Looking at me......Sexuality?

My mind and body are miles apart talk of life times apart! I had grown into a woman and guess what, I had missed it. My mind was stuck in survival, fighting to keep its sanity. It had repressed a lot to be able to function. It was fighting hard. The body had grown in a haphazard way. Puberty seemed to hit differently. Maybe the mind’s confusion had the body confused too.


“Oh my god, there is this peeling.” When I looked at myself, it was right there at the fold between the groin and thigh. It had been there for a few weeks now. “What more could possibly go wrong?” I had given it sometime to clear off (ignoring it). “Aren’t I walking on eggshells already?” The shells being in my head. One false move and they would all crack and the world would fall apart. It would all be real. I was abandoned. She did me wrong. Then there was this other part of me, which reasoned that I still needed finances. She was the only one I had. My father had not been in the picture as an active parent. I did not even know how to talk to him. I am not even sure that I wanted him in on my business anyway. My business being my normal up-keep and activities. I am not sure why, but I was terrified of him.


“What could this thing be? Other girls at school don’t know about such a body change”. And yeah they kind of talk about a lot of things from panties to boob tops to bras to periods to letters from boys to clubbing. Never had I heard them talk about this rash like thing. Later on I came to learn that it is called jock itch and it is mostly a physical change seen in teenage boys and it is cured by an over the counter ointment and their using boxers. I asked the one person I could ask and yet she was the one who had abandoned me. She said to leave it alone and apply Vaseline on it.


Its clearing marked the end of my looking at my personals. My periods not being regular ensured that I did not go down there. However, missing them wasn’t that bad because the girls talked about that and some claimed they missed theirs too. The only physical problem I had left was athletes foot. That I easily handled through powdering my feet, airing them as often as I could (being in a boarding school we were in shoes 16 hours straight) and drying in between them.


I also grew hair on my tummy the kind which is seen in teenage boys. The change grew on me and after sometime I thought they looked kind of cute and stopped looking at them as another anomaly. I figured I just needed to keep them from tangling by clipping them. However, it was yet another occurrence that was not in line with female bodily changes but more of a male bodily change.

I really could not handle any of these because things at home were bad. I had just been physically abused repeatedly. The one person I thought would always be in my corner, my mother, also abandoned me during the ordeal. She chose to abandon me in a time of great need. I just could not believe that she could let that happen on her watch and do nothing.


I further could not believe that she proceeded to alienate me just so that I could know that she was all-powerful. She was my lifeline and she used that fact as a bargaining chip. She used it to create an emotional leash that she tagged at whenever it suited her.


All these occurrences and thoughts ambushed and tortured me at school. I was almost at the peak of teenage; 16. Mine, well wasn’t sweet. Instead of being a teenager, I was busy worried about how I would make ends meet now that I was alone. I knew I had to detach and show her that well; I didn’t need her that much. I would be fine on my own as she intended. I would ace my tests and be a doctor. Medicine was a program that kept students away from their homes the longest.


Although I had resolved on emancipating myself there were these thoughts gnawing at me. “Why did she get very good at appearing to be in my corner and then let me hit the floor hard when push came to shove? How could she turn her back and look the other way?” If abandoning me wasn’t enough, she could not even acknowledge that she did something wrong. She had the audacity to claim that she did not know what I was talking about. She went with the line that she saw nothing and as such she did not know what I was talking about. She further went ahead in keeping me from leaving or visibly doing something about it by tagging at her emotional leash. She went on and on about how she would be disappointed for people to know that her boys were out of control. How she was in fact the victim!


Trying to process all that sent me over the edge. I became split into three. A part of me that knew the truth, a part of me that was terrified and emotional. Lastly, the third part that still believed there was good out there. The third part was the one without which I would not be able to get out of the house or ever associate with other people.


