EPISODE 3: ABUSE IS TRANSGENERATIONAL

COUNSELLING SESSION WITH DR TIMI OYEBODE @ RCCG AREA 27, PROVINCE 44 SISTERS FELLOWSHIP UNDER THE THEME: RECOVERY FROM EMOTIONAL ABUSE, TRAUMA AND LOW SELF ESTEEM

Abuse is transgenerational. You didn’t deal with it, you think you have moved on? Then it goes on again to your kids.

And you see, most of our parents; some of you will remember the struggles they fought with you before you married the man you married; or even when you were having relationships.

Some of us would even say: if not for the way my mother was behaving, I won’t have married this man I married. Because maybe the pressure they were putting on you was so much. And the next available man you met proposing marriage, you just hopped on!

Yet the truth is this; you might need to ask your Mum and find out what her own story was. That is how her own story was, usually! And that is why you need to deal with your own Pains… so you also do not pass it on to your kids.

You can’t sweep it under the carpet, you can’t deal with it the way your parents dealt with theirs. How did they deal with it? They would rather call you and be telling you ‘You will just get pregnant’; your life will just scatter,

As in; they wanted to prevent you from making the mistakes they made. But unfortunately, they are actually tickling your brain to go ahead and make the mistakes – and that is why many of us make the same mistakes.

Another funny way to see it also, is when you say: ‘I don’t want to marry a man like my father’.

What usually happens; the woman marries the man, even worse than than her father.

It is sad really… that it is a Generational Link of Abuse. And that is why we need to nib it! We need to get to a point where we deliberately own up and speak out!

It is amazing, many times when I meet women; some would go on to say that they want to tell me something they had never shared before.

I met a Lady recently, she was telling me her story: she said she knew that when she was a young girl, she had this thing with their house girl. And that they did it even to her when she was in Secondary School.

That even when she was in Secondary school, she remembered that she now still had sexual encounter with other girls. That she thought that it has gone!

But now that she is married, it’s ok, she is not having the urged. But the thought keeps coming to her.

And I asked her: ‘so what did you do?’ She said, I thought it was gone!

I said, No! The pain of abuse doesn’t go. You have to deal with it! You have to DEAL with you!

I am standing in front of you, and so I want to say to you ‘that if I can stand in front of you; if I can be a product of Rape and healed, you also can be’.

I was abused; my first encounter with sex was when I was age seven (7), okay? And in my house! In my house, a pastor’s lodge. It is a family full of Pastors.

Most of my Abusers (all my life) were Christians and Pastors. They were not Lay People; they were not ordinary Fellowship Members, they were Leaders in the Church!

And so I understand the place of the Abused; even as a young girl, begging and pleading with a Man of God, and the Man of God is telling you ‘I carry Grace, don’t worry my own Grace has forgiven you’: as in forgiveness is from me over to you.

Another place, if you sitting in the congregation and the person is coming to Minister; and all you are thinking of is what is going to happen tonight again? And all of that!

And it got to a point I remembered begging God and pleading with God; in fact I remember nights of going naked, saying ‘God if You exist, just make him not to come’. Because he will come again! It was terrifying!

The wife is there, even in the same house, and I will be begging him: ‘do you know your wife is in the…. (It doesn’t work!)

And then, I remembered going to school, with these terrible experiences (and remember am still talking about the Generational Circle of Abuse). Even in school, I had male teachers who were exploitative too – you see, a victim of abuse is an easy target for the next pedophile…. once an Abuse has occurred, if not dealt with, it becomes a pattern!

The moment there is a continued Circle of Abuse, it keeps repeating itself…; and that is why some are still in marriages, and the Abuse is continuing – Because you have not dealt with that Abuse (with that Pain)!

That is why it is continuing; because everywhere you get to, you are carrying it on your forehead already: Victim, Victim, Victim!

And so Abusers, automatically pick on you easily!

They know you are struggling with LOW SELF ESTEEM: They know you don’t have what it takes to defend yourself. They know how you feel already – I don’t have anybody to defend me! And that is why it’s easy to pick on you.

But I remember in my story, I moved on!

I remember the first time I tried taking my life, I think I was roughly fifteen (15) Years old at that time. I couldn’t take it anymore! I felt, I just need to end it all. But yet, I didn’t die!

I tried again when I was a bit older – I think at that time I was about leaving school. I still remember the experience wherein I had this mature boyfriend and I thought:

Because a friend was telling me ‘Tell this guy, he is older, he can help you out to put a stop to the abuse going on with my Guardian and all of that’.

