Undressed  

Perhaps it is the fear that if we allowed ourselves to be fully who we are, no one would like us.  

I was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in a culture where children are seen and not heard. This was the perfect set-up for the different forms of violations and abuse I suffered as a child. Conversations around child abuse, rape, and female genital mutilation (FGM) were considered taboo, as were those around the subjugation of women and the unending power men own. I had been gagged even before the circumstances of my life struck me dumb with grief. Invisibility was the only normal I knew. I would later learn that I was not alone in this. 

My birth father, who died when I was 11, was a polygamist with multiple wives and a lot of female admirers who altogether bore him 29 children. My mother was a beautiful, bright and ambitious young woman who fell for my father’s charms just when she had finished high school and was still in her teens. She bravely left me with an aunt and my grandmother and went to the city, where she finished her secretariat course and graduated a few years later with a diploma and a new man who would forever change both our lives. 

He was an engineer at the wealthiest and most renowned diamond mining company in the country. Because my mother officially made me his child by marrying him, I had access to all the privileges children had in this very fairy-tale world. From lavish birthday parties to extravagant Christmas gifts to private clubs where waiters dressed in white brought us sandwiches and tall glasses of ice-cold cocoa as we lounged by Olympic-size pools to get relief from sweltering African afternoons. We were the envy of our poorer, less fortunate classmates who went to school barefoot and to bed with hungry bellies. Behind my good marks in school and my desire to disappear was my insatiable need to be good so that my mother’s new man would hit me less in his drunken stupors and my mother, whom I worshipped, would see me and love me again. I never succeeded.  

I made my way to the United States when the blood Diamond war erupted in 1997, hoping for a new normal. By then, I had perfected the art of wearing masks. I was going to America, the land of possibilities, where I would have my own Cinderella story like all the people I had read about in magazines and the books I read late at night, trying to escape the nightmare of my life, to a land where I could be anything I wanted. A place where perhaps I could finally wake up one morning to find my place in this human puzzle called life. 

There’s a risk to telling the truth, and sometimes baring ourselves can cost us our very lives. The young woman whose death sparked perhaps the largest protest by women in Iran had only taken off her hijab and dared to show her face. Incidents such as these and Jack Nicholson’s famous line, “you can’t handle the truth” in A Few Good Men, only reinforce the danger of truth-telling. And so we hide. I hid. 

But masks are not cheap. They require maintenance and attention; otherwise, like a crying clown with blood tears running down painted cheeks, a crumbling mask is not a pretty sight.   

In my case, I smiled, laughed, pretended everything was ok, being what everyone wanted me to be. The idea of people discovering the circumstances of my life left me in a perpetual state of terror and anxiety. I hid behind good grades and people-pleasing. I wasn’t myself for years.

I wore the mask of a happy, accomplished and determined young woman who was going places in life. What the world did not see was my desire to die every morning for the first thirty years of my life. Sexual violence can do that to you. 

I came to America and found the same. People here too are master maskers. Never were people more exhausted, depressed,  or medicated. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, has become the drug of choice for many, young and old alike. The other silent pandemic that people are using to mask different kinds of pain, poverty, isolation, mental health problems, people are too ashamed to admit because of the stigmas attached, and on it goes. Sexual abuse victims like me can be prone to drug use and alcohol abuse, among other self-destructive behaviours, until they get help through therapy and other healing modalities. Sometimes it feels much easier to wear a mask or live a lie than doing the intentional work of being completely unapologetically ourselves. 

Veils have been part of human history for centuries. Brides and nuns wear veils. The earliest references to this form of dressing can be traced back to Mesopotamia in 1400 and 1100, where veils were worn by elite women as a sign of high standing and respectability. Some historians reference ancient Rome, where brides were completely wrapped in veils “to hide her away from evil spirits that might want to thwart her happiness.”

In all these three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, to varying degrees and proportions. Some non-muslim cultures today, like the Amish, wear veils. In the Middle East and other Islamic countries, the veil or hijab is not a simple fashion accessory like the French have used it for.  

Like veils, masks too have been a part of many cultures for millennia. From ancient Egypt, where they were used to help guide the spirit of the deceased to the other world to Greece, where they were used by performing artists and actors, to Africa for religious and cultural rites and masquerade dances, to the Mayans who used them to frighten away demons as well and in battle to intimidate the enemy. It is easy then to see why altering our identity has been so easy to do. It is a legacy passed down through time but have we now in this century, confused dress-up for real life? 

Turn on the TV and there are ads for the newest lip plumper and ab-shrinker. We are constantly bombarded by subliminal messages that as we are, we are not ok, we are not enough.  The ideal for women these days is an impossible-to-create cartoon character with Donald Duck lips, a four-year-old’s waistline line and unstable saline-filled backsides we can no longer comfortably sit on.  

Men too are not exempt. Perfectly inserted store-bought pecs and six packs have replaced beer bellies and the old chubby cute guy vibe. 

How far do we go to hide our humanity, to morph ourselves into something false and unrecognizable? What are we if not ourselves?  

I know how much pain there is in sexual violation, and I also know how costly keeping those particular secrets are. I know the lack of self-esteem and devaluation. I know the unrelenting grip of two companions, fear and shame, that become a second skin. I know the terror of living in fear of someone finding out and the fear of being judged and rejected. I know about being in the dark pit of depression from being taken against your will and the endless minutes of asking, “What could I have done differently?”