I also learnt to dissociate to protect the part of me, which is terrified and emotional. I believed to move on, I had to forget. But did I really? I might have just misconstrued repression to be forgetfulness. All this confusion lingered in my subconscious, and manifested occasionally as anxiety or depression.


Although I was already split and I could dissociate, I also became an avoidant and I was still in denial. My mother could not have possibly done that to me. But I still avoided her whenever I could. I just could not let her hurt me again. I barely made it the last time round. My emancipation although informal, was due to my not knowing if I could survive a betrayal of that magnitude again. Facing the reality that the world was unsafe, people were mostly self-centered was also hard for me to swallow. The cherry on top being that I was not able to depend on anyone because I knew and I was also in total denial that trust was just used as a bargaining chip. Trust became a luxury I could not afford.


As all this went on, I became so parentified while in the same breath held onto the child in me. I however, missed being a teenager. My teenage years whizzed by me. It was a blurr! And with it my chances of experiencing sexuality like other people my age. I also hardly looked at myself.

Intimacy......Scoot?!

Venturing into the real world, you are square into the dating realm. Though clueless about relationships in general you have a clear picture of what to expect in yours. On the flip side people around you seem to be all too eager to get you into one in a rush! “Whatever happened to people finding themselves at their own pace and time”? Their zeal throws you off guard and all of a sudden the blazing gun is pointing at you.


The situation makes you quite uncomfortable; squeamish even. They roll their dice and you feel put on the spot. “I really like you, would you be my girlfriend?” The quick retort would be no. Laced with a hint of taking offense by such a preposterous question. Why would this person dare cramp my style? “How dare they?” “You are special to me and I would like to treat you special.” "Special?" Mounting discomfort on your part, "let us just be friends in fact let us make it a group thing, a group hangout". In the event that you are shown different treatment then a serious clam would meet it up. So serious that at the very moment the niceties would end on your part. Just as to ensure that you are not mincing your words your attention would shift to a person who happens to be in the just friends wavelength.


In the event the statement “I love you” is directed at you then it would be quickly followed by a leave me alone retort. The mind would then race to a place where it would wonder why that particular person would not love someone else? "I am really not up for grabs. I only want to be friends; in fact the person was out of line asking me that. Where and how were these people raised? Asking to love others". 

During that period, I only wanted to be invisible. I wanted to sort out my emotional clutter in peace. I knew what I wanted but I had no idea how to get. I needed a minute to figure it all out. I also had baggage weighing down heavily on me and at the time all I knew to do was to repress it. I did not want to be rushed into feeling things that I was not ready to feel. I did not even want to explore my body! As such I was not at a place where I could share my life with someone else. All I knew at that particular point was that I was running from something. I was also at my cynical peak looking down on love and relationships. I was very eager to trade those with a career.


I distasted emotional people. Deep down I thought they were threatening to blow my cover and I was a little jealous of them because they were willing to go there, yes; the feeling place. They were willing to stop and feel. They sure were not laughing their feelings away or minimizing them. My reaction to what I felt led me to think emotional people should not wear their emotions on their sleeves but should look for appropriate places and time to show them. Behind closed doors would be a good start for such people. Better yet those people could learn to bottle their feelings! That was also the time I developed my “tough” talk about how stupid feelings were and as such my peers saw me as a stoic person.


I went through great lengths to ensure that I nipped every form of attraction in the bud. I did not want people to look at me ‘funny’ telling me little nothings. I was well aware that people have an annoying habit of asking me to open up, to feel my feelings, and to show I care. The very same people will ask around inquiring where they stand with me. This was draining on my part since I had confined the relationship “mambo jambo” into the smallest part of my life; that was duly expendable. I therefore was striving to ensure that they would not have the grounds of asking me for a commitment or even thinking to have their life entwined with mine.


Being in a relationship would force me to feel things that I had managed to ignore for the longest time and I had also made myself believe that they did not matter. I thought I was better off thinking about a career and being independent. I also thought that being unattached meant freedom. I would not be at anyone’s beck and call. My misconception was further reinforced by the tales I heard from my acquaintances about having to play hide and seek with their significant others.


