UNDER THE CARPET (PT 2)

A whole lot of people are walking on the street and smiling, but hiding behind their faces are grieves and fears. You’ve been through some difficult times and you think keeping quiet and ignoring the situation is the best solution. You think your plan worked and you think you are doing just fine, until you get to that point in life where it becomes glaring that you have only hidden your fears under the carpet. You’ve forgotten that someday, you will want to get rid of the carpet to either replace it with tiles or whatsoever and when that time comes, you have your fears staring at you and making ridiculous jest of you saying ‘You should have got rid of me when you could’

I want to specifically address this to every rape survivors out there. Yes, I refuse to call you a victim but a survivor because you are still alive to read this. Even though you are probably thinking of the worst solution out of your grief right now, you have survived yielding to the demons in your head thus far. So, I celebrate you for surviving.

First thing you need to know is that it was never your fault, it wasn’t because you were inappropriately dressed, it wasn’t because you were too attractive, it wasn’t because you were created a woman, None of that mess was your fault.

Now, you are thinking and wondering why it was you. You keep clamouring and saying ‘It shouldn’t have been me’ but hold on, do you really think it should have been anyone else at all? If you were given the chance to replace yourself with someone else at that moment, would you have? You probably would have chosen your sister? Or your friend? Maybe that girl that stole your boyfriend? Or that wicked guardian of yours? Neglecting the fact that they have loved ones too?

The truth is it shouldn’t have been you, neither should it have been anyone else. Nobody deserves to go through what you went through. But now that the deed has been done, would you continue to look for a party to blame, playing the ‘only if’ game or would you rather accept the situation and face it for its defeat? I promise you, the latter is your best option.

It’s time up! You’ve accorded enough time to dejection, you’ve given enough time to depression, enough of the time you’ve set aside to isolation. It is now time for you to take charge of the situation. It is time for you to open that carpet and bring out everything you kept there, it’s time for you to face the situation and say ‘Yes, I was raped, yes I was brutalised, yes I was violated, yes I was beaten, yes I was bruised and wounded, I accept the situation. Depression, you’ve had me enough! Sorrow, you’ve dined with me enough! Anguish, you’ve played with me enough! It’s time for you to leave.

You probably think you can’t handle it but the truth is nobody will handle it for you. It is your mantle and you have to take it and break your boundaries yourself. It is your sad experience, not mine, not your parents’, not your friend’s. All these people can help you to be sane but it is your job to stay sane.

Let’s take a cue from a woman with one particular bra she’s been using for years, it is so fine and sexy that she could use it for as long as 10years. It looks out of fashion already, doesn’t look classy anymore, It has even changed colour, but she loves it too much and doesn’t want to throw it away. She still keeps it because her lover doesn’t complain about it and he chose to find her sexy in it (simply because he hasn’t seen her rock the latest trending and overly sexy ones in the market). Then, she goes out shopping with her ladies and they implored her to get the new trending bras and she finally did. The moment she put it on at home, she felt different and sexy and overly beautiful and began to think why the hell her hubby never complained about her previous trashy bra. She asked him and he said ‘I didn’t want to be the reason why you would feel less of a beauty, I’ve gotten you new set of bras and you refused to wear them because you loved that your old ugly bra (now he reveals how disgusted he was by it..lol), I was always looking forward to you seeing for yourself that you are old fashioned and you need to step up and turn on your sexy switch and make me haywire for you again’ That made you grin yeah? Lol. Now that she has come to the agreement that she looks way better in the new bras, she went under the sheet where she dumped the fashionable ones her hubby got her and started rocking them and what did she do to the old one? She shredded it into pieces and dumped it forever in the trash.

Now, how does this relate to the point of discussion? Let’s start dissecting alright? A whole lot of rape survivors are so dejected on the inside that you do not care anymore about what’s going on around you, all you want to do is be in your own circle. You paused your entire life and you began to lose interest in everything that ever mattered to you, you switched off your perception and you began to see life as Que sera sera (What will be, will be). You lost interest in your hobbies, you lost interest in the things that gave you life. Your folks have tried to encourage you to see the bright side and check out the beautiful things there in but you care less because you’ve switched off your perception. You’ve become so old fashioned that you think where you are is the best place you can be.

Darling, stop holding on to that old trashy life. Yes, it’s trashy. That life has been trampled on, it has been stained, it has gone out of fashion. You need to pull it off, don’t just dust it off and maintain it. No, pull it off completely. If you maintain it, you will still be seeing it around and the moment you see it, you start thinking of how it used to be a beautiful life but got stained and trampled. Then, you begin to cry. But when you destroy it, shred it into pieces and dispose it off all by yourself, the story becomes ‘I used to have that life but it’s forever gone, I threw it in the trash’ You can’t get what has been trashed back, it’s gone forever.

You’ve got to switch on your beautiful life and turn on the electricity to keep the fire burning, you can’t continue to give room to fear or depression, you can’t continue to let the devil take your joy. You’ve gone through the tunnel, you are almost at the end of it baby. There’s light after that tunnel, you need to get to that light and make a grenade out of it to blow the hell out of the negativity in your head, blow that opposition seated in your heart, blow it up and take your territory. Hijack your life out of the hands of the enemy. You need to see your beauty for yourself, you don’t need anyone’s validation, you need to know for yourself that you deserve much more than you see now. The deed has been done, we have to move on. The devil thinks he won, let’s show him that we are the masterpiece of the game he thinks he’s playing, so we play according to our rules. That situation thinks we have reached our bus stop in life, but hell no, we are just starting our journey.

That opposition you never expected was a part of God’s plan, even though it wasn’t a part of yours and it was not only created to reveal what is around you but also what’s in you. Sweet heart, you’ve got a force in you, you’ve got a power in you that scares the shit out of the enemy. The enemy is really trying to get into you and take that power but hell no, you’ve got a nation guarding your gate with a no entry notice on it.

You need to start walking and speaking up, speak over your opposition, speak over your fears, take your mantle (your life) and start walking. There’s light after this tunnel. Take off your carpet, get your life off under the carpet, clean up the room and do a renovation. Your life is about to take a new turn. Never again will you remember that day and cry, never again will you remember that act and wallow. Your story has changed, you have a new victory story to tell…YOU OVERCAME 

We are not victims, We are survivors and most of all, We are victors.

* If you’ve never talked about it to anyone, open up to a trusted one, don’t hold it to yourself alone. Go to therapy if that’s what it takes. Start talking and start walking. Love yourself and do not lose hope in your growth.

I love you, and thanks for reading.

*Took me four years to tell it on the mountain that I was bruised but right now, I have a new skin. Hallelujah!