Lessons that Pain Taught Me-1

A lesson will repeat itself until you learn.

So, as 2019 was closing, the TSC announced they would be recruiting teachers. Remember-even doing Education as a degree was something I acquisenced because it was what my parents wanted and what would be 'safe'.

I had floated the idea of studying journalism and was told only people with connections get jobs-look at the irony of today's journalism, you can practically wake up and start your TV on Youtube or digital newspaper on a website and become sensation.

So, as 2019 ended, I was informed about the recruitment and asked if I wanted to participate. At this point my urge to go with my writing dream was really strong. I said no-a little manipulation here and there, and someone took my papers to a nice Girls National School close to home.

I had resigned from TSC in 2017-I knew that wasn't the path for me. But I still had that co-dependent fear of wronging my family by refusing to do what they wanted.

Now, the plan was to attend the interview, and not tell TSC I was in service before. There's a way you are given less priority if you were in service and quit-As in you get fewer marks in the interview. I hope it makes sense.

So, I followed the funny advice and defrauded my way to being awarded that position. I went home and started the job. I fell behind on rent. TSC doesn't pay you for the first three months after recruitment.

Then, my letter of appointment didn't show up. The TSC had my file and they had discovered I was a returning employee. They called the school principal and told her to tell me to stop reporting to work until they sort the issue.

When I went to their offices, they showed me the clause that says anyone who tries to defraud their way into service is liable for prosecution.

Look at that now-I was a 30 plus year old, going against my own judgment, and commonsense, and landing myself into legal trouble. (Codependency will take you straight to Kamiti)

In the process, the landlord started demanding his three months rent-I was as broke as a church mouse. He broke into the house and carried everything I owned to where only he and God know up to date.

Now, I was jobless, still a single mother and completely homeless.

Corona struck and I told mysef-let me go back into writing and find my footing.

That was the most dramatic stay I experienced at home. First, I was told that as the 30 plus year old, I shouldn't be there in that home. I remember paying two months rent to the 'rightful' occupant of the bedroom I had put up in, for inconveniencing her.

I remember buying a bed (madam furniture shopper), and being told:

"Hio ukiingia nayo hapa unless you promise not to leave with it hatutaelewana,"

I kept thinking-"niko dunia gani hii?".

My furniture is gone-i'm rowing against the current and trying to keep afloat and I still have to lose the new set of furniture to my own family?

Wueh!

Do you now understand why I honestly believed I was bewitched in 2020? because shuwally what was that?

I remember the blowout fight that made me run-that day I even asked.

"This is a 5 bedroom mansion-I am not asking to live here forever, just a few months as I reorganize. When the lockdown ends, I will be out. Am I not a child of this home like the others?"

I was having panic attacks. I had become so territorial at the time. I would tiptoe around the home and stay in the 'rented' room about 20 hours( I think I hoped the less people saw me, the less irritated they would be by my presence there)

It didn't work.

I remember running off to go live with my mother-in-law in the June of 2020.

Then I put together some cash and my sister boosted me with a little more. I wanted to go rent a simple house and restart my life.

When I got back home-I found they had taken the few sufurias I had bought-cups and plates and added them to the main kitchen utensils-not that they needed them. They simply had no respect for my boundaries or my things and my running off was their cue to take over everything I had struggled to buy. My bed had new occupants.

Fortunately my sister stepped in and told the others to give me my stuff.

I kid you not, when I came to Watamu and settled down, the next proposition was-

"Si uende na sister yako mkae hata yeye ajisimamishe?"

That statement there has been the only reason I existed in that home-as a ladder to get the others up.

And I was spiraling back into those dramas za kukaa na sisters earlier this year. When I spoke with my therapist she asked me

"Why are you mothering again? Doesn't this person have a degree like you? What about your debt, have you pulled yourself out of it ?Then you are not helping yourself or them-in fact you are disabling them and setting yourself up for another debt cycle. And you can write this down and take it to the bank-they will still discard you when you fail, and stop being the resource that serves them."

And that was the end of the cyclic pattern that could have led to house lockdowns, lost furniture and moving back home for premium abuse-as usual.

Setting up that boundary came with consequences, as usual-badmouthing, rejection, and all the "anaringa sana," or "Hapigi simu," dramas.

But through conscious therapy I have started learning this- Abuse thrives in self-abandonment. You have to be socialized into someone that doesn't love themselves first to be the perfect candidate for emotional and financial abuse.

As you start healing yourself, you come to the realization of who people are, not who you want them to be. As you heal, you notice the patterns of abuse that have kept you stuck for more than a decade. And as you make different choices, you start experiencing different results.