Surviving An Abusive Relationship Part 1 | Legally Clueless Ep 357

In Episode 357 of the Legally Clueless Podcast, Victoria shares part one of her powerful life story, growing up away from her mother, navigating multiple homes and boarding schools, and learning independence at a very young age.

From her childhood in Nyeri, Karatina, and Garissa to her school years and early adulthood, Victoria reflects on how emotional absence, instability, and silence shaped her sense of belonging and connection.

In this episode, we explore:
• Growing up separated from primary caregivers
• Childhood loneliness and emotional neglect
• Boarding school experiences at a young age
• How early instability shapes adult survival patterns
• The quiet ways trauma takes root

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Adela on youngle and welcome to another
episode of Legally Clueless. No, seriously, i have no clue
what I'm doing, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the
only one. Hey you welcome to this episode of Legally
Clueless podcast. Thank you so much for rocking with the pod.
If you are a newbie, welcome to the family audio
episodes of this particular show. God every single Monday, on

(00:25):
Wednesdays we have the midweek Teas. We also have our
newsletter go out then and on Thursdays we have for
Mandalist Women. Although a bit of a heads up for
Manalists Women is going to go on a Christmas and
a New Year's break because it literally goes out on
Thursdays and Thursday's Christmas and next Thursday is New Year's

(00:46):
So we're going to take a breather and we'll be
back the week after New Year's. Cool with four Manalists women,
this particular show, you're going to keep getting it, and
the midwik teas and your newsletter, you're going to get
it through our holidays. So we're not gonna leave you alone.
Don't worry, We're still gonna be together. And if you
are an og member, I've got nothing but love for you. Now,

(01:10):
over the next two weeks, we are gonna be listening
to a very powerful story. Our storyteller's name is Victoria,
and man, i've listened to I have spoilers because I've
listened to part one and part two and I'm just like,
oh my word. Eh, it's definitely gonna be one of

(01:33):
those stories that's gonna stay with you. I am pretty
sure she's gonna take us back to childhood. We're gonna
go into relationships. We're going to which I think is
the most important point. We're going to unpack various forms
of abuse. Man, this is a powerful story, and this

(01:53):
part one sets the foundation of her journey right, and
it's just gonna help us understand how survival can become normal,
long before we even have the language for what we're carrying.
But I'm gonna let you listen to the story, part
one of it anyways, and then we can chop it
up when you're done, right, Okay, let's go A hundred

(02:14):
African stories are legally clueless stories from Africa.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
So I want to take care Oh the way back
where this African lady started her life in Neeri. I
was born in Neeri. My grandparents lived in Kartina. My
mom was a teenager, she was in high school and
I was born, so naturally, after I was born, I
went and lived with my grandparents, and that's why I

(02:48):
called home for five years. After a year, my mother
had to go back to school, but she went back
to should I call it adult education because she didn't
go back to boding scouse. She went to live with
her sister in Garissa, that's the northern part of Kenya.
So I was left in the care of my grandmother,

(03:08):
and of course there were other aunties and uncles back home,
and that was the environment I grew up in. Now,
you would imagine a small child in a household, an
African household, where the other children or other house members

(03:30):
so to speak, to be very well sorted because there
are many adults or many older people. But for me,
my early memories, I feel like everybody was busy doing
their own thing. No one really paid attention to this
little baby. And at age four to five, I remember

(03:52):
being sexually abused by my uncle, my mom's brother. Now,
when you're that young and someone as old as I
don't know how old, he was. I would have to calculate.
But if it tells you don't say this or don't speak,
that's what you do. In fact, you don't even know
what that is, just you just know it's painful, it's bad,

(04:16):
and it was just a bad experience. But I had this.
I used to call her Dolly at a debar. That
was my best friend who I would talk to. Cardle
comfort myself with. My mom would come once in a while,
and I remember the exact spot. I would be told,

(04:38):
don't go beyond here. Now she's going, and the feeling
I used to feel in my stomach when she's walking away.
I feel it to date, like that separation anxiety. When
I think about it, I can feel it. So I
was in that home for five years and the day

(05:00):
I turned five, on my birthday, my mom got married.
So I was moved from my rural home to now
where my mom and this new guy I called Daddy
moved to. So this was Garrisa. That's where they met,
so we started a new life. I was five years

(05:22):
old and when I was seven, that's when my little
sister was born. So in these two years, I would
say it was really good. He was nice, bonding with
my mom. I used to call her Grace. She had
to bribe me for her for me to call her mom.
Eventually it's stuck. And eventually, even for my dad, it's dark.

