REALISING INSECURITIES

(This is the full version of our second Story, as published on our WhatsApp Status for our Storytelling Project)

Today’s story is about an unmarried woman in her late 40s. Four abortions, a seemingly great social life, while living in regret and behind insecurities. She cries out for normalcy after choosing a life that seemed attractive but lonely

Realizing Insecurities
I used to hide behind the constant partying and hangouts that seemed to make me look popular among my peers. I would always be the wildest at such parties and couldn’t stand not being noticed or getting the height of attraction from boys and girls. Makeup was the best cover up I could lay my hands on, and I took great details in applying the makeup. Everyone including my parents thought I was very fine; I was so lively that I won most social student in secondary school. My best friend that I had known for 3 years could not keep up with me so we had to stop being best of friends, in fact she was so against my new personality that she wouldn’t even talk to me outside school. I knew I was getting bad, but to me the rush of being famous was enough for me to hide away all my insecurities.
I didn’t know how the switch happened but I noticed my parents were not the same people I grew up with, and my two sisters knew it too. They always wanted to act like nothing was happening at home but my mum was always getting bruised and it wasn’t from falling on the toilet sink, because she lied to cover up my dad’s violence. I didn’t know what to do, I was the middle child and my older sister was already the family’s saint coming from a Deeper Life background. And because I had no one to confide in, my junior sister being too young to gist with, I just had to find another means of disappearing from the life that was crumbling around us. By the time the fights got worse I was in SS1, some boys in school started to notice me and my new found buttocks. My seniors were the ones mostly interested in me and my sister was in another school so I couldn’t take advice from her. The boys were ready to mingle, some were even very attractive at that age and I hated the idea of being so alone all the time. In my head, I was the loneliest babe on earth, and the worst part was that I now had no trust for men in general so it wasn’t like I was lonely for love.
By the time I had my first sexual relationship I was 16 years old and just about to leave the secondary school. My parents were hearing all of my fun times outside the house and my mum didn’t care at all for the way my dad was complaining all the time. Who cares? My dad was such a terrible man that nobody knew he was a demon besides us, and I became so insecure around men that I felt makeup would make them cling to me. My mum rejected makeup, rejected short dresses and trousers, rejected flamboyant lifestyle and petting dad publicly and he still beat her black and blue. I became extremely angry and decided to channel that anger into something that looked so fun but hurt me even more. As I grew older, I rejected every single suitor that came my way and people thought it was normal since I was a playgirl or shall I say play woman. Now, I wish it was easy for me to say my dad is at fault for the fact that I have refused to be married but now genuinely lonely. Or do I blame my mother for staying with my dad and dying from pneumonia from lack of care?

I had built up years of having fun and looking good even though I felt beautiful without makeup. That nobody would have ever guessed that I was broken inside and was living a life filled with insecurities. I could not stay a day without partying or being a play girl because I felt nobody would want me, that men only stayed around such flamboyant women. Worst of all is that I could never agree to have a family of my own because my father made me believe that all men were just like him. Too bad he’s not alive to tell me why he treated mum that way, but hey….I wish I could let go of these broken parts of my life and be normal again