Finding Myself-A Journey To Self-Love,Self Respect & Forgiveness.

My entire childhood up to my young adult years were lived with the belief that I was nothing, deserved nothing, had no personality.Suffice to say my mental and emotional health were in tatters. I believed I had to be extremely accommodating of all sorts of nonsense, including, especially verbal and physical abuse to deserve anybody’s love; it was all I knew. I didn’t like myself very much, didn’t value myself at all, and I hated mirrors. My belief of myself was that I was a special kind of ugly, as told by my mother and siblings, and I believed with all my heart. I had no self-worth but what did I know?

WHERE DOES SELF RESPECT GO WHEN IT GOES INTO A COMA?

The road to self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-respect and self-value has been a long, long, winding, treacherous one. The missed turns have been many, and the speeding tickets, numerous and frustrating. The bumps have been painful and humiliating; cuts and bruises, rampant. Bones broke, skull fractured, joints dislocated. A busted lip, a broken nose, broken teeth; pain. Silent pain.

Collapsed lungs, a fatal lack of oxygen, self-acceptance and all her companions went into a deep, deep, dark , dangerous coma; persistent vegetative state.

Scars, a constant reminder of my many injuries, they will never go away and I have to learn everyday to deal with those scars and the reminders they carry with them. I need to learn to rise above the emotions they stir in me because I am determined to be better in-spite of and because of. That is why I work everyday to be better and take control of my mental state because, this this girl is on fire, and she has no time to be anybody or anything’s victim. From the ashes she is risen!

Then came the emotional disconnect. Maybe it was my coping mechanism, or it may havebeen a manifestation of weakness, but I was a child, and what is a child to do? Someone needed to supply the oxygen, rather, I was given their version of the truth instead, “you ain’t shit!” What self respect?

One of my brothers once told my mother, “I told my classmates she isn’t my sister, she is our maid.” In response, she laughed heartily, “ I don’t blame you she said, just look at her.”

I am no stranger to bullying, the difference however is, my bullies were not the children on the school playground, but rather, my immediate family, the very persons supposed to have protected me from bullies and shown me my worth and value.

FORGETFULLY AND WANTONLY MADE

They said, “your cheeks are too big, it has taken over your face. Your cheeks are like a loaf of bread in a basin of water. Your lips could break a scale, like many kilos of beef. your sunken eyes are fighting with your cheeks for space, very soon you can’t see. God must have given you someone else’s leftover ears, they are too small. Your hair is too kinky, like the droppings of a goat.You are fat, your legs are small, you look more like a boy than a girl. Why didn’t God just make you a boy? Pray you might just be lucky, someone might marry you, if you pray hard enough.”

When I dared get angry and frown, they said, “stop it this minute, you’ll scare the domestic animals away.” And when I dared talk back, I was shut up immediately with much more intense verbal assault or physical abuse. “Slap her. Slap her hard.”

That is how I learned to keep quiet; if it confused me, I kept quiet. When it scared me, I kept quiet. And so when the Black Spider with long fingers came prodding and seeking, saying “I’m your friend,” both scared and confused, I zipped it.

And when I laughed, they asked, “who are you showing your ugly teeth to?”

They said, “your finger and toe nails are beautiful, at least God gave you that.”

WHO STOLE YOUR VOICE, DEAR CHILD?

They were the voice(s) of authority in my little life. I believed their every word. It shaped my very existence, my belief about myself and my behavior. I was left feeling not so good about myself  and yet I masked it with bravado, fits of anger and sometimes nonchalance. My only escape was to stick my nose in a good book.

“I want to be a journalist in future”, I declared once.

READ ALSO: My Mama’s Daughter

“Who are you going to show your ugly face to on television? Better stick to your plan of becoming a doctor. Sick people have no time to scrutinize you looks, their respect for you will cover all of your ugly.” I never again mentioned journalism.

“Is this the day I die?” A daily question that would plague my entire teenage years. That cold penetrating voice would accompany me for many, many years. It was exhausting, and lonely; I didn’t have the nerve to tell anyone, I silenced myself as usual. That was one more label I wasn’t ready to carry. I lost my interest in many things. I just lost it, and I took to squishing innocent insects that lived in tiny holes in the walls of our home. Squishing insects was one label I couldn’t help carrying, I just had to do it; it was my new happy place.