(05:46):
I called him Dad. He was good traveling with them.
He was a research scientist, a soil research scientist, so
he would travel a lot. To Garrisa is very dry,
even the environment is very dry. So we would go
to like places like Mpeque Tony Holler, you know, the

(06:08):
coastal regions where it's really dry, just for his work.
And that's where my love for travel began. So my
sister is born, and I feel like all the attention
now goes to this new baby. There is nothing I
could do that it was right, Oh my goodness, typical
African family. Now you're old enough, and I'm seven. You're
old enough. Now you can take care of yourself. By

(06:32):
the time my sister gets to an age where we
could probably now play age two, I'm shipped off to
boarding school. So going to body school at nine years
old honestly feels like rejection. I'm still I was still
very young. I was still in need of my mother especially,

(06:54):
and now I've been taken to boarding school in our
rural home from Garrisa to central Kenya. I think we
used to spend back then, we used to spend two
days on the road. The roads there were, the roads
were nonexistent. Sometimes we would use lorries to travel from
Garrisa to Nairobi. And then I've used my tattoos to connect.

(07:18):
So shift top to boarding school. It's a new life,
sharing with cold water, taking care of myself. I'm not
used to any of these things. Learning how to, you know,
wash my clothes, all those things. They sound as if
they are normal, But at nine years old, it's a
bit too young for a child to do those things
on their own. So and then I moved from school

(07:40):
to school because the first school I go to was
so bad. I remember I was so bullied the stories.
I told my mom. She couldn't take it to the
next time I was take it to another school, which
I thought was really nice. Over here, there were no
chores like we had duties in the previous school. He'd
wash classes, rooms and everything. In this new school, they

(08:02):
had workers to do all the work. All we needed
to do is show up it and that's it. I
think even our plates, you never used to wash the plates.
So then I I mean this school probably four plus four,
five and six. And then I moved to a very
small school near my rural home. And this school is bad.

(08:29):
First it's near the mountains. The water is so cold
and we shower with cold water. The diet was bad,
like we ate thellery every single day. And not because
of the I think the trauma of moving from this
nice school to this other one. I started waiting my bed,

(08:50):
so the shame of I wake up, I have peed
on the bed. I need to clean the bed sheets
and hang the mattress. And this is a cold dress.
Sometimes mattress would not get dry. You know, there was
shame around it. But I think the teachers, I don't
know what they saw in me, because they wanted to
give me more responsibilities. I was made a class prefect.

(09:11):
At some point I was the head girl. Yeah, so
I was here till Closset. Then I went to high school.
High school I was a whole different ballgame because it's
a big, huge school. You're like maybe six hundred of you.

(09:32):
The backgrounds are different. People come from all over the country,
and I remember telling people you know your asked, where
do you come from, and I says, people like, is
that in Kenya? Like I was surprised. People don't even
know Garisa is in Kenya, you know. And then because
I've always been this tall girl, I always stood out.
So there was just something about it. But high school

(09:54):
was good because it allowed me to dream. I loved
the art scene, I loved reading a lot, so it
was nice to hear people's stories and sometimes even just imagine, oh,
so how is Nairobi living in Nairobi whatever wherever my
friends were from, they have these for me. You were
exotic stories, you know. And he was nice, blissfully nice

(10:19):
for a while until the teachers checked in. Oh the
teachers in high school, I don't know. I think we
have a generation of teachers that need to be canceled
before they become teachers. They really really spoke down at as.
You were told, we'll amount to nothing. They didn't think

(10:40):
because now in high school it's that growing stage. You
have nice, long hair and the teacher tells you you
will just amount to a prostitute. You know. They would
have all these bad things to say, and I was like,
oh my god. You know, the social me interacting with
the fellow students, was so nice, but when the teachers

(11:00):
checked in, they made it so sad and so hard
to be in high school. And then teachers, I mean
prefects were given so much power. A prefect would punish you,
and they will just punish you because of anything, sometimes
just because they don't like you, you know, and you're
sort of classified because let's say me, my friends are

(11:22):
from Nairobi. I wasn't, but I don't know. I was
always bundled up with them. So they would say, people
from Nairobi maybe are proud. If anything goes wrong, it's
people from Nairobi. And then I'm put over there and
I'm like, but I'm not from Nairobi. But they wouldn't
want to understand anyway. High school came and went. I

(11:45):
loved writing a lot, I loved reading a lot. I
finish high school in the year two thousand and this
is in the week of the New Millennium. There's all
these things going on, like I don't know, in some
sections the world will and in others the computers, I
don't know, we'll do what there was all. There's a
lot of talk about the New Millennium, but I remember

(12:07):
it was good for me. It was exciting for me
to just leave high school and now be free. I
don't have to be confined in this school. I start
my life. I start off by living with a relative
for a short while, but I quickly move on to
Nairobia Matalions. Then I get into University of Nairobi. So

(12:32):
campus life is campus life, lots of freedom, lots of
you know, now you're getting to know yourself, your identity.
We love to go for poetry nights, we love to
of course go out and party, and there's also the
studying part. But this is where you really are as

(12:54):
an adult, like come to learn what is life really?
You know? I go, that's four years. Yeah, four years.
I would just say it just felt like a lot
of freedom and a bit of bad choices. But you're
young enough to have second chances to correct whatever mistakes

(13:19):
you made. But all this time, I would say, the
underlying thing in my life is I feel like I
exist alone. I really don't have a connection with my
family because I got out of home. So if you're
out of home at nine years old, you know, school
holidays meant going to my grandmother's place, then back to school.