I hid my pain somewhat successfully, but inside I was dying. 

I avoided getting too close to men and gave up the idea that any man would want me. I stopped attending social gatherings and community engagements and having long personal conversations. I was a shell of myself, hyper vigilant and scanning the faces of the colorfully dressed cheery African women at wedding parties, on the rare occasion that I ventured out, wondering if they knew. Africans love gossip.  

I hated life and found pleasure in little. All I wanted was to be able to take one full easy breath that was not heavy with denial or wishing. 

I have often wondered why there’s a curtain behind a confessional, and why a pedophile or penitent confess their crime or sin to a long-robed man behind the screen door. There’s distance even between us and God. I wonder if this too sends a message that coming fully as we are, with nothing or no one between us and God, is a dangerous thing to do? 

What do we risk when we tell the truth, that we’re hungry, sick or lonely? That we’re tired, scared, need help or want to die? What do we risk to just be? 

Authenticity. We risk losing the best part of ourselves. We risk living a false life. 

The truth is that everybody bears scars. There is a dark corner in every person’s closet. If we embrace this truth, if we make it normal to be human, the 800,000 people who die of suicide could be brought way down. In America, alone 162,000 die of loneliness and social isolation every year, according to the U.S.government – and among young people between the ages of to 24, nearly 20% of high school students report serious thoughts of suicide and a stunning 9% actually make an attempt according to the national alliance on mental illness. 

What would happen if we stopped responding “good” when someone asks how we’re doing, if we’re not?  

How wonderful would it be if some of us did not spend 2 to 3 exhausting hours in front of a mirror each day straightening out kinky curls holding the history of generations in its coils to look like others with a completely different DNA structure, just to fit in? 

What would we gain if we did not spend the 16.7 billion a year on cosmetic surgery every year in America alone to alter our looks? How many of our young could actually make it to adulthood and become contributing members of the world if they did not die from bulimia or social media bullying because they were different? It takes energy to put on a mask.  

Covid 19 came bearing gifts. It stripped us naked and showed us who we are- scared, selfish, blame-filled, helpless. Beating our neighbors down for toilet paper and clawing each other for cans of corned beef and cornflakes. We pointed the finger at China, and animals alike, looking for someone to take responsibility for the horror movie we had all suddenly become choiceless players in. 

Those of us who had become god unto ourselves suddenly found ourselves on our knees praying for help in the face of something we recognized we were too small in the face of our lives to fight. 

From Timbuktu to Tokyo, we covered our faces and bleached our hands, and avoided our partners and children like the plague. From Tibet to Trinidad, we mourned our dead alike and howled at the heavens and asked for mercy. 

The pandemic stripped us of all our trappings and held a mirror to our face. There was no distinction between the rich and the poor. Money and looks were worth shit. Six feet became the standard of separation for both the dead and the living alike. Covid 19 became the great equalizer.  

We traded tips for survival, some absurd, others helpful. We saw doctors, nurses and healthcare workers work 24 hour shifts days in a row until they collapsed or caught the sickness just trying to save one more person from ending up on the mountain- high heap of dead bodies our mortuaries no longer had  space to house. We left food on the doorsteps of grannies who had no children of their own to care for them. We realized that on our own we cannot survive. 

The pandemic stripped us of all our trappings and held a mirror to our face.  And for a brief and spectacular moment in our history, we were shown who we truly are – beautiful, flawed, majestic, human.  

There are 613620 hours in a 70 year life span. Most of us spend a third of our lives, hiding, dressing up, pretending on our jobs, in our relationships, in social situations, putting on a facade. Hiding behind a persona. That is 23.3 years of our lives wasted.  

The biggest question people ask me after reading my memoir is, ‘what made you share everything about your life? Weren’t you afraid?” My response is always “Of course I was afraid. It is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”  

“It was only when the price of telling the truth that I am a sexual abuse survivor became costlier than my fear of being seen as tainted or less than, that I decided to peel off my mask and show all of myself, victim included.”  

Panic attacks, antidepressants and a diminished life born of being afraid for so many years had finally taken their toll. No amount of therapy is an antidote for secretes that slowly poison the soul and corrode a life. I realized I had a choice after my son was born- continue in the pain-filled lonely life I had gotten accustomed to, or finally fully own what had happened to me and break my silence around it so that I could heal and become a fully present mother that every child deserves. 

I chose the latter.

The irony I have discovered, since publishing my  Memoir and sharing my story on podcasts, is that people actually like the real me, scars and all. 

I have also discovered that within my own groups of friends and acquaintances, many have suffered sexual violations but never told anyone about it, including me, until they read my book. That is the healing power of sharing. It opens up space. It destroys the demon of isolation for victims who believe they are all alone in their pain and shame. It also disempowers the perpetrator’s greatest ally – their victim’s silence. But perhaps the greatest gift breaking my silence has given me, is, unshackling me from being a slave to fear of judgment and rejection. 

For decades, I was like all the rest of us who hide behind successful careers; rich husbands and social acceptance,   like all of us who hide behind political parties and those who look like us. 

The only difference is that I do not want to die afraid. I walk in the world now completely undressed and free.