A HEADLESS CHICKEN WITH NO SELF-RESPECT

Teenage years were the worst. I had such a need for approval, I went where I thought I’d find it. In high school I joined a group of Christian students, we prayed and prayed and forgot to learn; I couldn’t care less, I had no desire to be a doctor. I hated my major and yet I didn’t know or trust I could speak to anyone in my life about it. Could i tell my Dad, would he understand? Would my Mom listen or does she still think studying science was my only way out in life? When I confided in my cousin and close confidant, she echoed my sentiments and advised I suck it up and keep it pushing.

I hated my majors, I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I borrowed literature books from English students and read them cover to cover, I even completed their assignments for free. I self-sabotaged, went from an A, B student to E, F. Maybe I could have tried harder, sucked it up and done better, but I was too embroiled in self pity to give a shit. The voice(s) of authority were pissed. I was nonchalant; self-sabotaging. After all “I didn’t intend to be here much longer than I needed to. “Is this the day I die?

WHERE DID MY BEAUTIFUL GO?

Seeking the validation I didn’t get from the womb that birthed me, relationships became an emotional crutch on which I leaned heavily. Relationship after useless relationship came and went. I needed approval, anywhere I could get it. An arrest, a police cell, a court room, an acquittal and discharge, self-acceptance remained in a vegetative state.

Read Also: The Complete Recommended Internet Safety Solution For Families

More trouble, more missteps, an idiot for a boyfriend here, a lost boy for a boyfriend there. Useless loyalty, fruitless friendships; I wallowed in my silent pain. One boy once said to me, “you know you’re not a beauty”, I smiled in response and continued to see him.

A few friend were true, I loved them but they would never know my misery, heck I didn’t know I was miserable, I was addicted to the struggle, to me it was life as usual; normalcy.

A CHIP TOO MANY ON MY SHOULDER

He visited me in college one day, a father that had been visibly absent, more absent than present, he gave me an impassioned speech. I listened attentively on the outward, but also looked on with contempt on the inside. But I honestly couldn’t blame him, he didn’t know me, he knew the version of me that had been packaged and presented to him by the very person who made sure to package myself to me as the ugliest thing ever. And that image had been cemented by my own one too many dumb choices. But for some reason, the choicest part of my hatred was reserved specially for him.

The occasion of his visit was necessitated by a thrice damned fool, who fancied himself a man of God, a Catholic Priest and Dean of Students, writing a letter to my parents about meeting a boy in my dorm room; the one platonic opposite sex relationship I had, and cherished on campus. My father said, “what are you trying to do to me? why?” The voice that said those words sounded different in tone and pitch. It sounded almost concerned, sad, defeated, at a loss. Something in me gave. I let my heart break and through the cracks and crevices, self esteem and self respect edged themselves in.

REDEMPTION WITHIN REACH

When I went back to my dorm room, I asked myself, “why do you make the choices you make?” I didn’t know, I had no answers. And soI cried myself to sleep. I woke up and cried some more. Then I had an epiphany; I swear it was God speaking to me,  “for two decades and some, you have listened to the voices of others telling you how ugly you are, how useless, how stupid, the black sheep you are, how you will suffer, how you will not amount to much and you have believed. How about you replace their voices with your own? Tell yourself something different. Change your own narrative by yourself. Listen to the small, frail voice that is trying to challenge you to believe different.”

I wanted to know how.

He said, “start by forgiving. It will free you to believe the new narrative.”

My self esteem stirred and then yawned lazily, for the first time in two decades and some.

• 
  Two Wolves – Feed The One You Want To Grow
• 
  I Am Not Yvonne Nelson: Book Review
• 
  21 Quotes For A Beautiful Life
• 
  Why Do African Parents Turn Their Adult Children Into Milking Cows?
• 
  Ask Kosivi: My Old Fashioned Man And His Entrenched Gender Roles

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do has been to forgive people who are oblivious to the degree of wounds they have inflicted on me and the scars they’ve left on my soul. I’ve had to forgive people who have no inkling how they pushed me to stumble and fall face down, then turn their righteous selves around and ask, “why are you like this?”  When it should have been their duty to package my self esteem and self respect and hand it to me on a silver platter.

I am not blaming anyone. I am staying cognizant to the facts of my life; calling a thing a thing and moving on ahead. They told me I was ugly, I went looking for my beautiful.

Are you looking to rise above childhood traumas and adversities? This is a good book to start with.

STORY CONTINUES HERE