“I smile and well composed and I always appear to have it together, people see me as the perfect lady with a perfect life but behind this beautiful face and smile lays enormous pain, heartache and regrets. I grew up seeing my dad beats my mom at every opportunity and she couldn't do anything to defend herself or her children. I was the first of two children and four years older than my little brother. He was beating her one day and hit her to the wall and that was how my mother died. I was ten years old and I saw what happened, my father told a lie that she fell and died. Everybody believed him and life continued. My father married another wife just after we had my mother’s first year’s remembrance, it was another episode of violence but this time my step-mother wouldn't take his beating without fighting back. They were fighting one day and she stabbed my father in defense of herself, he eventually died after two weeks in the hospital. I became an orphan at age twelve and the only close family was my paternal uncle. It was easy for him to take us in because he wasn't married at the time.
To cut the long story short, I became my uncle’s sex slave since I was twelve and I had three abortions before the age of seventeen. I summoned courage to run away from home when I was seventeen but unfortunately for me, the only friend I could run to was living with another friend in a girl’s hostel. I was raped again by my friend’s boyfriend, became pregnant and this time I was told by the doctor the danger in having the fourth abortion. I became homeless and was sleeping from one uncompleted building to the next for the next four months. I was walking back to my “apartment” one day from the street where I sell ice water when I was hit by a car. I woke up the third day in the hospital, I lost too much blood and the baby was gone too. Double jeopardy it was, there was nobody to fight for me. The woman that hit me left some money with the doctor and promised to come back but she never did. I was discharged from the hospital in a week but there was nowhere for me to go except back to my uncompleted building. Then came my Good Samaritan, she was the doctor that has been treating me for a week.
Dr. Titi took me home to her family; her husband and two little children. I was with them for seven months and I thought heaven had finally smiled on me until her husband tried to rape me in the middle of the night while she was at work. I ran out of the house and kept running until I fainted; I woke up the following morning in front of a hospital and Dr. Titi was there again as my guardian angel. It was the same hospital that I met her, I must have intentionally run there but couldn't remember. I didn't care if she was going to believe me or not but I summoned up courage to tell her what her husband did. To my surprise, she believed me and told me the last house help they had told her the same thing but she didn't believe her until she ran away. She took me to her parents’ house and that’s how I became part of the extended family. She eventually divorced the husband and this time the wife found out he was having an affair with his Secretary.
That was twenty years ago! I went to school and became a doctor, live in the United State and married with two kids. I lost it all at age twelve when my uncle first raped me. I struggled through life just to prove to the family that took me in that they could be proud of me. I did it all for them and yes they are so proud of me but deep down I see myself as a failure. I was still hung up on the past and lived in guilt for so long. The guilt that I could be there for my little brother (I later found out he died in a car accident the day he ran away from my uncle’s house.) Life could be cruel to some, you know! I’m supposed to be happy with everything that I've achieved but I wasn't. I lived daily hoping I could die in my sleep; my past was always in my brain and with great torment it was eating me up inside. My husband tried his best but I was so far away to see that he really cared and loved me in spite of my past.
I can’t remember how he joined your group but he made sure I read everything you post on Facebook. I have no Facebook account so we always read from his account. And I became an addict but I soon found out that life was becoming interesting. I laugh a lot and my husband was surprised that anything could make me laugh this much. We started talking more by discussing everything we read. I can’t remember when but I know it was early last year 2012 that you posted something about incest and childhood abuse. It was a story about a lady and her uncle Bill. You wrote a long epistle about all the rape attempt you experienced and I remember you said something about you stabbing your father’s friend. I've never been around anyone so bold to talk about their past like that. I was encouraged; I broke down and cried until I could cry no more. It was a long night but I was happy I could tell my husband why I've been so unhappy, hate sex and why I couldn't love him the way he loves me. I knew I had to tell him and I thought he was going to walk out after finding out about my past.
I was so wrong, he loves me even more. We went for counseling for 12 weeks and the only therapy we've been having since then is logging on to your facegroup group Intimate Issues. You are a blessing and you are doing more than you can imagine, I cannot stand to see anymore more note about you trying to quit or how people treat you. Please there are many people like me out there that are blessed daily just by logging in here to read something to make them laugh, cry or just for inspiration. You have a perfect team of people, please be encouraged. I can’t begin to mention names but I can thank you and your baaaaad partners for bringing joy back into my life. I will be forty years old in August and I look forward to a bright future. And for all the laughter you all bring to my life daily, the Lord will favor you all in your endeavors. I can’t pay you but I can continue with my daily prayers for you all. I made it and I’m a survivor…this is my testimony, God bless you all.”
Dr. Olubusola Olufemi ©2013 drolubusola@theintimateissues.com
2 comments:
Finally, I gather enough muscle from the gym to finish this story. Even though I regret reading it cause it almost opened up some wounds in me, but at the same time I congratulate the writer. Some people are happy not because they want to be happy but because that is the only thing their strength can carry. Thats why u cant stand the story behind every happiness. My conclusion about tribulation in life is that, "it's your own route to greatness". Some of us have gone through the worst early in life, some stories we don't want to remember but that stories like this keep waking up in us. All in all, given up is never an option. If it is tough, still hold on. Please, hold on. Everybody might reject u but once Christ is on your side, you are more than a winner. Well, I don't want to think today. And DrBusola, thanks for opening up the group and also for sustaining it. I know 'we bully' ourselves sometimes but let me tell u the truth, u are doing a great job.
This brought tears to my eyes...I still do not get why some men find their family members/blood attractive to rape.
May the good God be with the writer and give her that happiness she so deserves.
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