(13:40):
I was never really home. I never connected with my sister.
I never really connected with my mom. We would meet
maybe December holidays were the long ones is when we
would meet as a family, but really there's no connection.
So there's this feeling of I'm alone, so I don't
long to go home. Sometimes you do shortly then come back,

(14:02):
you know. So what happens in hindsight, what happens is
when people now want to include you in the staff.
They want to include you in. You feel validated. Andre
always looking for that validation from people. So this comes
out when now I start working at age twenty four,
I'm working for an engine and their colleagues they invite

(14:25):
me to go out and we go. This is maybe
in two thousand and seven, at the point where in
Cana they used to call it michell. I don't know
what they call it now. It's where your drink is dragged.
They put some drag in your drink and it knocks

(14:45):
you out. So this happens. This is a colleague who
does this, and like we've gone, there was a party,
We go out, my drink is dragged, and then we
go back, I think to one of the colleagues's homes.
That's what the plan was for the weekend and I

(15:07):
wake up in the morning and I'm wondering where am
I if. I looked down beside the bed and I
can see the pante I was wearing and the temple
I was wearing, and I'm like, what happened? I can't
remember anything. So then it hits me something bad, really
really happened. So with my thoughts, everybody else is in

(15:28):
the house, nobody's talking to me, nobody's telling me anything.
I showered, I left. This is like a Sunday Monday
morning at the gate. A colleague who was not in
the party meets me at the gate, is like, oh, VICKI,
I'm so sorry I had what happened. I'm like, what happened?
I have no idea what happened? And she tells me,

(15:51):
I was told you drink was dragged and somebody rapped you.
She mentions the name and it's of course someone I know,
and I'm like, and where did you get this? Information's like,
that's what that's all everybody's talking about. So then it's
like I'm getting the information from them, yet it happened

(16:11):
to me. So at that point, now I confirm, like, really,
that's what happened. I asked for permission from work. I went.
Our offices were not too far from Merrowby Women's Hospital,
So I walked to Narrobi Women's Hospital and I tell
them what happened. They do taste and they put me

(16:33):
on a thirty day anti retroviral treatment. They just call
it what PEP prep. Yeah, you get PEP yeah, yeah,
just in case whoever had HIVS that you don't get it.
And back then, I think he used to take in
the morning and night. I don't know how it is now,

(16:55):
I know those things keep changing. So it was the
pills and I would be nauseous and dizzy. I needed
time before leaving home now for work, So I told
my boss I'll be reporting late to work because I
need the effects of the drugs to wear out before
I go to work. She was very understanding. In fact,

(17:18):
she pursued. She told me I should pursue it with HR.
But the twenty four year old me was very naive
and I was like, if I pursue this, these people
are going to lose their jobs. So on those grounds,
I did not ask a child to do anything. But
at the end of that year, A few months later,

(17:41):
my best friend and I decided to go on holiday
to South Africa, and it also coincided with the time
where there was a post election violence. So when you
went on to come back, we're like, yes, we learned
that Jkia the airport, but from there to wherever you're going,
we are not. You are. The roads are clear, so

(18:01):
we postponed our flights. I think twice. On the third one,
I told my friend, you know what, I don't think
I'm going back. You go back, let me think about
what I want to do, because even if I go back,
I don't think I would go back to work in
that work environment. Seeing these people every day, you know,
you see someone in your your hat jumps like you

(18:26):
know this guy did this to me. You're supposed to
see them every day and pretend that it's okay. It wasn't.
So that's how I stayed in South Africa and stayed
for the next three years. I actually found a job
pretty quickly for some reason. I found someone who needed
my skills at the organization and I didn't even have
a work permit, but they made it to work. So

(18:51):
when I leave, when I decide to stay back in
South Africa, I'm still on I think they used to
give us three months back then visa. I'm still on
the three month visa. There was a condition that you
need to live and come back. But I had gone
to Botswana. We were going to see some work colleagues
in Botswana. I had left comeback, so when the days

(19:13):
were over, I was just illegal for a minute there.
But also my friend's cousin was in South Africa, so
I put up with them for like, post election violence
happens in December, so for January, I put up with them.
Got the job in February. So at this point, the

