Emotional Trauma and the Truth That It Never Really "Goes Away"

Emotional Trauma & "Surviving Abuse"

“A person who experienced any six or more of the categories” of childhood trauma, Dr Felitti tells me, “was 4600 percent more likely to become an IV [injecting] drug user later in life than a person who experienced none of them.” He adds: “I remember the epidemologists at the CDC told me those were numbers a magnitude of which they see once in a career. You read the latest cancer scare of the week in the newspaper and something causes an increase of 30 percent in breast or prostate cancer and everybody goes nuts – and here, we’re talking 4600 percent.”

It wasn’t until I read this article - attached to the end of this short read -  that so many situations became clarified in my mind. This reading also triggered me like a sandbag hitting my head because in poured those memories of where I had been intolerant of myself, but more so of my own TribesPeople including fam and friends – the whole entire group of us who have suffered at the hands of an abuser. I’m writing this not only to apologize but to also share the article because of it’s implications to us all.

Many of us became TribesPeople because of how we had been raised by dastardly parents; by trauma which happened to us as children; and those same parents who in their colonized and ugly and unknowing ignorance shoved down their children’s throats the white man's rules of behavior and all it’s subliminal hatred of anything that’s melanated.

Ha! My own life was a mess of trying to be ‘African&Proud’, and anything I did well was praised with smiles and jubilation with words like ‘uhana muthuungu’ [I act ‘white’] and all I did wrong was scoffed off as, “lord have mercy, how disgustingly ‘African’ can you get?” and ehh! often these judges of character would use the word, ‘meero’ which in itself was a dirty word, so dirty you’d immediately take off in a fast Kenyan sprint to shed off traces of it - how our athletes run!! They don't run like Meero's no! He's international!   Meero was worse than being called Nigga – infact, being called a Nigga was to strut in pride [imagine that sad state of affairs]. In my childhood I could not comprehend this because I loved my colour, I did. I was inherently PROUD of it [and thought Grace Jones was the most magnificent woman ever] but over and over again being African meant being little more than nothing – even Elephants and Lions and Ethopians had more magnificence than the African person. Now  – add that nasty mix to many answers found in the article link below, and basically I was one #Woke but utterly #repressed individual – and sadly, I was #Woke at a generation where many were sheeple.

Later on I strode out in magnificence of “ME” and gave ALL my children names that had not an iota of ‘English’ in them. Let me tell you about that – this was in the early 1990’s – and I put my foot down. I wasn’t going to call anything grown out from my proud African womb a ‘mzungu’ name. Banish the thought!! HOW? It’s a part of me, I can’t label it something that’s not ME..

Little did I know about The HEADACHES, The QUESTIONS and the sheer weight of NASTINESS of that single decision.

Any institution. eg :the hospital:

Nurse or Admin: ’so, what’s your child’s name?’

Me.: Holding my gorgeous beautiful fat baby in my arms “Noni”

>>> long stare at me like I’m thick headed – then:

                  “……..what’s her ENGLISH name?”

Me: “She doesn’t have an English name, she’s African”

Nurse: >>>> >>> long stare at me like I’m thick headed – then:

                  “You must be black American…” [warms up a lot – suddenly I feel heat like she’s on fire and her smile is dazzling bright. I blink] So that’s her first name? She's sooo beautiful....

Me: Yes. Noni [I bask in the heat..]

Warm Nurse: Ok [Scribbles and speaks at the same time…..] Muthoni  who?

Me: No. Not “Muthoni”…… en ohhh ennn eye. NONI (I spell the letters out slowly and kiss my baby on the forehead)

Nurse getting re-annoyed: Noni who?

I give a name which begins with an O. It’s AFRICAN. It’s not Mzungu or ‘Black American’.

Nurse looks up from writing:

“What?”

I repeat..

Ice enters the room. She becomes the Snow Queen….

………………………………..

