewed a few. I knew the immediate effect would be to make my body temperature hot—someone in school had told me about this and how she used it to fool her grandmother all the time to avoid doing chores.
It worked for me for as soon as mother tried to rouse me from sleep, I complained that I was feeling sick and she was a little alarmed at how warm my body was. She allowed me go back to sleep but not before she informed me that she would be rushing off that morning to the next village, Ìsse'luku, to assist her younger sister who was to be wed the next day. I was still awake when she finally left. Elder Chibike came for her with his noisy patched up Peugeot pick-up truck, which unfortunately was the only cross-village transport service available to us. It coughed its way in and then out of our compound in a cloud of grey smoke. If that wasn't enough, I had to endure the very loud greeting between my father and elder Chibike who never failed to brag about how he was one of the very few noble ones to own a "motto". I had never liked him. He drank too much, smelt badly of putrid saliva and always seemed to be scratching his crotch area. He reminded me of my father and I hated that too.
Not long after mother departed, I was about to drift off again, with the hope of catching at least one more hour of sleep before it was time to rush off to the missionary school. Though my eyes were squeezed shut, I could not still sleep. I felt I was being watched; I could sense an eerie presence that felt like an invincible weight on me. My inner spirit stirred; disturbed. I opened my eyes and immediately noticed my father by the doorway, staring at me. His eyes were like I had never seen them before. They looked hungry. Not hungry for food, hungry for something else. There was a raw animal longing in the depth of his eyes that scared me and I quickly noticed that his loincloth stood unnaturally at attention. Was that a staff he hid beneath his cloth? I dared not ask. I sat up abruptly when he entered the room but he said nothing, just kept staring at me like I was some ripe fruit or scrumptious meal waiting to be devoured.
"Papa," I called out. "Papa can I help you with anything?"
In what seemed to be a drugged voice, my father barked: "Mecha onu I—Shut your mouth. I'm not your father. You are a spirit child. You are not my daughter."
His tone scared me. His words carried no meaning to me. There was a claustrophobic sense of violence that seemed to hang around the little room and I was aware that there was nowhere to run to.
"You cannot be my daughter," my father kept saying. "No one in my family is light like you are. No one is yellow in my family neither is anyone in your mother's. We are all black… You are yellow."
"Papa, what do you want?" I asked as I made an attempt to rise and escape from him.
I was too late. He pounced on me and before I knew it, he had ripped off my wrapper and pinned me to the raffia mat on the floor. I screamed once. It was loud. It was piercing. It was animal. It was terror. He shoved one of his hands into my mouth to suppress my scream and I bit hard, drawing blood, which tasted salty and metallic. He withdrew his bleeding hand and hit me several times across the face until I stopped screaming and was reduced to subdued subs.
I didn't know what was happening. All my senses were filled with the acrid stench of my unwashed father and the heat emanating from him. I was also aware of my nakedness and of his rough hands on my young forming breast mounds and the roving thick finger that played rudely with the opening of my womanhood. Was this the same man, who when I was younger would carry me on his laps and play with my fingers? His thick black fingers that tickled me once now violated me.
He muttered something as he took one nipple in his mouth and sucked hungrily.
"Papa no… Papa… Noooo!" I cried.
The tears ran freely down my cheeks as I went into some kind of shock. Momentarily it felt like I had somehow floated out of my body and was watching this terrible thing happen to a person that was once me. He suckled my breasts, biting hard on the nipples before discarding his wrapper and roguishly parting my tiny legs, stinging his way inside me. The pain tore into me, taking me to that far away place that seemed better than death. All I could see were the cracks on the roof with the big cobwebs and red mud cocoons made by black wasps with the unusual maroon markings. I felt my father fully inside me and the pain brought visions of one particular wasp that always made its way into my room through the opened window. It was some sort of evil spirit, I believed. A wicked spirit that stole the souls of children when they played outside and hurriedly imprisoned them in the cocoons it built in the various corners of my room. I was always scared of this wasp. I felt another sharp, deep pain and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying hard not to scream. I had kept my eyes open an entire night before when that wasp had buzzed its way round and round my room with no hint of going away. I had been afraid. I had cried loudly and had begged my brother to chase the wasp away but he had laughed at me. Thus I had kept my eyes wide awake that night, crouching underneath my cover cloth and sneaking peeks through the little hole I created for my eyes. Through this hole I watched the wasp to make sure it made no attempt to come close enough to sting me through my sleeping cloth or steal my soul.
"Ku ni!" Get up. He ordered.
