Out of Amaka's Head

As a child growing up in Nigeria, I was always fighting to survive; first to survive the home and then to survive all the other cards that society has dealt against me. Thankfully, I grew up in a well to do household so the sights seemed clearer than most, but money can only do so much because problems will always exist in life.

My father, Eni, came from a very affluent family. He was the second child and second son, with two sisters after him. My grandfather, Rena Abasi, was a billionaire even though he never openly admitted to it for tax purposes. He was a genius businessman, real estate mogul and popular Lagos Socialite with connections in all the high places. I admire him for being able to build a wonderful life for himself and his family regardless of coming from humble beginnings.They had lives that average Nigerians could barely dream of, especially at that time.

I grew up on my grandfather’s estate, in Port Harcourt, living with my father and stepmother, Benita, whom I called Mum Benita. She came from a well to do and devout Muslim family. She raised me and cared for me as her own, which is not the typical Cinderella scenario everyone immediately imagines once a stepparent is involved. I was grateful for the dynamics of our relationship but like in most relationships, even biological, there’s usually a downside. Unfortunately for ours, the older I became, the more toxic and deep it got, I’ll get more into that later. My biological mother, Mum Remy, and I had a pretty passive relationship even though she fought to maintain it. I didn’t know much about her or how she and my father split, because I was still very young when they parted ways. I never really asked about it because as a very sensitive child, I could feel the tides shift in the household whenever Mum Remy was brought up or came around, especially from Mum Benita.

I remember, one time when I was 7, Mum Remy came to pick me up so I could spend a holiday with her; I was rarely ever allowed to, so she was excited. I, on the other hand, was a bit nervous about the chastisement I’d face at home when I got back. I have fun times with Mum Remy, but it was always so clear to me the difference in the lifestyle she could offer me juxtaposed to the life I was used to with my father. I could see she tried so hard to impress me and keep me comfortable, which I greatly appreciated. When the holiday was over, she dropped me off back home. Mum Benita had helped me unpack and get settled, then she began having a conversation in front of me with my little cousin, Anna, who was staying with us for a bit, saying, “Since Amaka has gone on a trip already to Bayelsa, let us go on our Trip to Lagos where I’d take you shopping, and we can go have a lot of fun together without her. She has had her fun already”, she did this obviously to make me feel bad for visiting Mum Remy.

I remember this making me not want to go visit Mum Remy again, even though the crazy thing is Mum Benita pushed for my father to allow me to go spend the holiday with Mum Remy. These anticks just got worse as time went on, and I didn’t know how to pinpoint what was happening to me because she seemed caring and also gave me a lot of material gifts, either as an unspoken apology or just because she wanted me to have the best of everything. Of course, our toxic relationship took a serious toll on me mentally and emotionally and there was nothing I could do about it because I was just a child and I couldn’t speak to anyone because they’d say I was being ungrateful. Looking back now I can see a lot of my “bad habits” as they called them, like sucking my thumb, biting my nails and bedwetting was just my soul crying out for help. But then, they were just extras added to the arsenal of disrespect and ridicule I had to endure. I was not a very outspoken child, so I internalized all that and thought I was just wrong for existing. I’d always cry to myself, wondering what was wrong with me. I recall always contemplating running away from home but that wasn’t an option, so I used to write suicidal letters in my little black diary gifted to me by my grandmother on my 10th birthday because I hated myself so much and didn’t see the point of my existence. I recall my father finding one letter while randomly going through my diary and telling me to hide it from Mum Benita because he knew she would lash out if she saw it. My father was always a very calm and collected figure in my life, he showed me so much love and made feel special. I think this is part of why I have very high standards when choosing a partner now because I want my future daughter to know the thrill it is to have a caring, loving and understanding father. He was the only person I could gain true comfort from. I feel like outside of that he should have put Mum Benita in her place more, but that was the downside to his laid-back nature, he didn’t like stress and let a lot of things slide for the sake of peace. I continued enduring the emotional abuse, but I was shutting down slowly and didn’t even notice because, how could I know? I was a child, all I knew was, I spent a lot of time daydreaming and building worlds for myself in my imagination, that was my only safe space. This began affecting my performance in school because I spent most of my time just playing, drawing and daydreaming. Mum Benita then enrolled me for private classes after school, which helped. Primary school went by like a blur and before I knew it, I was preparing for secondary school entrance exams at the age of 9. My father decided I was to be sent off to a boarding school because he was sent to one when he was my age. I wasn’t happy with being kicked out of the nest so early but on the inside, I was filled with joy because this was the runaway opportunity, I’d been waiting for all my life. I had to mask my joy with sadness though, to ensure Mum Benita didn’t see that, and stop me from going. I once made the silly mistake of uttering “ah freedom at last”, while we were looking at the pamphlets for the schools, I had passed exams for. Mum Benita heard this and went off at me saying, “what do you mean by that, are you saying you are not free here!” and proceeded to smack me but it didn’t go past that cause my father quickly deescalated the situation. Please do not misread the smacking as her being physically abusive to me, in Nigeria it’s commonplace to have a ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ type of mentality. She never hit me more than any parent or teacher would, which is why I stress on the fact she raised me as her own, but even biological parents can have toxic relationships with their children. All I encourage is that more parents take that more as a last resort rather than a regular form of discipline because talking and coming to an understanding is always an option, I believe, works more effectively. The problem is that method requires the parent to have some form of respect for their child and that’s not something common in Nigeria.

