Yvette Oloo

      My parents did the best that they could for me and my siblings... I was born the youngest of three. I reached my milestones a little bit faster. I always felt like I was trying to catch up!

      I started school when I was three. I remember the day we were casting the roles of our school play. We all sat on a rug, this day was a little different. I was really excited. I really wanted to be a part of the play. The teacher started with the first role. She asked the class if anyone would like the role. I was really excited!! I threw my hand up, so excitedly, "me, me." She looks around the class, ignoring my hand, and picked someone else. I was the only one with my hand up. She went through role after role. I had my hand up. I was just so excited. But she always ignored my hand. I got the last role. A donkey. I walked across the stage, and I remember hearing people laugh. It didn't matter why I got picked last. It didn't matter why they laughed. I felt terrible. I carried these feelings.

      When I was 7 we took a trip to the village. It was a long trip and the road was bumpy. I was no longer the youngest. I had a younger sibling. I remember making silly sounds with my siblings, laughing because it was a fun bumpy ride. But something went wrong. I don't remember the accident. But I remember seeing blood everywhere, and I remember seeing the lights go past me on the ceiling in the hallway, as I was being rushed into intensive care. What stuck to me the most was hearing my mom in distress. Praying out loud, screaming, that God doesn't take her children. I just didn't want her to feel pain, to be so distressed. I wanted to make her feel better. I don't remember my pain, but I remember how it hurt, hearing her in distress.

      I woke up alone in the hospital. I didn't know where I was. I wondered if I had died, "Is this the end?" But I didn't feel like I was dead. I was later relieved to see my sister. What we both experienced was similar. We had been in the hospital for weeks. She woke up before me, and had made friends with the nurses and was also friends with one of the patients in the children's ward. It felt like my life had paused while I lay unconscious. And everyone else had moved on with their life. It didn't get any easier when I had to go back to school. I had missed weeks. And I was just placed into what felt like the future and expected to carry on.

      My first day back to school was the hardest. I came into class later than usual. The teacher had to "prepare everyone" for my entrance. Tell everyone I was ok. But I walked into the class and everyone gasped when they saw my face. My face had gotten better in the last week's I was in the hospital, but the scars are still with me. My classmates didn't want to touch me because they said I was contagious. Even when the teacher reassured them I was ok. People were afraid of me. Everything was a huge adjustment. I learnt to ignore it. And to just keep going. I secretly hoped I would also be pulled out of this life and placed in another life where people were not afraid of me.

      It became harder to socialize. But I just got better at ignoring and moving on. And was still that person who wasn't thinking about my pain, but wanted my mom to feel better. I wanted to change what others felt about me. I put my pain last.

      I got 2 more siblings. I'm the 3rd in a family of 6 children. I stumbled through experiences. Had good moments. Made some friends. Some better than others. Even met some guys, but didn't get into a relationship with them. Stuffed more pain. Wanted so much to just be happy and to be OK. I focused on the good. There was a lot of good. But the bad, I didn't want to feel those. I looked past them and kept going. I knew so we'll how to keep going despite everything.

      I went on to get my bachelor's degree in architecture. It's there that I was sniffed out of the crowd... It was a day when I had a lot of college assignments so I wanted to quickly pick up some dinner from our cafeteria. I hadn't dressed up. I had a hood on. And I had earphones on, playing music.  I didn't think I would run into anyone I know. Then he approached me... It wasn't much of a conversation, it was introductions and a request for my number. I found it so strange that he got out a pen and wrote the number down. Apparently he didn't have a phone. But I wonder if I really was sensing something else that was strange, and stuffing down the feelings. My senses definitely picked up on something. But I felt so happy to have been picked.

      I had a child with him while I was still in college. Married him after I graduated. Had one more child. I didn't take the time to think about what a relationship was. 2 people who loved each other and were living together... How hard could that be?

