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Kemi*, 24, was just 11 years old when her mother’s words shattered their close relationship and set her on a path of hatred, trauma, and self-destruction. What started as a comment about her appearance in a blue dress became the catalyst for years of pain. From sexual abuse that went unnoticed to destructive relationships and a complicated relationship with God. Here, she opens up about how that single moment shaped everything: her self-worth, her sexuality, her faith, and ultimately, her journey back to healing and forgiveness.
TW: Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Mental Health Struggles
Can you tell me about your relationship with your mother when you were younger?
My mum and I were really, really close before everything happened. I was the most affectionate child. My siblings didn’t really like to show affection, but I did. I used to enjoy my mother’s company so much that even when they wanted to take us away from school, I’d be like, “No, no, I don’t want to go. I want to stay with my mum.” For context, my mum worked at my school.
We were really good. I used to hug her and give her kisses. In fact, I was the only child who was doing that. So yeah, we were that close before everything went wrong.
Before everything went wrong? What happened?
There was this day that I remember so clearly, and it’s weird because my memory is usually trash. Like, ask me what I ate yesterday and I’ll draw a blank. But I can tell you exactly what I was wearing that day — this light blue dress.
My puberty hit really early, so I was starting to develop breasts. I was outside in the compound playing with my neighbour, this boy who was maybe three years older than me. I wasn’t thinking of him as a boy and myself as a girl – we were just kids playing. But because of the light material of the dress, you could look at me and see that I was starting to grow breasts.
She had been watching through the window for a long time before she finally called me into the house. Then she said, “Look at you. Look at how you look like a prostitute, and you’re still playing with big boys.”
That moment changed everything for me.
That’s such a heavy word. How did that make you feel?
I became reserved and distant. And everyone, the boy and his sister, even my own family – they just assumed I was proud. That became everybody’s perception of me: “She’s proud.”
But there’s more you need to understand why that hurt so much. Before this time, I had been sexually abused by a family friend for over three years. It was between the ages of 3 and 6. This person was living in our house, and my mum had brought him there. For three solid years, this was happening, and nobody noticed.
Your mother didn’t know about the abuse?
Nobody knew. But that’s what broke my heart the most: how does something like that happen for over three years and nobody notices? That’s probably the most heartbreaking part, because you brought this person to the house, you didn’t care to be vigilant about bringing a strange man in his twenties into your house with vulnerable children.
And when I finally told her what happened, she cried and held me, then turned around to blame me. And, she was still kind to his family. She would give them money, she would give his siblings stuff, and be more of a mum to them than to me.
So when I said I hated that person, the abuser, it was mostly because she had blamed me for what happened, but she was still being motherly to his family.
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That must have been incredibly isolating.
It was very difficult growing up in that house, knowing the things that had happened to me, knowing that nobody protected me, nobody even noticed. I used to carry this anger that nobody else understood. I would have an attitude, especially around that person’s family, and they would say things like, “Oh, this one is just proud. This one is just spoiled. This one is not like the other siblings.”
Even in my family, I never felt like I belonged because I was always the child who would embarrass my mother with how I was feeling. I could never just be the child who was doing well. There was always something to worry about with me.
I’m curious, are you a religious person? If yes, did this experience affect your relationship with God?
My mum had said to me that day, after I told her, “Go and read Psalm 51 and ask God for forgiveness”, like the abuse was my fault and I needed to ask God to forgive me for it. That really messed with my mind. I was thinking God should apologise to me. There’s no reason why something like that should have happened to me, and nobody came to save me.
There was literally no karma for this person. He went ahead, got married, and went to school abroad. His life was getting much better. So I was just mad at God. I decided I hated God.
I’m sorry you had to go through that. Tell me about your teenage years and how this anger manifested.
I had gained admission to university at the age of 15. I think trauma kind of pushed me to be brilliant academically. But even at family events, she would always invite that person. I would always be forced to see someone I was trying to run away from, and they would say I was embarrassing my mother.
Eventually, I stopped going home. But on my mum’s 60th birthday, she said she wanted all her children there. So I had no choice but to go. Also, I thought that by now, my mum should know better. The person shouldn’t be there anymore. When I got there, I saw him. He was there. I remember him saying to me, “Oh, you’re a big girl now.”
That just brought back all those memories I had been trying to forget. I got so drunk that day, I was just making a mess.
When I went back to school, I started having sexual experiences, but they were all terrible. I was trying to prove something, trying to reclaim my body, but I couldn’t feel anything during sex. It was like my body was broken.
I became hypersexual, addicted to porn and masturbation from age 12. I was desperately trying to feel something, to make my body work for me. But every relationship just reinforced what people had been saying, that I was only good for sex, that I’d always be someone’s second choice.
Your mother did a lot. I am sorry. How did you start feeling about her over time?
I started feeling a genuine hatred. I really did hate her a lot. It was very difficult growing up in that house, knowing she had failed to protect me and then blamed me for it. If she had acted right, I wouldn’t have made so many unnecessary mistakes. I wouldn’t have believed some things about myself.
Eventually, I had to return to that house after university. There was no more school; nobody was going to keep paying for my hostel. Going back to everything I hated, everything that used to trigger me – it was really, really hard.
I started self-harming, fighting suicidal thoughts every single day. At some point, I got completely depressed. I couldn’t do basic things like bathing. I lost all my friends because they were like, “Something’s always wrong with you. It’s always about you.”
What happened after that?
As weird as it is, that was the year I finally felt this pull towards God. I don’t know how to describe it – I just felt like something was calling me to come to God, and honestly, that was the only way I survived that year in that house.