(19:35):
employer decides to just pay me in cash and she's
housing me. We actually we moved towns. We moved like
a thousand kilometers to where the job is. She's housing
me and she's paying me in cash. So I was
sorted in that way. But with time you learn to
navigate the system. So because of post election violence, you

(19:57):
go present yourself to the immigration office and you tell
them that this is what was happening in Kenya. You're
not able to go back. So they give you papers,
they call them what asylum papers. Yes, so with those
you can open a bank accounts. You can't leave the country,
but you can go back to your country when you

(20:18):
want to go back to your country, but you can
travel like to other countries because now you cannot use
your passport. So that's how I stayed. They renew them
every so often. Sometimes they give you three months, sometimes
they give you a year. So that's how I legally
stayed in South Africa for three years. When the job

(20:38):
was over, I started working for insurance companies and they
also accepted those papers as part of your work permit,
so to speak. So that is how I legally stayed there.
I would say I have been lucky to always meet
very good people because I was even in between let's

(20:59):
say this job and the insurance company, I just met
some Kenyans who are kind and housed me, showed me.
Actually even they you know, this is how you navigate
the insurance industry. This is how you do the job.
Until I got on my feet. By the time I
bought my first car, I'd already been taught how to drive.

(21:22):
You know. They were just good people around me, and
they sort of were my garden angels and I was
able to navigate that. My dad died. It was during
the World Cup twenty ten. My dad dies and I
have to come back home and bury him. So it's
at that time though before he died, I had now

(21:45):
made that decision I want to go back to Kenya.
But I kept asking myself when he's the right time,
do I have enough money? You know those questions. Now
you've been away from home for three years, so what
are you going back to do? Or what do you
you have? So when my dad dies, I mean death
is so sadden, so I had to travel suddenly I

(22:06):
didn't like. I just packed a small suitcase and left.
That's how I leave South Africa, come back to Kenya,
burry my dad, and then after this burial is when
I meet who now becomes my husband. We start seeing
each other and it's very clear that we've decided. We

(22:31):
were settling down, and I decide I'm not going back
to South Africa. So I was trying to do finish up,
wrap up some things. Well I was still here, like
I had a car to sell a few things. But anyway,
that's how I get back to Kenya. I get married
and settled down to now being a wife. It takes

(22:53):
a year before like we do our formal wedding and
then I get my first baby. And it's at this
point I realize I may have made a mistake because
of how the relationship is turning out. It's not as
good as I thought it would be, especially when the

(23:17):
baby comes. So many things. I think when you're young
in a relationship, you also don't even see, you don't know,
you don't anticipate, You have your relationship, you and your partner,
and then when the baby comes, the relationship really changes.
And it's during this time I realized I was not

(23:39):
doing well mentally. I had we call it what there's
a depression you get after getting a baby post part
some depression is I get postpart some depression And somehow,
somehow I give myself reasons to keep going. But my

(24:03):
relationship was not good. There's a lot of abuse started emotionally.
But with time I would speak to people and they
would say, you know, that's our relationships, that's our marriages.
Are you know, women are meant. You're the one who
holds your home. Make it work. So I'd go and
give myself reasons to go on. I got the second baby,

(24:29):
and it's after the second baby actually when it really
hit me this was a mistake, Like you know, it
just made the problems more. But I used the babies
as an escape. So these babies while my whole life
like it was just me and the babies. In fact,

(24:49):
I had no friendships, active friendships going. It was just
me and the babies. And with time I thought I
would now start business. I worked a little bit after
the first baby, but it wasn't working out so well
for me. First it was I hete it was corporate.

(25:11):
Corporate can be very fast and taxing for a young mother.
I thought that wasn't really working out for me. But
also my husband would tell me they don't even pay
you enough, So what are you doing there?

Speaker 1 (25:25):
You know?

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Somehow the two the two one the you know, this
side I'm being told you're not being paid enough, and
this side I'm thinking, I feel like I'm neglecting my babies.
At some point I resigned, I stopped working. So after
my second baby, I decide I'm going to get into business.
And I thought it was a skincare business at the time. No,

(25:49):
I was doing supplies of efficiency food to hotels, which
went on for a while. But supplies is it's tricky
because people don't pay you in good time, so you
find is spending so much money and the money is
not coming back as it should be. But it was
good business experience and I also now started my youngest

(26:14):
My oldest son had a skin problem and I discovered
that I could mix oils using my hands to just
cure the condition ezema, to cure it. So it's in
the mixing of this I realized there are so many
women who are like me and they could benefit from
what I make at home. That's how I started selling
the oils that I'd get oils from Uganda, mix them

(26:38):
and actually I was not selling. I was giving them
to my friends. So at this point where the supply
business comes crashing down, I decide I'm going to package
them nicely and sell them. Back then, it was not
so popular like it is now. So when I started
selling is when I saw the potential of the business
and my business, Shi Naturals was born at the time.

