The thorns my souls feeds and grows
Disclaimer : this isn’t a pity party or some sort of “sorry intervention” — this is majorly for relatability and comfort for people that may be going through
I promise I thought of 1,000 ways to start thid writeup — okay, maybe not a thousand, but several way to start it but hey , I think I’ll “Nike” it innit ?
Alrighty.
First lemme ask you , have you ever realllllyy thought about what your greatest flaw is — and how your loved ones cope with it or even how your “forever love” would accommodate it?
Are you in the class of “this is who I am” — take me like that ? Or like me do you have flaws that can’t be brushed away just like that ? Whewww.
Now that I’ve talked about my greatest flaw like that , I’m sure you’re wondering — what can it possibly be ? Righhhttt , I’ll tell you — and heyyyy feel free to judge . Jesus loves me way too much for me to really care about how you feel . Okay that’s extreme , but really.
DIAGNOSIS
“Enya have you seen this attachment test? “ “you should take it , I’m sure your attachment style isn’t “secure”. — KB typed . KB was the guy I was in a situationship with at that point , and frankly I had already started questioning some things about myself at that point so I decided to take his advice.
“Lo and behold “ — fearful avoidant . Ahhh , omooo — Ekab , what’s really going on ? I read on it , what the possible cause might be , was I really this broken I thought . Omooo .
The following days , months , I tried to decipher everything. I found the patterns , the behaviors that I portrayed , I was skin deep in this thing , and I needed to heal , but where to start from.
For you people that don’t know what traits fearful avoidant people portray, it is majorly : A fearful avoidant attachment style describes a person who craves closeness and support. However, they also fear it and feel the need to distance themselves from others at the same time.
POSSIBLE BEGINNING
As much as I hate tags because they somehow just seem like justifications for doing certain unsavory things , I grabbed this one with my full chest.
I’ve been trying forever about what could have possible happened — and my mind has landed on the period in secondary school , the time where I was struggling to stay afloat emotionally and navigate senior secondary school .
Luckily for me I achieved one — I got on honors roll , but that came at a price; I starting dining with a frenemy. Hear me out, the back story in a nutshell is that , I had this best friend that I loved — when I say lover I mean loved and she loved me so much as well . However, one day , her parents uprooted her and put her in another school without prior knowledge by her or me .
Hence , I had to start finding myself again , trying to get closer to the acquaintances that had already created strong rapport with — and one person topped that list. My frenemy.
So yes I got on honors roll , and everyone was just so excited for me . I mean it wasn’t like I was over-striving to get there , but I did , and my frenemy didn’t like it — cause I overheard her talking to someone about how I got on honors roll, meanwhile she had to do extra classes to catch-up.
I froze in one stop when I heard it . To this day, I remember where they we standing , and where I was standing. I couldn’t believe it , but I soldier on , but not without a reaction. I kept malice with her — it was what I thought was best at that time , a betrayal so deep . How do I confront it ? I remember beginning to think to myself that I was all alone, that I had no friend I could trust again . If she , the one person I had began to warm up to could think this way — there was really no need to make friends. So I stepped on the gas pedal of commitments and allowed myself just be.
ROLL , SET , ACTION !
Eventually, we started speaking again — at this point, I never knew anything about boundaries , so I went all in again. And as usual, I got burned again .
This time it was different — I had built another “solid” friendship. We were now four, like a clique that couldn’t be broken . I thought I had finally gotten something remotely close to what my best friend and I had — boy was I wrong. Because a while after it exploded in my face.
I really can’t go into details now , but what I’ll say is , even as an adult , if that thing ever happened to me , I would lose it. In a nutshell , two friends of the three other clique members , including the one from before , set me up , bullied me , threatened me , made a mockery of me and lied severely against me.
Till date , I’m never experienced anything as toxic as that. And years after it happened , I’ve begged God to help me forgive and let go — and sometimes when I think I’ve buried it deep enough , it comes out . But at other times it appears in my relations with people . How I pull back when I my mind tells me. someone might not be 💯 with me. Most times it’s my mind trying to guard me — it’s painful that after all this years I still suffer from the ripple effects of the action of some silly teenagers’ .
Like someone once said , and I rephrase : something that may be a “naive act” by someone , but would end up settling in up life and popping up as trauma later on.
A TRUTH
The truth is that sometimes the trauma we carry around was inflicted on us in ways that we didn’t think would harm us, by people that were naive about what they were doing.
Sometimes they come to the realization — like in my case one people of the people (because they were a lot) — apologised to me before his death “God rest your soul Ezugo”. When it happened , it would like drinking cold water on an extremely hot day and I’ll forever be grateful to God for him.
Why did I write this — be this vulnerable outside ? Because I feel like someone can resonate with this — we all have flaws and 90% of us have faced trauma , some of which after us till now .
BARING IT OUT
For me , some days I feel like I’d end up alone , like who would deal with this behavior , other days I’m hopeful and optimistic about my prospects . They call it “flip flopping” , as much as I’ll like to say “this is who I am” — I’ll much rather say “I’m working on being a better human, and if I’ve ever related to you in this way or if I do in the future , please forgive me abs permit my flaws”.
Like everyone else , or most people , I want to love and be loved , and getting there means continuous improvement, growth , through pain , trauma etc.
So hey , if you’re going through trauma , or you feel “not enough” or you have certain reservations about yourself , I want you to know that it’s okay to be that way, but it’s not okay to stay that way . What happened happened , and moving on is your best chance at getting the best out of life.
Your not alone , you never are . Your trauma is never too small to spread or affect you. You are seen , you are loved. More over Jesus literally died so that you won’t feel this way — so Omo don’t allow your mind play you like that.
If you don’t remember anything, remember that there’s someone that loves unconditionally you despite how toxic you are .
You’re not alone — you never have , and you’d never be.
And this goes without saying , be a kind and empathetic person — cause trauma isn’t funny . You might think you’re not doing any harm but in retrospect , you’re destroying someone .
Have an amazing week ahead .
Love,
E.