Hide and seek meaning not telling their respective partners the truth about where they were or what they were doing. Basically to the people I was around dating meant fronting; playing on what your heart’s desire wants and expects and hiding who you really are. Ultimately those relationships were usually made up of white lies and downright dishonesty. They also seemed not to really matter to the persons involved. Some even became means to ends. They lasted a season and were them put off till the next period of need. Ideally, an on off pattern.


To have, to hold, to cherish sure wasn’t the theme of such unions. As such what I observed relationships to be did not peek my interest enough to have me think of experimenting being in one. To me I thought it would be easier for them to break up than to keep up a front for their supposed relationship partners. Not to mention the ability of someone to keep up a front was more applauded than being in honest, mutually beneficial relationships, which was seen as being whipped, and boring. (I secretly craved for those particular relationships). I was of the opinion that if you were going to strain yourself so much why not just end it.


My experiences growing up left me with a lot of baggage and fears. My observations served to nail the coffin shut. I put off intimacy because what I saw did not feel right. I had a template that I was looking to have fulfilled. The pickings were sure slim and the cynicism was at an all time high. I held back. The thought of intimacy had me scooting in the opposite direction.

Dull me, Shield me...Binge?

You really would like to escape from this situation and no you don't want to seem soft. Giving people your real person; soft and cuddly is out of the question. You have it in you out of nurture that the 'strong' get their way. Strong being code for aggressive and borderline barbaric. You do not comprehend why you are so sensitive, so different than your family members. At times thoughts cross your mind that you must have been adopted and you really are not blood related."How could you be? Do they know you are different, emotional and all?" You wonder. You are terrified stiff for them to know you, well aware that there is zero tolerance for the emotional and sensitive people.

You are living with her but you cannot stand her. Maybe it is a good thing that she leaves most nights to be with her boyfriend. But on the flip side, when she does not feel like it she pins it on you. She tells him that she cannot because she has to stay with her sister. "You think, more of torture her (referring to yourself in third person so as to distance yourself from the emotional pain)." Well, if someone asks me that statement is preposterous because you rarely talk to each other. You find her toxic.

Well, you feel strongly against her but your negative feelings do not shield you from feeling the limelight. It is glaring and yes it is pointed right at you. Oh...the weight? It is square on your shoulders. It feels like guilt entwined with sadness and anger. How she put you in their cross fire beats you. You have nothing to do with what they have and yet here she is dragging you into it. "Am I a burden" thought creeps into your head. You are left wondering why you have all these bad feelings and yet you steer out of everyone's way. It is amazing how your guilt gets you into having supper with them at her boyfriend's place. You really don't want to but you feel emotionally trapped.

"I need to get out of this place." That is the constant thought on your mind. Well, you once thought she was the 'safe' sibling.The better evil. The others were violent and imposing. They demanded a lot of your time. It felt that they wanted you to spend your whole life taking care of them. The nurturing in your home was chauvinistic. You, however did not anticipate to feel this miserable. The emotional torture was unbearable. You need to flee fast.

You turn to food. Bingeing. You just need to escape. Food quickly becomes a comforter. You think if you stuff your face with a lot of carbohydrates then you will duly feel drowsy and sleep. Sleep it off. Escape the feelings brewing in you. French fries and cookies are your poison of choice. She hurts your feelings and then she takes off to her boyfriend's. There you are stuck, hurt feelings mixed with negative feelings. They just keep replaying in your head. How you would give an arm and leg to have them stop. To stop feeling the way you are. If not stop, could your feelings just give you a break. You promise you will pick them up later.

