RCCG student that killed his father: OB reader shares her own story

From a female OB reader...please read!

In light of the story you posted on your blog about the RCCG student that killed his father, and the response to it by comedian: Wale Gates, I will like to share a little bit of my story to educate my fellow OBers on the dangers of abusing their power and authority over their children, I believe there are a lot of people with stories similar to mine that will have the courage to speak out after they read my story, and they will also realize that they are not alone in their experience. While the action of the RCCG student was despicable and evil, the truth of what led to it may never be known, but I believe there is an opportunity for a  lot of people to learn from that unfortunate story about how parents can sometimes push their children to the extreme limits.

While my experience did not end up a tragedy as that of this unfortunate young man, I believe it might have had the same underlying tone and pattern. 

I am a 40 year old successful woman who is based in south Africa, I’m happily married to a wonderful man and just had a bouncing baby girl, I have a good life and i love my life, but the only thorn in my life is my relationship with my mother. I grew up having a very toxic relationship with my mum, a relationship that soured after her divorce from my dad while i was a child, after the divorce my mother took all the children with her and for some reason singled me out by physically and emotionally abusing me repeatedly, she believed i have a lot in common with my dad whom she hated with a passion.I grew up in a home where my mother will call me various malicious names, and repeatedly tell me i will not amount to anything in life, she once told me she wishes she had aborted me when she was pregnant with me, i remember being chased out of the house as a teenager, and left to sleep outside alone overnight for not properly doing house chores.

This toxic relationship endured into my adulthood, I grew up never having the opportunity to have all the beautiful things a relationship with one’s mother can bring, every time something great was happening in my life my mother was always there around the corner to “pour sand in it”, she went as far as cancelling my wedding a few times because I would not invite one of her friends to it, she has managed to destroy every meaningful relationship I have with all my siblings and extended family members by telling lies about me and going on a campaign of ensuring i am cut off from everyone, all attempts over the years by family members to show her that she was being malicious to me went on deaf ears, she spent most of the discussions denying every thing i accused her of doing to me and convincing everyone that i am a liar. I have personally approached her on several occasions to see if i could get her to change but that also failed. 

Not to long ago she claimed that she came to visit  my family and i since i was pregnant with my daughter and close to delivery, while she was around she almost destroyed my marriage by sowing seeds of discord between my husband and i, she went as far as gossiping about me with everyone that cared to listen; this included my friends and neighbours , it became so stressful for me that i couldn’t take it anymore, she did not even consider that i was heavily pregnant. One faithful day i told her she had to leave, out of my house and my life before she manages to destroy the best things in my life, that until she repents and realizes the errors in her ways i was not willing to relate with her again, while it was disheartening for me to take that action it was the most liberating thing i have ever done. Rather than repent, my mother have again gone on a campaign of letting her minions know that I “chased” her out of my home and that i’m so ungrateful after all she had done for me.

Sometimes when you push a child to the wall you never know what they might do,while i could never dream of killing my mum, the anger and rage she evoked in me could have easily led me to a dark place if not for the grace of God. The general idea of a mother is someone who is nurturing and ever loving, my experience have been far from that, there are things my mother did that i cannot even add to this writeup. A lot of nigerian parents do not know anything about parenting a child, their mentality is that you should raise a child the way your parents raised you, this approach involves flogging the child and abusing him/her emotionally as one wishes, there is nothing systematic to it. While some of these children grow up and forgive their parents, even going as far as replicating their upbringing on their own kids, some realize that things could have been different and are willing to stop the cycle.