(27:01):
And I did it just in the kitchen at home,
not much like I couldn't do much because I was
just at home. But that's how the business started. So
as this is going on, at the back of this,
I find out I'm pregnant with my third baby. This

(27:21):
one was a surprise baby. This one was not planned for.
But I'm like, it's okay. You know it's within the marriage.
You'll make it work. So baby number three comes. I'm
building the business slowly, but the relationship is is really bad.

(27:43):
There was lots and lots of abuse. I started running.
That's how I used to find my me time, to
just get away from the kids and the house. I
would run. I have run in this narrowbie. I ran
from Buruburu to Uthiu and back like the driving force

(28:06):
was just me. That was just my time. It was
my way. That was what my therapy. You know. I
ran every day. I would run every chance I got,
I would running was my thing. Abuse comes in many forms. First,
I tell women you should be able to design whether

(28:27):
this is love or control, because looking from outside, people
would see me. We used to even go for the
grocery shopping in the market together. Looking from outside, you think, oh,
she has such a nice husband who takes her shopping
for her, you know, groceries. But in my case it
was control. He would never give me money to buy

(28:50):
tomatoes and onions. He had to be there to buy
them himself, to choose them. I never even used to choose.
If I choose, this is not as good as this,
he will choose, and you know, we weigh them and
then we buy them. So that's that's how abuse shows up.

(29:11):
But women think, oh, he's so, he's so nice, he's
coming shopping with me, and then when he knows he's
really done something wrong and you're angry soon after I
let's say you're taken shopping. I remember the time. I
think Willwards was new in the country, and I knew
if it had this bad argument had be taken to
Willwards and will just choose whatever you want, you know,

(29:33):
or he would travel and bring me a gift. But
then it also graduated to be into your a bad mother,
like when you see your firstborne. I don't know how
to handle children. It's my first baby. I have no idea.
I have never brought up a child. So the things
I'm doing, I'm doing out of what Marthai instinct and

(29:55):
him he seems to know better, and instead of just
telling me you could do this this way, he just
tells me. I was told I'm a bad mother because
when after giving bath, I didn't have milk to breastfeed
my baby. So the nurses in their wisdom introduced the
baby to formula, and the baby now got used to

(30:16):
the formula. The baby did not want the breast the
formula because of the bottle. The bottle has more milk
than what I could produce, so because of me not breastfeeding,
and then those first days the breasts are really painful
when the milk before the milk, even when the milk
starts coming out before the baby gets used to it,
or you get into the rhythm of breastfeeding, Oh my god,

(30:37):
it's like you you have two wounds attached to your chest.
So it was so painful for me. I was also
not looking forward to breastfeeding the baby, so it was
called a bad mother, and that really hit me hard.
I was like, what, how can you call me a
bad mother? I'm trying. You know, I'm in pain, and
you're calling me a bad mother. So it started slowly
like that to because when we meet, but I just

(31:00):
moved into his house. Some days he would tell me,
you know, you came here in here with nothing, so
if you're leaving me, you will live with nothing. It
started slowly like that, so by the time I'm doing
baby number three, it was big things like I'm not
even I really don't have money, no source of income.

(31:21):
And because we had had an argument, then he decides
he's not leaving money for food. So you have in
the evening and it's that sort of set up. Are
there are those things you need to buy every day,
Like at the time I needed to get maybe milk,
I needed fruits. I preferred buying every day because it's
fresh fruit, you know, so by evening there is nothing.

(31:42):
Though with time now I learned to go take tell
the guy selling the fruits, the vendor give me fruits.
I'll pay you tomorrow. You know, you find ways to
go around it. I didn't talk until late, like I
told my mom. The story is later, letter later, and
all my mom's solutions were she'd give me money. But
you see, that's not what I wanted. I wanted, like,

(32:03):
you know, I want my relationship to work. Why don't
we have our arguments or disagreements, but please make sure
whatever we need is there. And you have a problem
with me running a business. That was the other thing.
He didn't want me to leave the home. So if
I cannot run a business and you're not providing for me,

(32:27):
then how does this work? You know? To the extent,
where as women, you know, we are told when you're
given money, always save something for me. I couldn't because
I'm supposed to account. If I'm given one thousand bob
to buy fruits and milk and bread, whatever is needed

(32:48):
for that day, I'm supposed to account. If there's twenty
shillings that was not accounted for, that would be drama.
So how am I supposed to save anything? Then if
I say I need money to buy pass, it's like this,
how how can you not buy your own person? I'm like,
but I'm not working. Where else should I be getting
this money from? You? See? So with time, I learned

(33:09):
to borrow money from my friends, Like, you know, give
me money. I don't know when I'll pay you back,
but I need because I needed to buy my own stuff.
I realized every time I asked money for my own
needs it was a problem. But as long as it's
for the family, it's okay. Like he will shop, he
will pay, and he will do everything. But as long
as it's not my needs, my personal needs, he's fine

(33:31):
with it. So yeah, that's how abuse comes out. By
the time, now, where I was doing and then I
got pregnant, with my fourth baby another this one now
sent me straight to depression, as like I cannot bring
any and it's it's is this a paggerated podcast? You
realize your relationship has been so bad, you've stayed for

(33:54):
almost a year without even being intimate, and then this
one time you have this conversation and you see you're
making up. Is when you get pregnant with another baby.
And I'm like, oh my god, this cannot be happening.
It's already so bad. I cannot have another baby. But
I'm pregnant and this baby comes with all sorts of problems.

