A Second Childhood

We are deviating from the topic we have been discussing since the week commenced. The change in topic is due to the fact that the opening of NYSC camps nationwide yesterday reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend few years back during my orientation programme in Jos, Plateau state. She had a terrible childhood whose memory had plagued her up till then. It was apparent those experiences were turning her to her own worst enemy.

Do you know that we can be our very own worst enemy? Yes, many of us treat ourselves the same vile way our early caretakers treated us. We put ourselves down, we are hard on ourselves and we are drawn to accepting bad treatment from others because we do not feel good about ourselves on the inside.

We may feel that we don't deserve anything good so we punish ourselves over and over and over again. We don't have to do anything external to anyone. We can punish ourselves in the privacy of our lives in ways that make us feel even worse about ourselves and in ways that we would never think of doing to anyone outside of ourselves.

Let's take a pause and really visualize what our lives would look like if we stopped believing and feeling the worse about ourselves. What if we were to get up today, look in the mirror and say to ourselves, "I forgive You and I love you and I will stop treating you the way others treated you when you were a child." You may not believe it at first, but continue doing it and soon you will feel that burden fall off your shoulders.

Start treating yourself to the things that made you feel good as a child. Take yourself back to your childhood. No, not to the abused childhood you had, but to a childhood that should have been filled with clean love, clean hugs, clean kisses and happiness. Eat lollipops,watch your favourite cartoons, read your favourite comic books, watch your favourite comedies. Do the things that make you feel happy, loved and appreciated.

Yes, give yourself a second childhood. Give yourself the loving kindness that you should have received as a child. Give yourself permission to be angry, even rageful. To break up the pain of abuse, you need to become angry over what was done to you. Be angry for that little girl or little boy who was abused and treated in such a dastardly manner. Repressed anger gives way to depression and other deep emotional and psychological pain.

Don't let others make slight of what you went through or try to tell you that that was the past and you need to forget it. Remove yourself from those dynamics while you are in the process of healing. In that light, you don't need to share what you are doing with others who may not understand what you are going through. You are taking charge of your own self-healing.

Don't go through your entire life with all that pain and unhappiness. Believe me it's not a good feeling. We all deserve to live a good, happy, exciting and exuberant life. After all, it is our birthright. So start today, give yourself the gift of love! Give yourself the gift of a second childhood! Selah.