I didn’t know how to pray, but I started praying. Sometimes, I just sang songs to God, and it used to make me feel so calm, so at peace.
I feel like I had to forgive God, which is so weird, because it wasn’t God’s fault. My mum was the one who said something out of place. So I kind of had to let go of those things.
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Tell me about your spiritual journey.
When I moved to Port Harcourt and got a job, I started forming a deeper relationship with God. I found this church that I felt like everything had been leading me to since 2019. I decided I wanted to be abstinent because I realised I didn’t need men to help me prove anything about my body, I just needed myself and God.
My addiction to masturbation and pornography just stopped on its own after I let God in. I’d been trying to stop by myself for years and couldn’t, and it just stopped like that.
That sounds like a breakthrough. Did this have a domino effect on your relationship with your mum?
Well, before the relationship with my mother made any headway, something significant happened. I got pregnant. My mum had always said I could never get pregnant, so I used to be careless with sex. When I found out, the guy and I were freaking out because we both said we wanted to be child-free. I never wanted to bring a child into this world and put them through what I went through.
We went to the hospital, and one doctor mentioned a drug that could stop a child from forming. In my head, it never clicked that he was talking about abortion. We started the process, and when I realised what was happening, I wanted to go back and stop it, but the doctor said it was too late.
The whole thing happened in less than 24 hours. The reason I still feel like I haven’t fully processed it is because it didn’t feel like an abortion; it wasn’t painful, and I barely bled. It just felt like a period.
I was angry with my mum all over again because she literally convinced me this thing was never going to happen, and now it happened. I also didn’t want to prove those people right who said I’d be a teen mum. Though I was 20 at the time.
Did your relationship with God continue to grow?
I felt like God wouldn’t want me after something like that. Most Christians say they aborted before they knew God, but I was aborting after I had said I wanted to give my life to Christ. I was going to leave the church.
But in December 2022, at this prayer meeting, my pastor said something that changed everything. He said, “There’s someone here. You’ve done an abortion, but God is telling me to tell you there is no evidence.”
That was what he said, exactly like that. In that moment, I just broke down because he was saying it word for word. It was too specific to be a coincidence.
I took that as God’s way of saying he still wants me. That day, during prayer, I found myself unconscious on the floor, and when I woke up, one of my pastors was hugging me, saying, “It’s okay, you’re a new person.”
My period, which had ceased for 60 days after the abortion, returned that day. I felt like it was symbolic. I just felt new, free from my childhood trauma, free from needing validation from men.
Wow! I’m happy you found healing. Did this experience eventually change your relationship with your mother?
By January 2023, I was already seeing my mum in a different light, although the actual forgiveness didn’t happen until 2024. In December 2023, God told me I had to go see my mum. I was like, “Why am I always the one who has to be the bigger person?”
I didn’t do it until she texted me one night at 3 am. I was at church cleaning up, so I saw the message immediately. She had dreamt about that day with the blue dress, me wearing it, and her telling me I looked like a prostitute. She came to ask me, “I dreamt of this. Do you remember this ever happening? Did I ever do that?”
Wait, she didn’t remember saying that to you?
Apparently not. But when I confirmed it happened, she started apologising. She said she was sorry for all the things she had done, sorry for not protecting me, sorry for blaming me. She started making intentional efforts to rebuild our relationship.
I realised that all these years, I had been carrying this anger and hatred, but she genuinely didn’t remember some of the most hurtful things she had done. That doesn’t excuse them, but it helped me understand that she wasn’t intentionally trying to destroy me.
How do you feel about your mother now?
Our relationship is so much better now. She’s been very intentional about making amends. When I visit, I notice small gestures; she’ll prepare my favourite food, ask about my life in ways she never did before.
I’ve moved from having an anxious-avoidant attachment style to more of a secure attachment. I think that’s partly because of my healing with God, but also because she took responsibility for her actions and actively worked to repair our relationship.
What would you say to your younger self who hated your mother so much?
I would tell her that the hatred is valid, what happened to you was wrong, and your mother failed to protect you in ways that really mattered. But I’d also tell her that holding onto that hatred will poison every other relationship you try to have.
The anger I carried toward my mother affected how I saw myself, how I related to men, and how I related to God. I thought I was only good for sex, that I’d always be someone’s second choice, because that’s what the trauma made me believe about myself.
But healing isn’t just about forgiving the person who hurt you, because you do not have to. It’s about freeing yourself from the power their actions have over your life.
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How would you describe your relationship with yourself now?
I don’t ask myself anymore, “Am I ever going to be somebody’s first choice?” It’s now a different kind of confidence I’m operating with. It’s like, anybody that ends up with me will be so blessed, so lucky to be with someone like me.
My low self-esteem is gone. The need for validation is gone. I know now that I will be somebody’s first choice, but more importantly, I’m my own first choice. And that’s something nobody can ever take away from me.
The abuse happened. My mother failed me. I made mistakes trying to heal from all of that. But none of those things define who I am today. I define who I am today.
Such a happy ending. Any final thoughts?
Looking back, I can see how everything, even the really painful stuff, led me to where I needed to be. I’m not saying I’m grateful for the bad things that happened, but I’m grateful for who I’ve become because of how I chose to heal from them.
I’m grateful for my relationship with God, for finally knowing my worth, for not needing anyone else to validate me. And surprisingly, I’m even grateful that my mother and I found our way back to each other. Some relationships can be repaired if both people are willing to do the work.
But the most important relationship I repaired was the one with myself.
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