(34:16):
I become sick from day one. I'm bleeding from day one.
I was putting hospital on bed rest for so long,
but I did not accept that I was pregnant. I
think until I was six man's pregnant is when I
was like, okay, so now I am pregnant. We are
bringing a baby to this world. So you know, that's

(34:38):
when my mind caught up. But the relationship was so bad.
I took myself to Chirromoline Medical Center. They have psychiatrists there,
and I told that she was called doctor Judy, a
very lovely psychiatrist. I told her I can't go. I

(35:00):
feel like I'm about to explode. I need help. So
we went through all the stuff I was going on,
and she told me, actually, not going back home. I'm
admitting you. That's how I spent a month at Bostani.
They have let me call Ititary Rehabilitation Center for mental

(35:21):
health patients. That's how I stayed there for a month.
So you have talked the rappy every day they put
you on maids, not because I was pregnant. They had
to really control whatever pills they were giving me. It
was good because of the break I didn't have to
deal with my abuser. But the time I'm getting here,

(35:44):
I have there has been physical violence in terms of
he used to choke me. When he would get so heated,
he'd choke me. That was the way. But I keep
saying to whomen you know, as as as women, men
are stronger than us. Whatever the case, I'd say, like me,

(36:07):
what defense can I put up? You're stronger than me,
so if you want to kill me, you kill me.
But there's a way he used to choke me. I
feel like I don't know. I had this moment. I
feel like I died for a few seconds and then
came back because I was standing over my body and
I just saw him just do so easily. There's something

(36:27):
he used to do over here, and I would lose
I would be unable to breathe. So that had happened
so many times, and as I was pregnant with this baby,
there's a time he slapped me. I actually went to
the cops and they told me, you need They call
it a P three. So how do you get a
P three when I think they need to They needed

(36:49):
to see like physical, the physical damage on your skin
or something, and there was nothing. But I have been
I have been slapped and I have been choked. So
I just went back home feeling so helpless. And then
on another occasion, he now beat me up a good one,

(37:11):
and then he called the cops. He told the watchman
to call the cops. He I had braids, and the
way he the way he beat me, he even plucked
some braids off my head, and then he told the
watchman to call the cops. By the time the cops came,

(37:33):
you know, I was taken to the cops station. He's
the one who drove the car to the cops station.
So these people, I didn't even know. I had no
idea there were cops because me I got into the
house after the beating I got it was outside the house.
I got into the house. So these two strange men
come to the bedroom. I talk about it in my book,
by the way. These two strange men come into the

(37:56):
bedroom and they tell me we need to talk. So
I get out. I'm just wearing some tights and a
t shirt and some house sleepers. And when we get
out there like get into this car, some wondering who
are these I don't know them? When I ask them,
what is this about? Their like we need to talk?
Sounds like so even if we need to talk, why

(38:18):
are we talking to strangers? So I'm sandwitched at the
back and my husband is the one driving, so he
actually drove me to the cops station. So it clicks
as we drive out of the court, it clicks, Oh
my goodness, these are cops. So but it's midnight. I
try to call my sister, she's her phone is off.

(38:39):
I send her a text and I send my mama text.
But now when you get to the corps station, they
take your phone. There's no communication. So we get there
and I ask them, so, what have I done. They're like,
you're disturbing the piece. I'm like, people, why don't you
ask my side of this story? He beat me up.
You're supposed to be beaten up and shut up. So
I was actually in the police cells for the night

(39:01):
and the whole of the next day because I cried
out for help because the neighbors came, but I was
putting the cells. And you have not experienced trauma until
you have spent a night in a Kenyan police cell.
That place it is called it smells of urine. Luckily,

(39:24):
the people I found there were just you know, normal people.
One was a bar owner. She had been arrested, I
think because she didn't have a license. And there were
good people that are not bad people, but just being there,
just been in those And then I remember because I
was breastfeeding, so now my breasts are heavy with milk,

(39:46):
and I think I was on my period, yes, And
I was thinking, Okay, if this gets beyond the morning,
I don't know what I'm going to change into. When
you try to talk to the cops, they're not very friendly.
I mean for them, anybody who comes in, You're not
here because you're a nice person. You're here because you
did something wrong. So even the way they speak, to

