Drinks With Our Abusers

Content Warning: This piece contains detailed discussions of child sexual abuse, rape, and sexual assault. Please prioritize your safety and well-being. If these topics are triggering for you, consider skipping this one or reading with a trusted person nearby.

It’s Saturday night and I’m chilling with my girlfriends.

It was just one of those nights. We decided to stay at home and have drinks. The setting was simple: just us, three young women from different African countries (living in Ghana) sitting together with bottles and cans of beer. Those who smoked pulled on their cigarettes.

We started with pleasantries and then spoke about the common factors we faced as single, foreign women living in another country. The more drinks we had, the deeper the conversation. It got more intense and emotional, but we didn’t care. It seemed like we all had something in common.

Secrets. Secrets that even family members knew nothing about. Secrets that had molded us into the young women we are now.

At this point, you are beginning to wonder what secrets I might be talking about. The three women who decided to spend Saturday night together all had one thing in common

Lady 1 sipped her beer as she shared her complicated childhood:

“As a child, I was so stubborn that I was sent away to live with my Grandma. When I moved to Grandma’s home, my mum’s younger brother- my uncle tried to rape me so many times. Even the times he forced his penis into my mouth. I remember fighting him while begging that I had never done it before, so he shouldn’t do it to me. This traumatized me so much that anytime I heard his name, I never wanted to be in the same space as him. One Aunty noticed this and asked what the problem was. As soon as I opened up, she asked me to shush and never tell anyone about it. She made me feel like I was abnormal. Weirdly, I was happy he later died.”

As she shared this, Lady 2 cringed so bad, inhaled her stick of cigarette so hard, while I gulped down my drink to hide my emotions. Because I saw myself in her shoes.

Lady 2 :

“I was a child when a man who was supposed to be family abused me. I remember clearly how he inserted each of his fingers inside me, as if he was experimenting with the art of fingering. I was a chubby young girl full breasts but yet to see my first period. This man stole my innocence even before my period came.I could not even tell my parents because Daddy was a military man. He would have beaten me, and then they would probably have called me a spoilt child. The irony of all this is that my rapist came back many years later to ask for my hand in marriage. Well, as you can see, I’m single and living.”

Lady 3:

“How do they even do that? The audacity to want marriage!

It reminds me of the guy who tried to rape me in high school. He planned with his friends to get me to a lonely spot. I foolishly went because, unknown to me, my high school crush was the bait. I thought I was going on a first date with my high school crush. I didn’t know I was being set up.

This other guy came out of nowhere, pounced on me, and pinned my body to the ground. He choked me with one hand while he was busy trying to unzip his trousers with the other. I fought hard. I screamed. I cried. I was slapped and my neck choked hard. I felt like each breath could have been my last.*

Then my savior came, an older man who happened to be around the scene. He pounced on that beast and pushed him off me. I cried and ran as fast as I could without looking back.

Fast forward some years later, my abuser asked me to forgive him and said, “You know I have always liked you. Let’s get married.”

Did this guy even know the damage he caused to my life? Does he even know his abuse still plays in my head when I try to get intimate with any man?”

After our conversation, we realized our parents failed in instilling the ability to speak out in us. The thoughts of society are mostly shitty. So we kept these secrets that constantly kill us every day.

Four out of five women have been abused. We are shaped by our experiences, but somehow we are expected to be a certain way.

Well, I’m done with my drink. And I didn’t know why I should share this while typing. But now I know.

To someone out there dying inside: you are not alone.

Speak out to someone.