And then, the guy too had reacted and said; oh, I thought I was keeping you for myself, I didn’t know somebody has been touching you… So he raped me in his room there! And still I had to pack myself and come out.

And I still remember my friend going there to fight for me. And I will never forget how I was crying and sobbing that day. And my friend was hugging me and begging me. And telling me ‘it is going to be fine’.

And I kept saying ‘it’s not going to be fine; nothing is going to be fine – am just messed up, am just terrible’. And we started kissing.

… And that began my journey to Lesbianism! And that was a Journey for several years again.

The journey – a life of hell, a life of frustration; where you have secrets that you dare not let people know that you are struggling with this!

ADDICTION: I knew what it meant, struggling with masturbation, struggling with Porn, struggling with things that you can’t really share…

A woman sent me a message recently: She has been married for years. But she realised she doesn’t get any interest in sex except she masturbates! And so the struggle continues.

I remember up till the point when I left Christianity, when I left the Church. When I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with God again. When I decided that God doesn’t love me, so I won’t love Him. I want to be!

And I started living my life the way I thought was best for me. That is what Abuse can do!

… ABUSE is one of the things that birth ADDICTIONS!

You are wondering, how come you are struggling with Masturbation, You are wondering? You are wondering how come you can’t do without watching Porn?

It is because your mind has been wounded. There is a wound inside of you. And the way the body is wired – we are not wired to stay in the Place of Pains!

So the moment you are in that Place of Pain, your body and your mind will automatically be looking for relieve;

And so if you find relieve through any of these behaviours, you adopt that behaviour. It’s the continuity of that behaviour we now call ADDICTION – because that behaviour begins to control you.

But this is what we are saying, that all of it: whether you are a victim of ABUSE, going on to give you TRAUMA (that is inner wound). And then going on to form ADDICTION in your life that you are struggling with LOW SELF ESTEEM!

A husband told me about his wife – he said, my wife masturbate in her sleep. I said, are you monitoring her in her sleep?

But the reality is this: the more acting out your ADDICTION is; the more acting out your PAIN is – you act out your pain! Just that we have to act it out in different ways;

Some people act out their Pains by picking an ADDICTION (a behaviour)!

Some people act out their Pains in anger, by being angry. – Okay?

When you see a young girl, who, probably gets pregnant today (and she is not married); and so you are expecting that she should know better. And before you know it, she has taken in again the next year- Acting out!

And I have come to let you know, that God has heard your cry – Amen!

God heard my cry repeatedly; even when I didn’t know He was listening. Even when I have searched and concluded that God doesn’t listen. Even when I have searched and concluded that God picks the people He liked – He knows how to attend to the people He loves, and even when we feel He has abandoned us… He is there!

Even at that time, God was still saying: “I am there!”

In your Pain, He is there.!

He is the reason why that thing that happened didn’t take your life:

You were raped, abi?

Some other Girls were raped; some women were raped and they died – Do you know that?

Oh, you had Abortion, abi? Oh! Some people had abortions, and they DIED.

Which one is yours?

Oh, you suffered abi?

You were on the streets; your father didn’t care for you, your parents sent you out. You ended up being on the road.

Some people ended up on the road; the same day they ended up on the road; a car hit them and they died!

Some once street, a car did not hit them, but the Police arrested them with vagabonds for loitering- they ended up in prisons!

You need to know what other people are going through; you need to know no matter how bad your case was – God was there with you; God was the one that didn’t make it bad than how bad it was!

That was my reality; that was the point I had to come into: I can’t tell you the whole of my life story today (because time will not allow me).

But I want you to know that if I can; if God can pick me out of the mess of my life, and began to reform me, and began to give me the Assignment of taking His Healings to His Own daughters; then He has a Purpose for your being!

But unfortunately, except you stand up to it, except you decide and say ‘Enough is Enough!

Except you say to yourself ‘No more pity; enough of sitting down and lamenting in the situation I have found myself. Enough is Enough!

… What a Great Session with our Counsellor – Dr Timi – A Great Counsellor of People that has experienced Trauma, Abuse, Marriage Counsellor etc.

You will get to be reading a Dedicated Column of Dr Timi’s Messages on our DMC Websites on: www.discoveeymediacrew.com.

Also you can get to invite her to your Churches, Seminars and Conference – All you need do is to reach out to us @ DMC!

… Discovery Media Crew, Reaching out to the world through the Power of the Gospel!!!

COMPILATIONS BY

MOSES DURODOLA AND TITILAYOMI AJAYI

© DMC 2019