Thread by @AbisHappyPlace

This is my Truth . I’ve spoken with my Brother and friends about this . Please I won’t be able to take any calls for now as I’m not doing so good . I’ve also explained why I’ve written this like this . Thank you .1

I’m sitting up in bed staring at my computer screen, trying to summon the courage to tell my story but in a rare moment, my usual articulate self is struggling to say something. I’ve struggled for years with the thought of ever sharing what happened to me. 2

I would make references but for all my boasting of courage in conversations on other topics. I just couldn’t summon up the courage to tell my truth.
Even now as I’m finally starting to type, I’m shaking and in tears. 3

The events of the past couple of weeks got me into a really bad space and after speaking with my brother; a man who though is much younger to me, but whose opinion I truly value, he told me that he'd been thinking along the same lines about me and that I had his full support. 4

I’ve decided to go against my initial decision to wait until the passing of my only parent before sharing my story and tell it now.
In case anyone wonders why I’m writing my account in this format, I have spoken with my psychiatrist and psychologist 5

(yes, I’ve got both&while I know the admission to this is taboo,it should tell you just how deeply I’ve been affected)&they adviced that I put some distance in my account so that my brain doesn’t struggle too much with the pain&I find myself in abject despair as I've done be4. 6

When I was 5 years old going on 6 and we lived in Ikeja GRA in the early 80s ( it was very safe and everyone took care of each other’s children), my parent sent me to her best friend’s house to deliver a message. 7

I was believed to be able to do this as I had started school when I was 2 years old and was quite sharp for my age. Besides, we lived at 14, Ladoke Akintola and this best friend, Mrs Oladipo, lived at number 13. It was a look left and right and safely cross the street errand. 8

My own best friend who was her daughter was also there and the joy of being able to see her, made my legs go quickly over to their house.
It’s interesting how when momentous events happen to us, the amount of minutiae we remember. 9

My doctors say it’s the way our brains try to protect and process us from trauma. To this day, I remember being told not to be late in coming back. I remember going up the stairs, knocking on the door and being greeted by the eldest son, Bidemi as he opened the door 10

Somehow, I don’t remember seeing my friend. I asked for their mother, delivered my message and I remember, him opening the door and walking out with me.
Anyone who remembers Ladoke Akintola in those days would remember that the meters were on the ground floor, 11

tucked away in the back and there was a little cubby hole right under the stairs, where people could store things like bicycles, scooters etc if they wanted. The building blocks had 6 or 8 apartments (depending on each block). 12

The Oladipos like mine lived in a 6 apartment block like ours, in the middle block, just like ours.
I remember coming down the stairs and as I got to the bottom to walk out to the compound. I was grabbed from behind, a hand on my mouth and pulled into the cubby hole. 13

I don’t remember having any thoughts but I remember the shushing voice of Bidemi , telling me not to shout and next thing, he pulled down my pants and raped me. This boy was a teenager, at least 16 years old. 14

I can’t recall just how long or short a time I was in that cubby hole for, but I remember crying so hard and in a lot of pain.
He finished, turned me around so I could see his face and he told me that he would give me a sweet and 15

I must not tell anybody especially my parent because if I did, I knew she was going to throw me away (he said this in Yoruba and I will never forget the exact words,… wọn má ju ẹ nù (you’ll be thrown away). He told me that I knew my parent because she was known 16

to be a no nonsense teacher who didn’t spare a wrongdoing.
Her common line to me anytime I did something wrong or that irritated her was “I brought you into this world and I’ll have no problems taking you out of it” and with the way I was beaten, I believed her. 17

I will not chronicle the ways I was beaten as a child but I can tell you that many many times, I either ended in hospital or a neighbour who most likely feared for my survival would burst into our home to rescue me. So when this boy told me not to tell my parent. 18

I really thought it was maybe the right thing to do.
I stumbled from him and started to walk home, in so much pain and then I thought of my father, my best friend who didn’t live with us as he was away on posting in the Nigerian Air Force, 19

but who I knew I would have been able to go straight to to report and something would have been done.
The next chain of events, I again remember so clearly and I have been told that it was where I got my proper introduction to never feeling safe. I climbed up the stairs, 20

face wet (I know this because the house help who gave me my bath later that night asked why I was crying when I came in) and knocked on our door to be let in.
My parent opened the door and gave me such a slap that I fell down. 21

Dragging me up by my ear, I was pulled into the flat as she shouted at me that her best friend had called her on the telephone in response to her message which I had delivered a while back but of course I must have stopped to play. And I was told to get out of her sight.
22

When I discussed the event with my parent recently, I asked how she missed the obviously dishevelled and tear soaked face of her daughter and her response was why didn’t I say something even after I had been beaten. I then asked her if she were in my shoes, 23

she would have still pressed on to say something when I believed that she would have truly thrown me away and I had already gotten that treatment before I even said anything. There was no reply and the conversation died there. 24

That rape happened that night and this boy having realised that he had gotten away with it as there was no repercussions decided to continue. Bidemi raped me every opportunity he got. He’d come to our house to get me once he didn’t my parent’s car outside the house. 25