I had defied the norm with a capital T and N,  and that wasn’t on. I was attacked on every single level for that simple decision. You know, Life is tough in a Sheeple dominated world: It became worse when Noni had to go to school – they’d ask for a ‘baptism certificate’ to prove that she’s ‘baptized’ – wtf?? And without this proof of baptism, a child could not go to school - she had been – that’s another story of fighting over a name – and a ‘condition’ of ‘indoctrination’  but the point is, calling a child an “African name” got me into a few million problems – there was even the pastor who told me my child won’t go to heaven. …

I went through FUNK…

… and I’m sure you have too.

But… Pause.

because, 

… I’m going to switch the tables here real quick and say that those of us who have been raised by sheeple in a sheeple dominated world have a life view which is stamped as ‘diseased’ by the sheeples. They give us psycho titles that we willingly accept and grab [we’d do anything to feel normal – whatever that is] and in feeble attempts to morph into their world, because yes, this world didn’t belong to us – the mental, the tribes-people, the mad, the insane, the bi-polar, the depressive, the un-natural, the eccentric – the one’s who don’t do things according to the book but instead dance to their own tune. ‘Ametupa mbao!’ is the explanation for going mad with grief… for mad we become because we grieve;- if you have been traumatized from by any type of abuse –

you grieve the loss of

                  your joy

                  innocence

                  trust..

and you cry internally because where ever you are you’re holding back, you’re automatically suspicious, you ‘see things’ where you didn’t before because now you know… you know the behavior patterns of abusers… and you run….

….you lock down emotionally - internally - but the pain is still in there, unaccepted by everyone including you. Then the flashbacks happen.

I hate them; that sick moment where I’m frozen in terror, the stomach rising, heart thumping like it’s going to lurch itself right out of my chest like an alien horror movie, the dizziness, the shaking knees, the sweaty hands and sweatier forehead? And I’m supposed to say it’s OKAY? No wonder the fear and the drugs and the ah ah ah alcohol behavior – this is expected and NORMAL. But what the abuser doesn’t want you to know is that you’re normal and considering what you went through, your behavior is ACCEPTED BEHAVIOR. If you put a hole in a canoe for fuck sakes it will sink! But emotionally abused people are in so much pain, and hurting so much, they barely can think for others let alone themselves. Which means when they hear, “oh, this will be good for you” they automatically accept it. We turn right round and reject ourselves and call ourselves as ‘abnormal’ when inside we’re fighting and saying “NOOOOOOOooooo!!! This isn’t NORMAL!!”

To TribesPeople and all 1stBorns:

[because 1st born children are often raised as ‘experiments..’…]

Forgive me when I say that your behavior is NORMAL.

Forgive for the times that even I, in this same Tribe, ever alluded to or said words to the effect, “...... get.over it” because we don’t. We never ever get ‘over it’ in the sense that we’re fine and walking around like we’re scar less. And We DO get broken. And Shattered into fragments. And bloody traumatized to hell and back.

To conclude is this post I had put up on another medium:-

A long word:
Sooooo...the truth is that there really is no "recovery" for survivors of Physical Abuse. Or DMV. Or Adultery. Or Rape. Or having stupid parents - Child Abuse, Rape, Neglect - all and any Emotional Trauma - there is NO Recovery.

Most people think and expect that "recovery" means moving on like the trauma didn't happen. That's insane thinking. Of course it happened and the person is emotionally scarred for life. Just like if you have an operation...you will have the scar for life -sometimes you forget it's there, other times it hurts and you feel it constantly. Now get this; WHAT people do after their emotional trauma and HOW they live thereafter is THEIR personal LIFE experience.. we can only look, listen and LOVE. Repeat. It’s their battle. It’s a miracle that they even get up in the morning and function…

ONLY IF we are ASKED PERSONALLY can we give advice and even then it's not a must that it is taken. We are all different and we all behave DIFFERENT. There is NEVER anything like "its my way or the frickin' highway!" In other words, just give the traumatized person - love; acceptance and a bag load of THEIR OWN TIME - to grieve the loss of their joy and trust; give also - hugs, smiles, good wholesome food, sweets and sweet foods, sleep, rest, laughter, hugs and tissues for crying jags. Never use the word STOP on a person.. da fuck!... give love and tissues and laughter. Nobody, but nobody, will ever respond the exact same way to any TRAUMA (unless they're Twins and even then ...) Our Creator didn't make us the Same.  Give LOVE. GIVE LOVE to any Traumatized person.