It seemed like no time had passed after all and at the same time it felt like an entire lifetime had washed itself over me while my body was defiled. It was over like it never happened and the only memento of the deed was the faint trace of blood that matted my pubic area and the obvious signs of struggle on the mat. I lay still while he walked away after tossing my stained cover cloth on my roughened frame.
My name is Jude Dibia and I am a writer in Nigeria. A friend of mine pointed me to your blog after he read my new novel 'Unbridled', a book that tackles family constructed abuse (sexual and otherwise), spousal abuse and women issues in our society.
I think you are doing a great job enlightening people of this wrong in our society... I was doing the same in my book. I hope you can send me your mailing address so I can send you a copy of the book. I have pasted below an excrept that maybe shared on your blog.
Warm regards,
Jude Dibia
***
Memories.
It's amazing what sensations we retain in our hearts and in our heads; it is also amazing how we recollect them. As far back as I could remember my memories had always been clouded with shame, sadness and denial.
One of my earliest memories was my mother plaiting my hair methodically, double strands woven together, under the embracing shadow of the guava tree in our village-home. Ezi was a village in every sense, tucked away in the down southern region of Bendel State, in the beautiful Igbo-speaking part of my childhood land. I still recall the red earth that reliably left its orange stains under my bare feet whenever I chose to play outside, the profusion of trees, the numerous farms, and the long treks to a cool stream to fetch water. Most of the villagers lived in identical mud houses, only a few affluent families possessing cement houses with tin roofs. And of course I remember the missionary school where I learnt all that a child needed to learn. Or so I believed once upon a time.
My mother used to love plaiting my hair because it was naturally long, unlike hers or anyone else in our family. She used to tell me that I was different. I was special, she would whisper into my ears as she plaited my hair.
"No one is as fair as you in this family," she used to say lovingly. "You can see that we are all very dark—I, your father even your brother and sister."
"Why am I different?" I would ask.
She would sigh quietly and then proceed to tell me about the heavy rain that fell the night I was born. By the time I was twelve years old, I must have heard that story over a hundred times. I never knew how much of it I believed, but she always told it with such conviction in her.
"It was a unique rain and no one had expected its ferocity, not even the village rainmakers who had all been worried about the absence of the rains and the devastating effects it was having on agriculture." she used to say while she plaited my hair.
"What is agriculture?" I would ask and she would shush me, telling me it was the farms and all the things that grew on them, like papa's cassava and yam farm.
She would go on to explain that it had been a trying period for the villagers and many had begun to worry that the land was cursed. And so that fateful night when traces of the coming rain could be smelt in the air, there had been some sort of euphoric fervour that swept across the village. This was short lived however, for as soon as the skies opened up and the first wave of the treacherous rain came lashing down, all things fell apart.
I have been told that some lives were lost that day in the flood as well as property, farm animals and hope. Till the day I left Ezi, Nne Achili still mourned her missing five-year old, Amadi, who hadn't been seen since that fateful night. Like many other children of his age, Amadi had run outside in anticipation of dancing in the rain. That was the last anyone ever heard of him. He was not the only child reported missing after the flooding, but Nne Achili always stood out in my mind because she had lived close to my father's house and I had endured a childhood of scorn from the bitter old woman, who always glared at me with an evil eye and rolled her hands over her head and snapped her fingers at me in a curse whenever I passed by.
I had also learnt that I was the only child that was born that fateful night in the entire village. This had been the reason why many believed that my birth was in a way tied to that rain. The village elders had all come to that conclusion and when my father had been summoned to their midst, they had warmed him to be careful of that daughter of his. "The gods must have been angry when she was conceived, hence the catastrophic rain," they had warned him.
I used to go to bed at night feeling guilty. I would hear the voices of the missing children screaming for help in my head and I would also hear the bleating, mooing, clucking and braying of the lost animals. I had many nightmares as a child.
It was my mother who had named me Ngozi. Technically it should have meant "Blessing" or more appropriately "God's blessing". But what that name had always meant to me was simply "God's blight."
Memories could be such lethal things.
Then there was the day my life took a drastic turn. The morning started off like many other mornings with mother waking Nnamdi, Ofunne and I for what would be several trips to the stream to fetch water. The night before I had hid some dried pepper underneath my pillow and when I heard mother shaking Nnamdi awake, I quickly retrieved the pepper and chewed a few. I knew the immediate effect would be to make my body temperature hot—someone in school had told me about this and how she used it to fool her grandmother all the time to avoid doing chores.
