SHE LET ME DOWN; LIFE HAPPENS
GROWING up, I knew I was not going to be the child who would graduate from school, get the man and job.
My parents were always struggling to make ends meet and to provide a single meal a day but life went by. Although we would sleep hungry some nights, my siblings and I were happy. I was outspoken and living in a community of people who were going through the same poverty, I always felt like I belonged. My dreams did not surpass what I saw; I knew school was not that important as no one I grew up with aspirations to complete schooling. I wanted to get married at 19 years old, have children and run a tuck shop like Mma Spoti. However, my little dreams started fading away when my father passed away in 2002 when I was 10 years old.
Months after the passing of my father, there was emptiness at home, his absence was so loud that it robbed all of us of our happiness. Two years later, my mother found a boyfriend who then moved in with us. Things started feeling strange a month after he moved in. He started off by asking me to hug him, which to me back then was nothing, but thinking of it now, I realised it was a strategy of gaining my trust. The hugs then changed to him telling me not to look away when he was changing clothes and where he would tell me to change in front of him as well. To the 12-yearold me, it felt weird but not wrong, as I used to see my parents quickly change clothes in front of us. One day, he asked my siblings to go play outside while my mother went to visit a neighbour. He then asked me to get in the house, and proceeded to molest me. I remember how scared and powerless I felt but I knew it was wrong. Regardless of the threats he made to end my life if I told on him, I told my mother. To my horror, she didn’t believe me! She told me to go take a bath and to not lie like that again. The abuse went on for two more years.
I began to feel so empty, hurt, filthy and I cried every day. No one knew or seemed to care about what I was going through. I was going through life silently screaming for help. I stumbled onto crack cocaine once at a party and that was the beginning of the end of the pain. That first hit felt so good that I felt like my father was by my side again. It brought confidence and meaning to my life. I mean, you can understand why crack became my life. I started using every day just to escape the reality of what was happening to me. I made friends who smoked crack who I shared my life story with. They understood my hurt and accepted the filthy girl I felt I was. Two months after starting crack, I ran away from home and lived on the streets. At that time, the streets took my word for it, loved me and would not hurt me. But as the story goes with majority of those living in the streets, I had to start prostituting myself just to keep my habit up. Any money I got I bought “ledaena”, I had nothing to my name, my appearance changed and I began feeling very depressed, worse than I had ever felt. A year went by and this life that I chose got the best of me, I started attempting suicide with every opportunity I had. Crack no longer felt good but felt like a demon that was chasing me or was it me chasing it?
One day, while I was in deep thought thinking about how to successfully kill myself, I heard a very familiar voice that warmed my heart that instant. I turned around to see my mother, she ran towards me and hugged me. I stood there in shock, so many questions running through my mind, not knowing which emotion to settle on. She started by apologising and telling she wanted me to go back home, she told me she had been looking for me ever since my younger sister told her he had been molesting her as well. She gathered the strength to leave him and began her search to bring me back home. Her search took her to social workers who referred us to BOSASNet where we are receiving counselling for my substance use. My sister and I are also getting counselling from BGBVPSC (formerly Women’s Shelter) to deal with our sexual abuse trauma.
If you think that you might have a substance abuse problem, or if you have a friend or family member who does, we encourage you to seek support. For some, it can be mean the difference between life and death. You can find BOSASNET on Face book, visit us on www.bosasnet.com, or call us on 3939119 or 72659891