Finally. To abusive parents who hit their kids and shout at them or did, to husbands and wives who hit their spouses. To Teachers who are abusive to their students. To Rapists - all of you.
On the same note: That spouse you beat repeatedly. That person you raped. That person you emotionally abused. They will never "recover". Ever. You have damaged a Human Being and as much as they try to "forget" , they WILL NOT. There are flashbacks and triggers and the shit returns... that's LIFE. I've sat with women who are the same age as I am and they still have deep issues with things their TEACHERS said to them over 40 years ago! Listen, memories can be covered up and balmed over with ‘ointments’ and ‘medications’ and psycho analyzed to shit...but THAT SHIT YOU did - it remains.  Just think about THAT. You are an abuser. You DID it... it CANNOT BE ERASED.you broke.and.scarred.a.human.being.forever.  And You have to Live with That Abuser Title.
Forever. Karma is a bitch.
Spread Love like free air and Blueband on Bread. Never Hate. Never
Ever
Ever
Raise a Hand To Hit.

Fellow Tribes People. Don’t be tagged and put in a coffin world of pills and more pills and mental institutions! Wake up, Point out the TRUTH, and scream and shout and tell it as it is! Otherwise, THE ABUSER gets away scot-free.

            This then, is society

                  today.

Click to Read:>>  Factors that make people 4600% more susceptible to Drugs& Alcohol

 XpenSieve Report© 2017

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.]

Make That Move Right Now Baby!

A Super Solo Move

I was crying.

Tears streamed down my face as I drove at speeds exceeding the speed limit – the landscape whizzing past through Sweet Dudu’s windscreen was phenomenal – green fields and hills, a sky so clear and blue that it shamed the name of the colour ‘blue’ – and a mountain called Kenya in the distance, slowly growing and morphing larger and larger and dominating the horizon and sky to my right with a magnificent presence that awed my beating heart – because beating it was, as fast and furious as the tears that poured down my face. I said I would and here I was… moving.

Sweet Dudu [the name of my motogari] was packed full of my belongings, so packed full and so many things did I have, that I’d tied the passenger seat belt around two of those plastic picnic basket cartons that couldn’t and refused to fit in the backseat and boot – and my other house-hold goods – all that I possessed – were in a truck that was about 3 hours behind me despite them leaving Nairobi long before I did.

I had.

I said I would.

I did.

I left Nairobi on an entirely solo move and there I was -  hurtling at speeds not allowed [hush] - towards my destination town at the foothills, at the very bottom of Mount Kenya and smack bang on the Equator, and I cried – girl did I cry alone in that car - tears of joy, emotions leaking, fear, excitement…. Damn – I had done it, a totally solo move. The Truckers asked me: haiya, you’re going alone? Duh. Yes. Sometimes in life you can’t wait for others.

I had dreamt it and thought it and planned it and then in frustration I stopped planning and just went with the flow because you know, you plan things and they go wrong, utterly w r o n g – so I stopped ‘planning’ and just did. Jumped in – flowed – and here I was – hurtling eagerly through space and time towards an unknown destination, an unknown and unchartered life.  And when I got to the end of my journey, guess what- even the ka-house ‘agent’ wasn’t there, well, it was just the 3^rd day of a spanking new year – yet it tells a tall tale of hii Kenya yetu – ati ‘wait, I’m coming’ – after me driving solo for 4 hours – the young man who’s office is in the neighbour-hood asked for me to give him a sec [He later told me he’s vying for an MCA seat and I suddenly understood… politicians are all talk and zero action] << on that note, if your dad is a politician, just ask your mom who your real papa is…. hahahahahahaaa…… runs…!!