The cycle is continuous. In the bid to escape you stop talking to her and stop being interested in hearing how her days went. How does she expect you to be cordial with her. "How dare she?" Yet she is the one who hurts your feelings every time she gets a chance. She is toying with your self worth and instilling feelings of self blame in the same breath. She notices that you have stopped talking then it must be because you do not like her. She sends her emissaries to find out why you don't talk to her and also don't mention her to people. "I am only able to deal with such a person for a given period of time and confine her to the smallest place in your life". You are terrified that her toxins might spread and damage the rest of you. You however, do not give people the reason because you just don't want to talk about or think about it. To you avoiding it is the only way you know how to deal with it. You are scared that talking about it will make it more real.

On the other hand you cannot believe that she is making herself the victim!"Really? Can she even think beyond herself? When she opens her mouth, doesn't she hear herself? "You cannot do anything right, you are conceited, you are too picky, you are too into appearances, you are too weak, you are stolen from every other time, you are too friendly. What is wrong with you?!" Her small talk with her boyfriend was how you were physically abused in the hands of your brother. Can't she see that the things that come out of her mouth are hurtful?" You think that you are not about to justify yourself and your actions. You think she also wants to instill self doubt in you. She must think that if you see that everyone is on her side then you must be bonkers to feel hurt by the way she treats you.

The kicker was that after beating you up emotionally she expected you to like her, to listen to her. She expected nothing less. In her world her verbal abuse was supposed to be cool. You were supposed to roll with the punches. "Ludicrous", you thought.

This is just but a form of emotional abuse that pushes a person to the brink. Pushes someone so far as to hide behind food. To binge.

Beaten Dumb

Years have flown by yet you are still jittery. "I'm sorry, was I in your way?" Talk of elevated anxiety levels. Always looking, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Right about now would be a good idea to miraculously grow eyes at the back of your head! You spook easily. You are startled by noises and well raised voices have you transfixed and scared. "Breath deeply, count to ten, compose yourself." You have a ritual to help you get out of the house. Always stoic, careful not to breakdown in front of people. You are also unable to put feelings into your words as the result would be gibberish. You appreciate the same from others because you do not know what to do when someone breaks down.

Once you are out you cannot wait to go back in. Exhausted, yet you cannot stop being hyper vigilant. Distorted reactions, overreacting in some while minimizing others. "Can it just stop." You chase calming activities, you need some quiet in your body, in your mind. Desperately wishing for a stop button. Needless to mention the need for you to be in control. Everything has to be done perfectly, at the right time. Well thought out and replayed repeatedly in your head complete with the likely responses from others. In which case every response scenario has a planned reaction and response. You are on toes, your brain ever ready and as such your speech has transformed into a rap. You are the only one in on the secret. It ideally is slow.

"Do you need something?" You constantly inquire of acquaintances that is if you are not lost in your thoughts. You look to lend a hand in a bid to blend in. Standing out is not an option to you. You are averse to it. You go an extra mile to look and hopefully sound like the girl next door. "There is nothing special here, move along people." Intimacy is a luxury you cannot afford. Vulnerable is the last thing you want to be. Being touched is petrifying. You also are not looking to impose on anyone or let anyone in. You'd rather leave on a parallel universe. The calm, peaceful kind.

Your sought actualization; invisibility goes way back. Home was well a war zone. The physically strong got their way through battery and intimidation. Shouting was the mode of communication.

You always ended up being the casualty of war. Being pushed around, beaten or being dragged into serving as a mediator which left you emotionally drained. If that was not enough you felt trapped, yes emotionally trapped. They played with your sensitivity and empathy. You therefore thought that every intimate relationship would be an emotional trap; no wiggle room. It would feel awful, the same kind of feeling you felt growing up.

"Get off that chair, wash my clothes, go get me food, cook for me, don't touch that, get out of the living room I'd like to watch a movie, yes in the middle of what you are watching. Need I say that my wants and needs trump yours?" My tyrant brother barked. The house always seemed smaller whenever he was around. I was terrified of and disliked him all in the same breath. Pleas to my mother did not give me immunity. She somehow enjoyed my desperate need for her to save me. She however, played her pity me card, my boys are out of control. There I was, literally serving time in the family. Crimes; being sensitive and being a girl!