(40:08):
the way they handle you. You know you've watched in movies,
people are given some time to go basking the side.
We were taken out of ourselves. We went to bask
for maybe fifteen minutes, and you're to to go back
in then also to clean some very filthy toilet. That experience,
I will not lie to you the trauma. I think

(40:30):
it stayed with me for years years after that, and
then I leave the cells. Now the next day, he
waits up to six pm because my friends come. They try,
even my sister, they try to get me out, and
the guys are like, no, it's the Osias who it
was on the orders of the Osios. So as guys,

(40:51):
we have no saying this. Even a lawyer comes, a
friend who's a lawyer comes and she's told the same thing.
She's unable in factory. She had come, now already do
we need to build money, you know? And she was
told no, it's only the Osiers who can give the
go ahead for me to be gotten out of there.
So I waited up to six pm that evening and

(41:12):
when he comes, he comes with his sister. Now my husband,
he comes with his sister, and as I'm getting out,
I hear them saying this one cannot go back to
my house. But from the police sales to the house
is a working distance, so as they are behind me,
I can hear them. Then he calls me to get

(41:32):
into his cam like, no, I can walk home. I'm good,
So come my sister. I tell her, Hey, I'm hearing
him telling his sister that I cannot go back to
his house. So I tell my sister didn't live too
far off. I call her and tell her lets meet
at the house. I think I just need to take
the kids and leave so she doesn't live too far

(41:53):
too far off from me. We meet at the house,
and by the time we get to the house, all
my sister's in law. They six I might forget, I
think there were six. I find them at the gate,
plus my ex husband there and now they're shouting, they're
insulting me, you know, And I just look at them,
these people who are people who are as old as

(42:14):
my mother, at least some of them, the older ones,
they were as old as my mother. I look at
them and I'm like, I can't even like talk back
to them. I look at them I tell them, let
me get into the house, because now they're the gate
I can get in. Let me get into the house.
They're like, no, you're not getting into our brother's house today.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
You will know.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
This is you know, he also has his family. The
talk and talk and talk, and you know, the neighbors
come out the you know, a court setting. Yeah, it
was really bad. So eventually what happens was I call
my friend who's a lawyer, and she tells me, you know,
in such a case, you're not even safe being in

(42:56):
that house. So it's just as well he doesn't want
you sleep there. You don't know about your safety, so
you just live. And I'm like, but I have a
breastfeeding child. So she told me, unfortunately, now how can
you force him to give you the baby? And he's true.
He refused with the babies, so I had to leave.
They put my clothes in garbage bags and threw them outside.

(43:21):
Then he called his friend who's a cab driver, to
take me to wherever I want to go. He will pay.
So we just went to my sister's house, but I
left the baby. So when doctor Judy tells me that
I cannot go back home, I need to be admitted.
She asked me to give her the number for my

(43:42):
next of king, who should be called, because they have
to call somebody to tell them that I'm getting admitted.
And at Bostani they don't give you the hospital gowns.
You wear your normal clothes, so they need someone. They
not only need to inform someone that you're going back home,
they also need to tell them to bring you your
clothes and whatever personal effects you need from home. So

(44:04):
he is called at that point, and he's very angry,
and I just know at some point he will show up,
but I cannot rely on him, so I call her
friend and tell her what has happened. It's my friend
now who quickly comes to Bustani. She just went by

(44:25):
those days taskies used to sell clothes. She went to
Taskis and just got me whatever she would get for
me to wear, and the personal effects that I needed
she brought to me at Bustani. This guy shows up
the next day at I think four pm, and he

(44:46):
was called immediately when I had gone to let's say,
had gone to Bustani at midnight the previous day. He
shows up the next day at four pm, so see
if I was waiting for him. I have really waited long.
But he's at home. The kids are at home. I

(45:08):
had a very good house girl, so I was confident
the kids will be well taken care of for a
period of time I was there. But they also gave
permission for the children to be brought on Sundays, so
on Sundays would have a picnic. But it never escaped me.
The attitude, you know, he would say, it's a lot

(45:29):
of work to bring the kids here. You should just
get out whatever it is. I'm sure we can talk
about it, you know. And then he telled me, now
when I'm here, I'm missing out on this and this
like he would make me feel so guilty for him
to even come and see me. So at some point

(45:50):
I told him, you don't have to come. We were
allowed visitors every day, they were visiting hours. But I
say it, even for my mother, I told her, I
don't need anyone to come. I need this time to
be on my own. I need to sort myself out
because where I am right now, if I don't do this,

(46:12):
I feel like it's the end of me. So I
think the kids were brought twice to visit and then
and then now I left PUSTERNI so at this point
where I find this in laws, the feelings I was feeling,

