IMAGES OF MY PAST

"People talk about middle-child syndrome, and usually laugh it off as if it's some type of petty joke. But it isn't.

And now as a grown woman, a wife, and a mother of 2 with another on the way, I am still suffering the after effects of my dismal childhood.

I was the third born child to my parents. I only started noticing what I lacked after my brother was born, the pride and joy of the family. And it was only cemented with the birth of the one after him. The baby, the bonus baby.

My eldest sister was always the attention grabber, the rebel. She was a people's person. The one after her was the perfect child, well behaved and smart.

So while the eldest was off going to hospital for drug overdose, taking all my parents' attention, and the second was playing miss goody two-shoes, I sought my own attention.

But unfortunately I never got it. I remember curling myself into a ball many nights and just crying my little heart out. I was never taken by my mother and hugged or kissed. I was never told I love you. Every attempt at hugging her resulted in an awkward push away.

I look at my second born child now, awaiting the birth of my third, and at every chance I get I pick up and smother my child in hugs and kisses because I fear my little one growing up the way I did.

As I entered high school, I sought attention through other means, the most popular way around. I turned my
attention to boys in the hope of losing my 'blueness' as it was called back then. As long as you remained unissued, you were referred to as blue.

I had a boyfriend in 8th grade, and another in 9th. And then another in 11th.

I didn't know what love is, but I had way too much sexualenergy. And unfortunately, my relationship with the guy in the 11th through 12th grade resulted in me giving up my virginity to him. I cannot count to tell you how many times I have spread my legs before getting married, and it disgusts me.

I cannot begin to express just how much the woman staring back at me from the mirror makes my insides burn. I hate her. Because those images of zina flashing before my eyes each time I look at her makes it unablefor me to move on. I feel unworthy of even a single du'aa.

My guilt has almost led to the break up of my marriage many times. I did my duty and gave into his carnal desires and took pleasure from it too but I never connected with him. I didn't know how to love because I never experienced love. But, some time ago, sitting on the brink of divorce, with my entire life hanging by a thread, a miracle happened, and I saw him.

I saw his essence and his soul and I fell in love with him. And I have never looked back.

Today I am the perfect wife to those looking from the outside in. I am adorned modestly from head to toe, and my husband is a very disciplined human activist.

But the images of my past, even though they be a decade ago, haunts me daily, and some days, I am drowning, and I don't want to swim..

But I always do. Because I am human. It may take many more years to forgive myself. I have faith that one day I will"