The screams and yelling. The beat you up in a pulp threats. I am short of walking on my tippy toes so that I am not in anyone's way. I withdraw. If I am invisible then they will forget I exist. "Well, not so fast." My tyrants increased to two, both being my brothers while my mother worked on me emotionally so that I don't even think of leaving. Playing the I am a mother of warring children card. What am I supposed to do, I am also a victim.

I take up studying and keep my wants and needs to myself not to impose on her, the victim. I am of the opinion that studying and withdrawing will keep my brothers at bay while not imposing will save me from my mother's emotional shackles. How she twisted everything and became the victim left me dumbfounded. "Who is the child here and who is the parent?" I thought. Unfortunately that meant that I was on my own.

Busying myself with books doesn't keep my youngest tyrant away from looking for a confrontation, a fight. He turns to me "I need to teach you a lesson." Taken aback, "What?" "What lesson?" He goes on and on like a crazy person that he needs to teach me a lesson. I continue with studying and then he strikes me across the face with his bare hand.

There is ringing in my ear, I cannot hear. Still shocked, pain courses through my body. He pulls me off the chair and into the bedroom and slaps me around some more then he leaves me in a pile and takes off. I look at him, he looks justified in what he is doing, entitled even. The neighbors look the other way,all this is going on in plain daylight, the afternoon.

I think to go to the hospital and I need money. I go tell on him to mother dearest and ask to be taken to the hospital. I am given a card and told to sort myself out. "What do you want me to do? He is my son." I was in such a bad state; crying my eyeballs out. "What if I go to the police then, I ask her?" She just says that he is also her son. She makes herself the victim of my ordeal. Pity me; I am only the mother of warring children. I decide that the only way out of this is to run, leave. Just go and never come back.

I get treated but I unfortunately have to return to the same home. Days go by and then I am taught yet another lesson. This time he gets a cane from the tree outside and closes the bedroom door. His hands well, leave marks. He canes me senseless. I think I am no physical match for him. I cannot fight him even in my good day. I take the beating and think of the day I get to leave them. Go far away. This time I do not tell on him. I am tired of listening to my mother going through her pity me theatrics. I take up studying a notch higher and resolve on acing my tests and joining a medicine program. It is the only program I knew to keep students away from home the longest.

I was helpless, stuck in a house of savages where parents don't protect their children. They let them run wild, yeah a jungle for a house. They further keep them from leaving by guilt tripping them and instilling fear of other people. I fell further and further into my world. My need to be invisible grows bigger. I just want to be left alone. I don't want to talk.

Alpha Moment

I like this person; all of her. I like the good and I can work with the bad. I think this feeling is what is referred to as love. I enjoy her company, she knows me inside out, she listens to me when I need her to, she plays, laughs and cries with me. I feel something very strong; she turns me on in an erotic fashion. I am literally ablaze meaning I will need to be hosed down later but right now all I want to do is feel, take it all in. I had never felt like this prior to meeting her. I did not think it was possible to feel this way in the first place. It is the kind of feeling that the people around me talked about when it came to their partners.

Being around her makes me calm; except well this desire that I have raging. It cannot be contained. I need her, I want her. I'd really like to kiss her now! I feel her ever so strongly. Just listening to her and talking to her over the phone gets me weak. I am literally weak in the legs. Yet here she is sitting across from me and all I can think about is kissing her. The desire I have for her pulls me. I get lost in her fingers. A tad longer than I intended to, but right there and then the only thing I could think about, imagine, as if nothing else existed were her fingers. There it was in plain daylight, my very first moment. A moment that I did not reason through but only felt. Felt deeply and intensely. I was completely lost in someone in an erotic way. I felt a hot flush of sweat course through me. I knew right there and then that my cover was blown. She knew as well as I did that I wanted her. I felt nakedly in love.