I didn’t have much self-respect because of how Mum Benita treated me or a female figure I could trust to confide in, so that left me vulnerable to be prayed on. I was being sexually abused by my nanny, Sarah, at the time and I had no one I could talk to about it. She said if I told anyone, I would get in trouble with Mum Benita, so I complied out of fear. This went on secretly for years until I was sent off to boarding school. The first day I was being dropped off was pretty emotional, but I didn’t cry like the other children. I shed a tear when I hugged my dad and that was it.

Boarding school had its ups and downs, but I enjoyed being around children my age, well at least the mature ones, because I was used to being the only child at home. I went through a lot of issues in boarding school but that’s where I stopped most of my “bad habits”. When I was younger, I was able to kick my thumb sucking habit but bedwetting and biting my nails were so hard to kick because I was anxious all the time. Sadly, in Nigeria, mental health is something that was never acknowledged, so everyone blamed me for things I had no control over. Thankfully I was able to stop the bedwetting, I think due to the limited time I spent at home allowing me to heal. The anger issues I learnt to control through expression by writing in my little black diary. It helped me think and reflect before I reacted. Now, I’m really hard to anger, except when disrespected or seeing others being disrespected for no reason. I think it’s the part of me that was oppressed that wants to come to my defence and the defence of others, especially the helpless. All that was left was the nail-biting which I am presently battling in my 20’s. Boarding school made some of the best years of my life and gave me some of my closest friends to date. I endured Mum Benita till I graduated boarding school then I got sent off to Canada for University. Mum Benita divorced my father shortly after because he fell into bankruptcy due to the 2016 recession in Nigeria and she remarried that year. It was a painful situation for but luckily, I was in therapy and got help through it. She promised to support me, but abandoned me in the end, and my father couldn’t afford to support me. I was lost and hopeless, until one day I found my small black diary while sorting through my stuff, it had become old and tattered. While going through it, for the sake of nostalgia, I found paper sticking out of the diary’s spine. I pulled it out and saw it was a letter from my grandmother, addressed to me. She had opened an offshore Swiss account for me the year she gave me the book, where she stored some money she stole from my grandfather during their divorce. She hid the letter in the book because she knew I wasn’t a careless child and wanted me to find it when the book had been used to the point where it was worn out. I couldn’t believe it, I had lost all hope in life and was at a point where I wanted to end it all. She had all the details for the bank on the letter, so I got a calling card and quickly contacted them. They had told me they had been sending letters to the owner of the account regarding the money in the account for over 15 years but never heard back. This was because my grandmother’s old PO box was attached to the account. The money had increased in value, so the bank periodically used the unclaimed money and returned, hoping to hear word back soon. They were glad that I called, and after verification agreed to wire transfer me $20,000, while I wait for them to process the rest of my claim.