Home or Hell

What does a home mean to you? Well to me, my home is my hell and I want to get out of it. Everyone says there’s no place like home, but I’m here to prove everyone wrong. So I go by the name Bella, and I’m the third of four kids in a family of six. Second daughter to be precise.

Hmmm….where do I start from I ask myself, and all I can think of is the pain and trauma I’m going through right now, and I’ll say my family is the cause of my pain and trauma, but I love my family too much that I’m currently living my life to please them and according to their will. I’m a jobless 26 years old Nigerian lady, from a typical yoruba home, still living with her parents and is in debts. I grew up having a certain mentality that affected me from my teenage days till now…I for one never felt loved by my family and that made me make a lot of mistakes. Now, I’m not trying to push blames, cos I’ve done things I can’t just blame them for, but they instigated most of my actions.

Being a third child is somewhat a hassle that most middle children would understand. Growing up, I got used to the idea of being the understanding child among all of us, I never relied on any of my parents or even siblings, I went through things that I shouldn’t have gone through as a child and I became damaged. I see myself as a damaged person that has a lot built up on me, and just need to tell her story. I don’t know how far this story will go, but I’m just telling it to get closure for myself.

So who is Bella? Well, I have a bachelor’s degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management, from a university in Nigeria, I graduated in the year 2023 and I’ve been jobless since then. I’m a girl that’s dealing with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety and self hate. I’m also a girl with dreams, baggages, fears, traumas, sadness, little bit of happiness and no love life lol. I dream of furthering my studies in hospitality management and also being a certified chef because I hope to have my kitchen someday. And oh, I love to cook…I cook when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I feel like, when I don’t…cooking is just a big part of me, and I hope to make a living out of what I love to do.

This my story might seem boring, but this is how I can write this. I want to be a better person for myself, I want to be known for great, I want to learn from my mistakes, I don’t want to be scared of living my life, I want to be in charge of my life, I want to feel valid, I want to feel loved, I want to not feel useless all the time, and I don’t want to feel used all the time. This is why I’m telling this story…there might be people out there that are going through what I’m going through, and personally, I love to make people feel better despite whatever I’m going through, so I want them to read this and know that their case is not the worst, that they are still better than some people and with time, they’ll get better.

So for me, everything started when I got my first period, for Nigerians, it’s always a thing of joy when a girl child gets her first period, but in my own case, I’d say got my first trauma from the response I got from my ‘mother’. My parents were not always the around kind of parents, we were raised by mostly aunts and uncles that were living with us, so I’d say for my parents, they mostly played the roles of providers not parents. As a girl, it’s a normal thing to have a certain relationship with your mother, like that mother and daughter bound; but my mum and I never shared that bond. And it all started with my first period. Mind you, I’ve always had thoughts of being an adopted child since my first year in high school. I never felt like I belonged, they never felt like my family, and I had thoughts to run away. When I got my first period, none of my parents were around as usual, for my dad, it was work and for my mum, she travelled, so I was alone and scared. I used to be a rough player when I was young, so I had just come back home from playing and I noticed that I was bleeding down there. Little me thought that I was dying and maybe I played too rough and had an accident, I didn’t know what to do. I had never had ‘the talk’ cos my mum didn’t see the need educate me on it because she felt I was still too young so I didn’t do anything, neither did I tell anyone. Then when we were still young, if we did anything wrong, my mum would hit us with anything, sometimes she would bathe us and then beat us. So that made me really scared that I had done something wrong and that made me bleed. All I was doing then was just changing my panties all the time and washing the stained ones. It sounds funny but it’s not, I cried all through because I thought I was dying and I was too scared to talk. On the third day or so, I was in my room changing and my brother walked in on me and saw my bloodstained clothes. The first thing he said was that he would report me to my mum like I had done a bad thing. So I started begging him and crying, but he didn’t listen; my mum was returning that day and I just wanted the ground to swallow me.

Growing up, there has always been favoritism amongst us, my older brother and my kid sister were the ones that I got jealous of because of the treatment they got from my parents. So when my brother threatened to tell my mum about my blood, there was nothing I could do at that moment. So when she got back, he told her that he saw blood on my body and that I’ve been hiding it. So my mum called me and the look on her face scared the hell out of me. The first question this woman asked me was if I slept with someone and I was like…..I was so confused and scared at the same time. She literally threatened to beat me that night if I didn’t tell her the truth, I started crying because o was scared. She got calm later on, and called my aunt which was a nurse, so my aunt told her that it was my period and nothing else. That was when she actually believed that it was my period. She didn’t believe me when I told her no one touched me, but she believe the words of someone else and that hurt. As a child then, I didn’t really read much meaning into that scenario, but when I grew up, and with the experience I’ve had with her, I remembered that night and I held it against her. My mother has always thought the worst of me, and there’s a certain part of me that wants to do that worst; but I want to be better. From that night, I made up my mind to never tell her anything that has to do with me or my private life. That decision made me grow faster than my age, because I had to go through things alone and scared.

To my mum, I’m a useless person that’s doing nothing for her and I have no value whatsoever right now. All she want to do is control my life and make me miserable, making it hell for me in my father’s house. There’s a lot to say, and they will be said bit by bit, chapter by chapter.