Binoculars of the sexually abused

So, if I close my eyes really hard, I definitely won't feel it. I will hold my breath and wait till its over. It will be just like holding my breath when I jump into a pool and wait for the water to bring me up. This, however will come with a twist, the cue will be the climaxing of the person on top of me. If I follow the plan then he won't be able to tell the difference. He will definitely be engrossed in the wonderful sensations he feels.


So, I have heard the sensation is wonderful, out of this world even. As for me I just want to get through with it. I have tried to put it off the best I can but everywhere I go, everywhere I turn; it is the subject of conversation. How "she doesn't have a boyfriend or maybe girlfriend. Why doesn't she give it up?" Okay, this time I have made a pact with myself, I will go through with it. Just as we have played it through our head. Just hold my breath, make sounds and movements likely to suggest to the person on top of me that we are in at the same wavelength. Okay, ready.


More thoughts to convince myself that it is imperative that I take a plunge. After all we would like to have a baby sometime in the near future and this act well, precedes the bun in the oven! Here goes nothing. Okay wait, its just too hard lets be in a relationship first. Now we are in one. Well its time to collect. We do it the first time round. Eek, my mind literally escaped my body!I felt the discomfort that came as a result of penetration. Fear gripped me. It was followed by an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Should it be this uncomfortable, painful. Why does any movement on my part result in his saying that I am squeezing his man part. "Should I just lay there?"


I waited and there was no mind blowing orgasm on my part. "Is this it?" There was ejaculation on his part and well my act went perfectly. The person on top of me was clueless. He looks satisfied that there was mutual gratification. The mind returned and then there was intense sadness; grief.

It was an intense emptiness, I have lost something! I rush to wash it off, take a shower and have a moment to process it. "Can we just talk, hold each other?" He rolls over to sleep if it was a night rendezvous. He has somewhere to be if it was an afternoon hook up."Wow, okay how do I deal with these feelings that come after sex. Showering doesn't help and there is no one to talk to about it.


Lets look on the bright side,it is a naturally act, check, then maybe next time I will feel the pleasure that is acclaimed to sex. No, the next couple of times are worse. With each subsequent time the fear changes into dread. The dread prompts the mind to escape, to save itself from what is being done to the body.It is not me in the act.

After a couple of times I dread it. I dread sex. It always hurts and the feeling after is equally as bad. I get angry and agitated when he wants more of it. He seems insatiable. I don't want to meet up anymore. I think to myself, why can't people be in a relationship without it? I am told sex is what goes on through the minds of adults, get with the program. To acquire the status boyfriend or girlfriend you have to put out. I can't take it anymore. I break up, it is not worth it. I don't want to have sex anymore, it is overrated and painful. I like being emotionally bonded, I like the kissing, the touching and not the penetration part.

Growing up

You realize life is not a solitary endeavor. It comes as a daunting realization that you cannot cruise through it alone. It is more than meaningless “hook ups”; quick gratification. “Hey, had a hard week, I’ve missed you.” Usually ending up with people playing like rabbits on testosterone. Each one of you selfish as the next. “I need to come”, “I need to utilize this session, god knows when the next miss you text is going to come”….the grinding and hard breathing ensues….there is nothing about appreciating each other…all of the action is goal oriented “ I need my gratification” teeth are held shut…it surely is a marathon of a sensual nature! Morning comes by, “Wanna go again?” Then sweet nothings are exchanged. There’s no time for making you breakfast, this again is as is, just but a hook up. Niceties are overrated….”Hey you received the pleasantry in the bedroom and I’m surely asleep, there’s food but I’m out of gas if you would like to fix yourself something to eat!”
Brave the walk of shame and be sure to wear a smug! You leave each other satisfied. “The pent up frustration has been released!” Both of you are very content, but wait….life’s frustrations are recurrent. What happens to this emptiness? Emotional fix?