My paternal grandmother lived with us but there was so much bad blood between her and my parent, she didn’t look out for me and would rather spend time with her numerous visiting cousins. My older sibling who's 8 years older, considered me more of a nuisance and 26

every opportunity she found to ditch me and go about her own business, she took it. (I understand now that it was mostly what happened with children with a huge age gap).
This boy came to our house so much that the gardener noticed. Especially the day I was playing outside 27

the block, jumping into the mango and fruit leaves that the gardener raked together, when I lifted my head and noticed him coming out and looking across the street to my block. My parent had gone out and I knew he was coming for me. 28

I immediately ran into the upturned water tank outside the block and hid.
The gardener must have clocked on when he came and started asking him where I had gone to. The gardener said he didn’t now and he went upstairs to our apartment to look for me and came back again 29

and then left. I was about 7 years old by this time but when the gardener came to tell me that he was gone, he saw and I realised that I had wet myself in fear. From that day, whenever he could, when he caught him trying to take me with him. He would do whatever he could 30

to protect me but sadly it wasn’t enough.
When I was close to turning 10 years old, he had become so emboldened that he had now taken to actually coming into our home to molest me. My only safe haven from him was no longer safe. And another event completely 31

shattered whatever was left of my childhood.
I had become quite precocious by this time and my sibling who was now 18 had started to have boyfriends. With an overtly strict parent and an near absent father, my sibling took every chance she had to sneak off with her boyfriend 32

and maybe due to my own experiences, coupled with me still trying to get affection in any form from my parent; the strained relationship I had with my sibling and maybe a desire to share misery with her. I took a personal delight in ratting her out to our parent everytime 33

the boyfriend came over in our parent’s absence or she sneaked off to see him.
So when my abuser came to our house & started to molest me (I had stopped crying a long time ago and just submitted myself) & my sibling walked in. She did nothing, just looked at us & walked out. 34

Bidemi panicked and ran out of the apartment and my sibling came back in; made me shower and basically said if I ever ratted her out again, she would tell our parent and I know her very well, she would throw me away (using the same words used by Bidemi years ago to mute me) 35

and from that moment, if I ever stepped out of line, my sibling would say she was going to tell our parent what I was doing and I would immediately acquiesce.
I did this mainly because I had come to believe that I was complicit to the abuse that was going on and I was the one 36

doing it. I had stopped thinking that I didn’t deserve it. So when he didn’t get any repercussions again from being caught in the act by my sibling. He then decided to include his immediate younger brother, Kayode, into the mix and that’s how from age 9+, my abusers doubled 37

and every depraved thing two teenage boys could think of, that they had seen in porn or read, they practised on me. I was now being molested at least 4 times a week.
In fact for my 10th birthday, there is a picture where I was asked to take a picture with all the 38

neighbourhood children and the two of them came to my party (of course, as our mothers were best friends) and they joined the group to take photos and I was so upset, I didn’t want to take the photo and my parent in true form, yelled at me to take the photo. In that photo, 39

it was very obvious that I was very upset while the two of them stood there, smiling.
I was being abused under my parents and grandparent noses and there was nothing I could do, so I kept on suffering until one day in school, I was in primary 5, I learnt that primary Six 40

students were going to write an exam for a new experimental military school in Jos. I went to look for where it was and I saw that it looked very far from Lagos where me and my family and my molesters lived.
So I sneaked into the exam hall and wrote the exam, hoping to pass, 41

even though I had already written the exams for Queen’s College in Lagos and had already gotten a place. I just wanted to be as far away from Lagos as possible and I was willing to do anything to achieve that aim. The results came out and the school found out that 42

I wrote the exam because I passed.
My school, Command Children's School Ikeja, actually wrote the school to say that they were withdrawing me as I wasn’t meant to have written the exam but the school wrote back that if I was good enough to pass, then I was good enough to 43

come interview for a place. Mrs Ojo, a teacher, whose daughter didn’t pass told me that I wouldn’t amount to much, I was so shocked by the venom of her words that I cried to my parent&in one of her rare moments, she went postal on the teacher&made her apologise to me. 44

That also helped in getting her to say yes to letting me go to the school. With much pleading to my dad, who didn’t want me to go too far from him. I was allowed to go for the interview and I don’t think I had ever prayed so hard for something. 45

I passed the interview and that’s how I became a student of Air Force Girls Military School Jos and was finally able to break away from almost 10 years of molestation.
Going to Jos wasn’t all rosy. I was severely bullied and because I developed through puberty very early. 46

I was already wearing a C cup bra size as a 14 year old. I was also molested by two teachers in the school. One, an other ranks personnel who taught us marching on the field and the other, a youth service teacher who had come to serve in our school. Having the size of 47

my breasts being announced in school at every opportunity by one of the female officers didn’t help and drew very unwanted attention to me.
I went home on holiday and refused to go back to school (we had moved house thankfully at this point) unless my parent did something 48

and again in a rare moment of protecting me, she wrote the school and promised to sue the school if my body was ever referred to again by the officer. I remember the commandant, H. R Garba calling the officer and myself into her office and showing her the letter and 49

telling her to back off. It worked but the damage had been done.
I learnt to hide away, deep into my books. I was smaller and often ill, so the only weapon I had was my intelligence. I learnt to avoid places where a man could try to take advantage of me and also to fight 50