So I welcomed myself into this space that was clearly, just for me and opened the rusty old gate into the beautifully wooded space for myself.

How does one do this? I don’t have family here. I never have had. I don’t know anybody here. My weak attempts at talking to people ‘from Nanyuki’ proved fatal – the conversations died before they began and I left them there because clearly I wasn’t supposed to deal with death – I’m too full of life. So I put on my solo armor and softened my heart – most people will say harden your hearts – lakini I say no, please don’t look for a means of an early death. Instead my advice would be to Soften your heart. Make it soft and pliable and yielding to and for yourself. Not others. Yourself. Hmm. And listen to your heart. Give it nourishment that keeps it beating – laughter and smiles and good food and sweet things like fruits and candy and those yummy Indian sweets – give your heart hope and fill it with love – pour hugs and smiles and warmth and sunlight and all the lovely things that will make your heart happy – and follow those things that make your heart soft and yummy…

I did.

I’m 53.

I cried. Because I have the strength, the joy de vivré, the sheer determination and courage and magnificent drive to do this alone and build a future for myself even if I have one foot in the grave as many look at me askance and say, gaii… you’re old, but hey, I’m still alive and Inshallah will be around for a longer while…!! I came alone to live at the foothills of a place that I think is magical and magnificent. I came alone for this magic and magnificence that it may fill me so that I too, can partake of this daily.  This then was the adventure – carrying it through and nursing it at the younger ages of it’s creation – the dreaming; the birthing and nurturing of it – not abandoning the “burden” of my dream. <<< We often do just that, don’t we? >>> Abandoning our dreams and leaving them to die on a road in the middle of

      know where?

… what’s your story? What is your dream?

Not hers.

Not his.

Your dream? It may be to be President. Or live in Lamu by the sea. It may be to be an astronaut .. or a fantastic cook. It may be to just be happy and content.

… build it, work it, nourish it, love it tenderly.

People ask strange questions – like ‘what will you do’ or ‘how will you do…’ or ‘where will you do…’ or ‘who will you do…’   eff that nonsense. Kabisa. Don’t even!

Seriously! Don’t be side-tracked – the purpose of most people is to cut trees and place those logs on your road to success and; once you stop – because you can’t drive over the logs – they ambush you and steal your joy, leaving you with broken dreams as well as stuck in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night. You get to dislike that road and that route, you stop driving on that road of your dreams, you go and huddle with a bunch of human beings for security sake and decide that your dream is just too scary. And when someone else goes down that same road and beats the thugs, you get mad and wonder why you never had the courage to…

Note that siku hizi ata ukilia aje – ain’t nobody coming to help you with your problems – so don’t go announcing your dreams.

Be Nike.

Just do it.

I’m telling you my story so that you can learn and do the same for yourself – look long at the banner of ‘xPenSieve’ and the purpose of this blog. Yes…. Scroll back up and read it again…

Scroll….

Get it?

To use that beauty phrase that’s been turned into a political slogan – Tuko Pamoja?

Listen…

I once spoke aloud and sent out into the universe the dream that; “..my bliss would be to write from a cabin in the woods on some mountain, surrounded by the wind whispering through the trees, birdsong, sounds of nature and wild animal calls”. That’s MY dream. At a pals house a while back while watching TV [I gave away my TV – I call it a propaganda box…] I saw a young man being interviewed in a ‘House-hunting’ series in the US of A – and he asked for a town house. The dumb ass agent took him to view a house in the suburbs chatting all the way about how the apartment was in a nice quiet area with big windows and a view of …. The young man cut her off and refused, totally, to enter the house. “I said I want a Town house – an apartment in the middle of the CITY ..” he snapped and told her off,  “… with street noises and traffic and cabbies hooting, with shops downstairs and lotsa people.. didn’t you hear me when I said I wanted a townhouse – I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN THE SUBURBS!”  and he strode off… I laughed for a good 5 minutes….

