“They keep saying that God don’t give you more than you can take, but I going through hardship fuh me whole life, things not getting better. Is nah like I could testify and say anything, is just one thing to the next. Yes I still alive but every day I facing a situation. As fast as one come and I get out is another one, like I curse or something,” she said bitterly.
She is 27 years old and a mother of three. In just one conversation with her I could not help but agree with the sentiments she expressed. She had been raped more than once but her mother never cared and she now lives apart from her three children because she wants to escape from their abusive father and cannot afford to have them with her.
“I don’t care if you use my name, because I not shame of my story. That is my life,” she told me. But considering that she has been suicidal and still battles with those thoughts I felt it would be better to keep her identity unknown.
I met her through someone who counsels her, and she spoke at will about what she had and continues to experience.
“I first start thinking about suicide when I was 14, when I start going and spend time with me mother. I use to live with me aunty since I born but then I start going and spend time with me mother. When you go by her she had five other children and I was the biggest and you use to get pressure into doing the things you do,” she said.
Things like what? I asked wondering if she was being given too many chores.
“Things like going to ask people for money. We didn’t have anything to eat and when we didn’t get uniform… I was a young lady then and it use to make me feel shame because sometimes people would say things like I gat to sleep with dem first. And every time I go back home I would tell me aunty that I don’t want go back by me mother but she use to say she can’t stop me mother from teking me. And is then I use to say sometimes is best I dead because I use to be good by me aunty and den I have to go by me mother and is bare punishment,” she responded.
“And I make attempt more than once, but I never buy poison or so. I just like drink medication but nothing never happen. It get worse because my mother then fight for me and I tell the welfare officer that I don’t want to go. But this is how the system corrupt because she tell me how if me mother want me and she is alive I have to go and live with she. But me mother just want me because I de get big.
“When I go by she, she tek me out a school and tell people how me aunty them just use to dress me up and how I ain’t get no education… I never get to finish school and she use to send me by me father cousin and this man use to take advantage of me, but I was frighten to tell she. Is a neighbour use to see he coming by we steady and she come and tell me she could be me mother and ask why the man use to come and I tell she and when me mother come home she tell she.
“I still didn’t want tell she and she pick up a cutlass and start lashing me and then I tell she and she went to he and he say how he ain’t want no police story and how he would give she money. I remember hearing she and me stepfather talking, and they say they would take the money. I don’t know is how much, but she buy things like a TV and she put some money in she bank account. And me brother and me sister use to be fighting over this TV but I never use to watch because it I know how she get it. One day when me sister and brother fighting she tell them how is me TV and if it wasn’t for me we wouldn’t get a TV but I use to just want break that thing up.
“And you know things just keep happening to me because a day I went to visit me cousin and she wasn’t home and when I going away some boys just catch me and rape me. Four of them and they keep me for a whole night and when they let me go dem tell me bring a friend but I see a lady and I tell she and tek me home and tell me mother. And you know what she ask the lady? ‘how she know me ain’t went and have sex with dem boys?’ Is right then I look at me mother and me whole inside turn up. I hate that woman.
“I get pregnant from the rape and she use to walk and tell people how she go be a grandmother. But I lost the child and it was like she was vex.
“After that, I couldn’t stay with she no more. And I ask this man to stay with he and he agree and you know just the second night he just come and have sex with me. I was still a teenager and right away I get pregnant and is three children I get for this man. Today he is 47 and I is 27, so you see how big he was when we start…
“And living with he was hell by itself. This man never use to want give me no money he would go away for days and no money and no food. So, me life never change is abuse after abuse. One day I just couldn’t take it anymore and I lef with dem children and I went and live by a church sister and I get a job as a security guard. But I still went back with he and I had to move again and I start living in a relative place and one day just out the blue she call me and tell me how I ah got to move. And like I couldn’t take it anymore I just start hollering. I was ready to end it because what life I had? No life,” she said the last words quietly and I got the impression she was referring to her current circumstances as well.
“She talk to me and I had to take the children back to dem father and I stay with her but it wasn’t easy. I use to walk this woman house in the night. You know how much time she come and pull me back from jumping over the veranda? In the end I had to go back with me child father and the abuse start right back over and I decide to go and report it. But people telling me how I can’t be living in de man house and reporting he. I still report he and he get charge and he beg me, but I tell the magistrate that I didn’t want nothing to do with he and she put he on a bond. But he still live in de house with me and dem children.
“Girl, after the one year he try to abuse me, but I stand up to he. I move out again and now is dem children living with he and I working again. I does work hours where I could go in de morning and send them to school and in de afternoon dey does come by me workplace to help them with dey homework.
“But it ain’t easy. Sometimes de children don’t have nothing to eat because he don’t have money and I don’t have. I need a stable place for me and me children. I have furniture and suh. I just need a lil place to rent.
“Right now I still struggling. Is all me days I struggling and the thoughts of suicide always there but I trying to fight it. Every day is a fight. Me mother tell me one day how she didn’t want me and how I shoulda dead and if I want kill me self leh me go ahead that she would just put me in a rough box and throw me in a hole. This is what she tell me,” she said, showing no emotion.
“Right now is just a place I need. That is all I need to be with me children. When I feel like giving up, I does look at pictures of me children and is suh I does go on. I don’t want them to go through what I went through but is like the same thing. Just the same thing.”
We completed the conversation on this sad note.
Even though I know she is being counselled, I wish there was more being done to assist her in a tangible way. She needs somewhere to live that can accommodate her children that is her wish. I hope it becomes a reality soon; it may ease some of the pain she carries around.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, access help from the Inter-Agency Suicide Prevention Helpline through:
Telephone: 223-0818, 223-0009 and 223-0001
Mobile: 600-7896 or 623-4444
Email: guyagency@yahoo.com
BBM: 2BE55649 or 2BE56020
Twitter: @guyanaagency
