LOVE-ATTACK
First Love Attack
It’s funny that we’re about to talk about fathers whereas this is the mother of all toxic relationships. See what I did there? Ha-ha… humor isn’t my stronghold but I try. Anyway enough already, meet my guest. Today we have Skylar, who doesn’t want her identity revealed so we’ll just go on a first-name basis.
At only 20 years, she speaks with so much authority, one might actually confuse her for a 40year old mother, and this is a compliment. Pushing back her blown hair, she narrates her story.
At 10 years old, she experienced what science calls a STEMI, this is when a coronary artery is completely blocked by cholesterol-filled plaque or by a blood clot. Deprived of oxygen and energy, heart muscle cells supplied by the blocked artery begin to shut down key functions, then begin to die.
Hold on, I’m not saying the actual condition. I’m just comparing it to the emotional breakage that Skylar had, which she says can’t be described by words, mine is just to try and create the picture for you since you couldn’t feel the emotions on her face and see the tears struggling to be held back as she spoke.
Well, the actual STEMI condition can be treated immediately with artery-opening angioplasty plus a stent or clot-busting drugs, but Skylar’s condition has never gotten a remedy up till now.
She giggles as she says how much she has yearned for a heart transplant to heal her broken heart, but knows very well it can’t repair her, as she feels there are a million broken pieces in her but has no idea what they are, just a clue that the heart might be part of the misplaced puzzles.
Food was probably the wrong idea for this meeting as things got emotional, only coffee could pass down her throat without choking her. My over-empathetic nature didn’t help the situation either, we were just a wreck of emotions. We even got our bills paid by an anonymous person, who said Kenyans aren’t sweet?
Her mum died in her arms after being mercilessly beaten with her very sober dad one night. She was too scared to react, she just went with what her dad told her to say to the police. This has haunted her till date, that she not only covered up for her mother’s killer but has since lived with her biggest tormenter, waking up to the same memory every day. It got worse when she got a step mother, two years after her mother’s unjustified brutal murder
She felt like she was in a cage that that she couldn’t break out from, breathed air that she wasn’t justified to breath, life itself was a punishment to her. Her suicide attempts she says are uncountable, every one of them hit a dead end, and to her disappointment she was alive every time. She had to give up on death.
After soiling all the five handkerchiefs with tears, we resulted to using the serviettes on our table which we were almost sure of being charged for.
She said her father actually tried to be a normal dad, but every time he drew near the more resistance he got from her, she unconsciously made it her mission to hate him as a punishment that he never got, but she knew only too well that it would never be enough, which hurt her the more.
All her life until this year, she has repelled against any male figures, this even brought more charcoals to her burning heart as her family and friends associated her as a lesbian, not because she was one, but because of her strong dislike to boys and men brought about by the one man whom she once loved, and is slowly trying to love again after her life transformed by faith in God, a story for another day.
Her life has been full of hate, anger and guilt just because of the one toxic relationship she has had to endure for the past 10 years, a relationship that was supposed to usher her into love, to teach her how she should be treated by men, how she should be loved, instead taught her the exact opposite, how to hate and instilled fear instead of a sense of safety under the wings of her ‘first love’.
She says that she has come to know the only one unconditional love of Christ that she has never experienced before. For her, it is the medicine that the scientist have not yet found for such broken people. The treatment, Christ, is going well for her, she is also under counselling. Once in a while visits her jailed father in prison, she forgave him, and her healing process is going quite well.
Don’t just seat and be silent when wrong happens to children, no child deserves to be raised in a toxic environment. Dial 116, let justice be done!