Do you get it now? It’s YOUR DREAM. What’s YOUR Dream?

I have arthritis - violently painful and sometimes crippling arthritis that’s due to the metal rod that’s attached to my spinal cord in my back. I’ve lived through nightmare pain during my teens because of that operation to put in the rod -  that kept me looking at a hospital ceiling for 4 months – aki, there’s nothing as boring as a hospital ceiling, nothing. A Hospital ceiling has NO screen  -  sigh   do you know how boring that is?? That’s why patients in hospital keep ringing the bell for the nurse. Drrrriiiinnngggggggggggg   Drrrriiiinnngggggggggggg, Drrrriiiinnngggggggggggg – kills boredom, hahahahaaa…. But,

What are your “problems” as put forward by a dream-thief? Really? What? Disease? Illness? Mental disorder? Finances? What?? Why are you not stepping up and out? Why are you weeping and gnashing your teeth and camping on your misery?

All Dreams are Valid; Yours included. Even something as material as owning a luxury car – be it a Benz or a LandRover. It.Is.All.Valid.All.Dreams.Are.Valid.Period

Is it Kool & The Gang that sung that song with those beautiful lyrics?

Make that move, right now baby!

If you’re a She’ro reading this and maybe wondering what the heck - I want to assure you that you CAN do it and you’re not dependent on any one other than yourself – and I’m not talking feminism here and neither am I negating the role of the MAN in your life, no, and please, neither should you. Man is made as you are – a beautiful divine creature.   I’m talking to the Melanated female and asking her to listen to a truth that’s been hidden from her in these modern days, in the 9^th and 10^th and 11^th way up to the  19^th and 20^th centuries, a truth covered up in lies, buried DEEP in the ground and our subconscious and stamped on and built over with more lies – listen - we’re strong. We’re beautifully emotionally and physically ‘nurturing’ such that we can alone, look after 6 or more children, raise them, feed them, go to work, clean them, educate them and still have time to laugh and be realest with our girlfriends. Give a man 6 toddlers and watch him crumble – no lie – they’re good at stuff, but we Melanated females have that nurture game going on naturally in us. Our dreams are possible. That is the fear. That if we Dream it, we can do it – and somewhere along the line many Melanated Women feed into the lie that we’re useless-and-hopeless-and we can do nothing by or for ourselves. Rubbish, we can and we have been doing stuff for years and we shall continue to… so this post is for you if at some point you’ve been taken off your track and she-napped and lied to that your dreams aren’t valid.

They are.

Go on, make 2017 the year that you stamped and validated your dream!

Hums song….”…Ain’t no stopping us now….”.. 

 

In conclusion, be brave and turn your world upside down and laugh as you do - like I’ve put my kids in a really weird position that’s totally upside down about what ‘shags’ is, and what ‘shags’ isn’t. ‘Shags’ and ‘oshaago’ is where your parents were brought up, grew and lived in before they got’s married and hitched…right? So, my parents shags is in Nai short for Nairobi. Now, I grew up in …. Ya…. Pap, Nairobi Suburbs. And my parents still live in that Nairobi Suburb. And they own land in that Nairobi Suburb…..  Gff – Nai is my shags and whenever I take my kids to visit their guks and shosh – I take them to…. Yap, Nai.

So, because I’ve shifted my base to living at the base of Mount Kenya, my kids will be going to visit their grand-parents – where? in Ooshaago…, so…. Hahahahaaa….. during “Christmasi”,  when you’all are all driving to your ‘shags’ upcountry, I’ll be driving to my shags in Nai….

Hahahahahaaaaa!!!

Happy New laughter filled year y’all and make sure you Validate Your Dreams. Make that move, right now baby!

The XpenSieve Report© 2017

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from xPenSieve© blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction including LINKS to the original content.]