      I did not have an accurate idea of what abuse was. For instance, I thought physical abuse was: being hit. Even after I left, I used to say I wasn’t physically abused. But now I say I was because I broke the furniture I was pushed onto, and another one that gets overlooked: I was physically barred from leaving my room. I also didn’t know silent treatment is part of verbal abuse, because its punishing behavior. I hadn't even heard of financial, spiritual or cultural abuse. So how could I have known I was living it. But worst of all, I cried like a little baby when I read what sexual abuse in a marriage was. I didn’t realize I had experienced this consistently. Even with the covert abuse where I couldn’t breath because I was put in a chokehold or I couldn’t breath because my face was against a pillow. In those moments I thought I would die if I didn't stop him, fighting to breathe, but I still didn’t connect it to abuse. I excused it because sex just tended to be rough now and then, no matter what I said. And I was conditioned to believe I couldn't/shouldn't refuse this "duty." It was packaged in romance and love. And after all, I was so good at looking past pain, and looking past the negative.

      I tried leaving but he wouldn't let me talk to the children or see them, and threatened to disappear with them forever. Things turned around when my children clearly became pawns. I'd conformed and promised to do whatever he wants if he'd just stop harming them. But the manipulation was turned up instead. He now had an effective button to push. I really wanted out.

      I was miserable. I remember being excited one afternoon after I read that I had got the house I wanted to move to. I was finally going to be free. My son looked at me and said, "mom, what's wrong with your face." I touch my face, and confused, ask him why. He replies "your face, it looks weird like that, when you smile. I don't remember seeing you smile like that." It broke my heart to hear him say that. But I was too glad to be sad. I silently made a promise to myself to smile more. But not yet. I was being bullied at that point and if I was seen being happy, I knew he would routhlesly bring me down.

      I finally left. And got the courts involved to ensure we were safe. But the transition wasn't easy; childcare is so expensive. My savings disappeared. It was hard to bring enough money in even with 2 jobs. I wanted so desperately to make it work. To live that life, where I smiled more. I wanted Joy.

      I worked on myself. For the first time I faced myself. Faced all my insecurities. Faced my feelings of lack. Faced who I had become. I didn't recognize myself. It was similar to that feeling when I looked at myself with my scars for the first time and didn't recognize my face. But this was on the inside. Who was this looking back at me? So I ventured into finding myself. I didn't want to feel so lost anymore.

      One day,I was getting ready to leave the therapist’s office. With children, everything takes longer. They tend to take their shoes off and unpack their backpacks! I noticed a bowl of papers on the table. “Take one,” said the note that was glued to its side. I reached in and picked up a dark paper with white writing. It was a heavy stock paper, probably cut out of a calendar. It read,

”Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” 

      At that moment, it felt like time stood still and the whole entire universe opened and expanded. It was like I had found a portal into reality. I felt emotions welling up in me, and I held the quote close to my heart. Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much energy I was putting in “finding” myself. 

      I felt such a release in reading the quote. I just wanted to thrive and feel better. I had stopped listening to abusive and dysfunctional people but I was still following what everyone else said I should do, or be, rather than looking within and creating healing from that. They might have been healthy people looking out for my best interest, but I was searching for answers outside myself. 

 

      I took a deep dive into being a co-creator in my life. There was a lot more that didn't work in my life. More dysfunction. I went to therapy, got workbooks. Educated myself. There was so much I needed to clean out. And so much that I had avoided experiencing. I had been driven by so many false beliefs. I had reacted to my life rather than being proactive about it.

      I eventually gave up both jobs. They fit what I was moving away from. Dysfunction: one being a toxic work environment. I fully took on creating a life I love. Creating myself. The designer in me loved putting it all together. Had fun with it. But money didn't come from the online business I started. What this business gave me was tremendous digital skills I needed to run an online business. So I decided to take on e-design. But that didn't fit the life I wanted to create. It wasn't it. later I came across life coaching. But that also didn't quite fit.

      I decided to combine life coaching and design, so I create my Joy was formed. I help survivors of abuse and dysfunction create healing spaces that accelerates their healing. Joy has become my north star. I want to spread Joy. But not just have that life where I ignore all the bad, and focus on the good. I found a way to see myself as a whole and be informed by and be inclusive of all the undesirable things in my life. So I guide people on doing the same. I had to create a true self. And take responsibility of what I can influence in my life. Rather than just waiting and reacting. I decided that it's time for a life of joy.