The Journey Of Self-Transformation

We cannot successfully walk through the door into the future dragging the baggage from the past.

- Tosin Opeoluwa

I was a girl raised by a single, struggling mum. My mum was, and she is still, hard working, although she has no bills to pay anymore. As a child, I created a world of fantasy, and I would tell friends what I thought my father should be like. But deep within me, I knew who my father was; it wasn’t until after I finished my high school that we became friends.

Sometimes we had no food, and mum transferred her aggression toward her children. I never heard the words “I love you” from anyone in my household. No matter how much we worked, we hardly got sincere appreciation. It was a house where housing, clothing, and food were seen as a privilege and not a right. It was a home where I overslept out of teen depression and woke up in fear of being sent to my father. A home where we were taught to respect and not how to love, a home where no one gave hugs or asked questions because they were rude, a home where you were beaten and disgraced in public.

I remember how I used to hide the cane my mother used for flogging. I can’t forget the day I was molested and lost my virginity and could not tell my mother out of fear. My mum respected other people’s children, but we were disgraced through insults and maltreatment. However, above all, I remember her sacrifices, and I know now she was the best mum she could be based on her life experience and understanding. I hold nothing against her today.

“Maybe I deserved bad treatment,” I thought when I was younger. “I am rude, everything breaks in my hand, I get angry and irritated easily, I hate people, I am always seeking attention, always aggressive, and I am gripped with low self-esteem. If I think I am better than those around me, I am okay. However, my head is bowed when I am around those whom I perceive better than me, and I suddenly become quiet. I am called an introvert, but deep within me I know something is wrong.”