It worked for me for as soon as mother tried to rouse me from sleep, I complained that I was feeling sick and she was a little alarmed at how warm my body was. She allowed me go back to sleep but not before she informed me that she would be rushing off that morning to the next village, Ìsse'luku, to assist her younger sister who was to be wed the next day. I was still awake when she finally left. Elder Chibike came for her with his noisy patched up Peugeot pick-up truck, which unfortunately was the only cross-village transport service available to us. It coughed its way in and then out of our compound in a cloud of grey smoke. If that wasn't enough, I had to endure the very loud greeting between my father and elder Chibike who never failed to brag about how he was one of the very few noble ones to own a "motto". I had never liked him. He drank too much, smelt badly of putrid saliva and always seemed to be scratching his crotch area. He reminded me of my father and I hated that too.
Not long after mother departed, I was about to drift off again, with the hope of catching at least one more hour of sleep before it was time to rush off to the missionary school. Though my eyes were squeezed shut, I could not still sleep. I felt I was being watched; I could sense an eerie presence that felt like an invincible weight on me. My inner spirit stirred; disturbed. I opened my eyes and immediately noticed my father by the doorway, staring at me. His eyes were like I had never seen them before. They looked hungry. Not hungry for food, hungry for something else. There was a raw animal longing in the depth of his eyes that scared me and I quickly noticed that his loincloth stood unnaturally at attention. Was that a staff he hid beneath his cloth? I dared not ask. I sat up abruptly when he entered the room but he said nothing, just kept staring at me like I was some ripe fruit or scrumptious meal waiting to be devoured.
"Papa," I called out. "Papa can I help you with anything?"
In what seemed to be a drugged voice, my father barked: "Mecha onu I—Shut your mouth. I'm not your father. You are a spirit child. You are not my daughter."
His tone scared me. His words carried no meaning to me. There was a claustrophobic sense of violence that seemed to hang around the little room and I was aware that there was nowhere to run to.
"You cannot be my daughter," my father kept saying. "No one in my family is light like you are. No one is yellow in my family neither is anyone in your mother's. We are all black… You are yellow."
"Papa, what do you want?" I asked as I made an attempt to rise and escape from him.
I was too late. He pounced on me and before I knew it, he had ripped off my wrapper and pinned me to the raffia mat on the floor. I screamed once. It was loud. It was piercing. It was animal. It was terror. He shoved one of his hands into my mouth to suppress my scream and I bit hard, drawing blood, which tasted salty and metallic. He withdrew his bleeding hand and hit me several times across the face until I stopped screaming and was reduced to subdued subs.
I didn't know what was happening. All my senses were filled with the acrid stench of my unwashed father and the heat emanating from him. I was also aware of my nakedness and of his rough hands on my young forming breast mounds and the roving thick finger that played rudely with the opening of my womanhood. Was this the same man, who when I was younger would carry me on his laps and play with my fingers? His thick black fingers that tickled me once now violated me.
He muttered something as he took one nipple in his mouth and sucked hungrily.
"Papa no… Papa… Noooo!" I cried.
The tears ran freely down my cheeks as I went into some kind of shock. Momentarily it felt like I had somehow floated out of my body and was watching this terrible thing happen to a person that was once me. He suckled my breasts, biting hard on the nipples before discarding his wrapper and roguishly parting my tiny legs, stinging his way inside me. The pain tore into me, taking me to that far away place that seemed better than death. All I could see were the cracks on the roof with the big cobwebs and red mud cocoons made by black wasps with the unusual maroon markings. I felt my father fully inside me and the pain brought visions of one particular wasp that always made its way into my room through the opened window. It was some sort of evil spirit, I believed. A wicked spirit that stole the souls of children when they played outside and hurriedly imprisoned them in the cocoons it built in the various corners of my room. I was always scared of this wasp. I felt another sharp, deep pain and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying hard not to scream. I had kept my eyes open an entire night before when that wasp had buzzed its way round and round my room with no hint of going away. I had been afraid. I had cried loudly and had begged my brother to chase the wasp away but he had laughed at me. Thus I had kept my eyes wide awake that night, crouching underneath my cover cloth and sneaking peeks through the little hole I created for my eyes. Through this hole I watched the wasp to make sure it made no attempt to come close enough to sting me through my sleeping cloth or steal my soul.
"Ku ni!" Get up. He ordered.
It seemed like no time had passed after all and at the same time it felt like an entire lifetime had washed itself over me while my body was defiled. It was over like it never happened and the only memento of the deed was the faint trace of blood that matted my pubic area and the obvious signs of struggle on the mat. I lay still while he walked away after tossing my stained cover cloth on my roughened frame.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
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.
.....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.
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