(46:36):
it's a lot of things. First these anger about everything
that has happened. There is betrayal, like how are you
beaten up? Taken to the cells and now you're thrown
out of your own home. There is anxiety. There is

(46:57):
my heart now is crying out for my kids. It
was already a night for a baby not to breastfeed,
and now I can still have access to them, and
then I can hear them from over they get I
can hear them crying, they can hear me. They know
they can hear me talking, so they know I'm outside,

(47:18):
but they can come outside, and especially the little one,
I cry, Oh my goodness, that one broke me. So
it was really bad. But once I leave, let me
go back to Cheromo. Once I leave Cheromo, two weeks
later I get out. I'm going back to the environment

(47:42):
that made me want to live. So we have an
argument two weeks later and I'm like, no, I've had it.
I can't continue like this. So all the pills I
was given on discharge, which I took all of them

(48:03):
and passed out in the bedroom.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Catch more African stories in the next episode of Legally
Cues Man. There is just so much to take away
from this story, and this is just part one. So
first let me say Part two is going to be
out next week, So make sure wherever you're listening to
this episode on you subscribe so you do not miss out.

(48:27):
Please please, As someone who has the spoilers of part two,
you don't want to miss out on it, So subscribe.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Subscribe, subscribe.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
That's one. The other thing is, oh my word, this
is such an important thing that I took away from
the story. And I'm only going to share this one
thing because it's the one thing I want you to
take away. Abuse for so many years has been presented
to us as being only physical, and then, on top

(48:58):
of that, because of socializing, a lot of emotional abuse
is normalized and accepted as that's just how men are.
Yet it's emotional abuse, right, even financial abuse. Let me
tell you something else. Financial abuse globally has overtaken physical

(49:19):
abuse and emotional abuse. It sits at the top alongside
reproductive abuse as the most common forms of abuse that
women encounter in intimate relationships. Now, these are so tricky
because socio cultural norms make it hard for you to

(49:41):
figure out and name what you're experiencing as abuse, but
your body and mind reacts to the abuse as abuse.
You are feeling discomfort, you are feeling heartbroken, you are
feeling traumatized, but you don't know why because socially, even

(50:04):
you have been socialized to believe things that are emotional
abuse are not abusive. And I'm not a psychologist, but
I employ you to read Read the Ways Emotional Abuse manifests.
Please do. I had to do this because of one
particular relationship I was in, and it's so freeing. Once

(50:27):
you have the terminology for what you are experiencing, you
know something is off in your relationship. You know it,
but you don't have the name for it yet. Read
up on emotional abuse. Read up on financial abuse. Read
up on how control shows up.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
I was once in a relationship and my best friend
and I laugh about this now, we can laugh because
we're so far away from the relationship. But I was
in a really relationship where this guy would show up
wherever I was right, and I was.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
I don't say I was younger, because honestly, I was
old enough to know better.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
But I was.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Younger than I am now, and I would be out
with this particular girlfriend. He would just show up. I
would be out on a girl's night out, he would
just show up. And at the time, because we were
so young and naive and we laugh about it now,
we literally would say, oh, this guy is so sweet,

(51:35):
like he just can't stand to be away from me.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
A first ford.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
One time in that relationship, this particular guy wanted to
put a tracker on my car. Guys, it is so
important for you to start and learning what abuse looks like.

(52:09):
It does not only look like it's physical, right, It
does not only leave physical scars and bruises. It lives
in words. It lives in controlling behaviors. It lives in things.
When we talk about finances, things that we're made to think, Oh, yeah,

(52:30):
the man is the one who is meant to handle
all of the money. I have no problem if that's
what floats your boot in your relationship. I really try
hard not to set standards for other people's relationships. What
works for me works for me, doesn't have to work
for you. That's one. But understand the ramifications of you

(52:52):
not having money as a woman in a relationship, understand
how control can weasel its way in when only one
person in the relationship is controlling the finances.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Right, just please.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Read up on financial abuse and emotional abuse. We are
in the holiday time, you may have a couple of
hours to spare. I employ you to read up about
these things. Anyway, I want to know what stayed and
landed with you or what you connected with in part
one of Victoria's story. When we come back next week,

(53:32):
Part two is going to be coming your way. To
make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening to this on
Remember that if you two want to share your story
on this podcast, all you have to do is fill
out our storytellerform. Link is in the show notes. Also
in the show notes is a link to our social
media platforms. Kindly follow and join us over there as well.
And yeah, hey me, this study it's hit so close

(53:58):
to home, the home, My goodness. I am so thankful
to you for listening to this episode to the very end.
Number one, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
I'm sending you so much love.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
And number two, please always know that I think that
you have every single thing it takes to heal. That's
it for this episode of Legally Clueless. You can share
this podcast with your friends. You can keep it for yourself.
I'm not judging. Just make sure you're here next week
for the next episode.