My mom dated a married man and gave birth to me. The story of that affair has always been sketchy. No one has told me the story in detail. Those who know don’t say much about it, and I’ve learned to let it go. When I was four years old, my mom got married. This time, to a man she didn’t share with anyone.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP CHANNEL TO RECEIVE ALL STORIES IN YOUR INBOX

She didn’t take me with her to the marriage, though it was in the same town. She left me with my grandma and came around to see me once in a long while. My grandma was my mom. She took care of me very well and gave me the grace to be a child.

I was eleven years old when my grandma died. I didn’t understand death, so when everyone cried, I played. The play in me vanished when I started living with my aunt and her husband because my mom wouldn’t take me home with her. My aunt started maltreating me. She had older children, but I was the one who woke up at dawn to get things done.

When my mom came around and I told her about the treatment I was going through, she got angry and told me to be grateful that I had a place to live. “If you don’t behave and they send you away from here, you won’t have any place to live,” she told me.

I didn’t do much wrong, but at some point my aunt’s husband said he couldn’t live with me anymore, so they should send me to my mother. This issue became a fight between my aunt and her husband. Her husband asked her to choose between me and her marriage. My mom later came for me, and for the first time in a very long time, I lived with her.

My mom’s husband didn’t live with her. He was working in the city, so he would go away for months, come home for a few weeks, and later disappear. I was basically living with only my mom, but she treated me like a slave. We lived in a storey building. My mom one day lifted me and tried to throw me down from the top floor. Men in the house came to my rescue. She told them to keep me since they wouldn’t allow her to throw me away.

She locked her door at night, and I slept on the porch. She would see me in the morning and beat me and tell me not to call her my mom. I was so hungry I went to the market and begged for food. I would go to school without money, so I would beg from my classmates or sometimes from the food sellers. One of the sellers asked why I was begging for food all the time, and I narrated my story to her. She thought I was lying, so she took me home after school to verify my story.

My mom told her, “She told you her story and you brought her here? Why don’t you keep her? She doesn’t have a mother.”

The woman was shocked but pleaded with my mom to take me back because I was still a child. This woman went on her knees to beg my own mom to take me back as her daughter. My mom accepted, and after weeks of sleeping outside and living my own life, I was allowed in.

Anytime I did something wrong, my mom would beat me as if I were her age and throw me out. So my life was like in, out, in, out, out, out, in.

When I was in, I was careful not to offend her. When I was out, I prayed to God to touch her heart to accept me back. One day, while she had thrown me out, she travelled to her husband and left me stranded. That was the time I first saw my menses. I told an old woman in the house, and she taught me what to do. It was terrible to go through that period without guidance and care.

One of those days when I was out, a guy followed me from the market asking me to go home with him. I said no. This guy followed me to the house. The house we lived in was an open place surrounded by shops and was close to the main market. It was a huge family house that belonged to my stepdad’s father. Anyone could enter the compound at will.

I didn’t see the man I was struggling with that late night, but I guessed it was that guy who followed me from the market. He took off my panty and was trying to go in. I fought like a wounded lion, but he was a bison. What he did nearly got me paralyzed. A few weeks later, I got pregnant.

I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I felt heavy but thought it was a passing phase. My teacher saw the pregnancy even before my mom because my mom didn’t have the eyes to look at me. She asked who did it. I narrated how I was raped to her. I was out, so my mom wasn’t talking to me.

This teacher took me to meet my mom and told her I was pregnant. Unbeknownst to us, my mom was also pregnant. My mom washed her hands of me and asked me to go to the man who got me pregnant. My teacher begged and begged, but my mom told her she could keep me if she loved me that much. I was in JSS one in 1999. My mom didn’t accept me, so the teacher left me there and went away.

The families in my house begged my mom to at least look for the person who got me pregnant, but she didn’t do it. I went to the market looking for that boy. I never saw him again but miraculously met my mother’s elder sister, who had come to town and was buying from the market. She took me home, and my mom asked her, “Where did you meet this devil?”

She told my aunt I was pregnant because I wouldn’t stop hopping from one man to another. My aunt looked at my tummy and asked if it was true. I nodded. She asked how many months, but I couldn’t say. My mom also couldn’t say. When she asked who the man was, my mom couldn’t answer. My aunt got so angry it turned into a fight between them. Unbeknownst to me, she had been told long ago how my mom was treating me. I remember her telling my mom, “You think she’s a curse because you have a husband? I will take her away. One day you’ll come looking for her.”

I ended up in Kumasi with my aunt. I gave birth and went back to school again. She took my daughter as her own so I could carve my own life. I completed university and didn’t know where my mom was. She gave birth to a boy and later a girl, but I didn’t know them. After my national service, my aunt asked me to go home with my daughter to see my mother. I shook my head and begged her not to push me.

During my wedding, my mom was ashamed to come, so she feigned sickness. I didn’t care. My stepdad came. He hugged me and asked me to forgive my mom. I didn’t say anything. In 2019, my stepdad died. For the first time, I went home with my husband. The house welcomed me with tears as if I was the funeral. I shook hands with my mom but didn’t talk.

Is Bride Price Still Relevant in Modern Marriages?

We still don’t talk to each other, but I talk often with my siblings, especially my brother. He tries to bridge that gap. He asks me to come home often. I tell him, “I’ve been out more than in all my life, so I don’t know how it feels to be in. She’s still my mother. I can love her from a distance, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
#MyChildhoodTrauma

—Patricia

This story you just read was sent to us by someone just like you. We know you have a story too. Email it to us at [email protected]. You can also drop your number and we will call you so you tell us your story.

******