⚠️ This post contains references to child abuse, domestic violence, and trauma. Please take care while reading.

I didn’t plan to stay up late on a Monday night, especially knowing I had to be up at 6am.

You know those nights when you’re already tucked in and fully committed to getting some actual sleep? Especially after days of barely resting, cause of the endless cycle of commute to and from the office. That was the kind of night I was having. But then I made the mistake of opening TikTok. Just for a bit, I told myself.

Lies from the pits of hell. Guess who got sucked into doomscrolling, completely forgetting that time isn’t her friend. Moi.

For some reason, my For You Page decided that was the perfect night to dive into True Crime TikTok. And me? I can’t look away when a story starts. My curiosity goes into overdrive.

That’s when Nina Aouilk popped up on my screen. Within seconds, I was pulled in. My sleepiness vanished, as I listened to her recount her horrifying history. Phone in hand, my chest just sank and the more I heard, the more my spirit cracked. I haven’t experienced a quarter of the sorrow Ms. Nina has, yet some parts of her story were painfully familiar.

What didn’t Ms. Nina go through? Isolated as a child just for being a girl. Parents forgetting that no child asks to be born. Gosh, it gives me the ick. People keep having kids without even understanding what it means to be a parent.

She was violated at 14 by her own father and his friends. Got pregnant. Then told she was soiled. I physically recoiled. I’ve heard, so many Nigerians say that. Especially women, grown women, who should know better. Why do people always blame the victim. It’s so disgusting.

At that age, she didn’t even fully know what was happening. But she knew it was wrong. She felt fear she didn’t have words for. They broke her down until she believed she was worthless. Like she wasn’t a human. Just a puppet.

They made her abort the baby. Then forced her into marriage. Her in-laws abused her too. And when she went back home? Her own family tried to kill her. How can there ever be honour in murdering the innocent? Said she’d brought shame because she left her abusers. Physically and mentally broken, with nothing but sheer will of the divine she escaped with her life.

Yet it still didn’t end there. She met another predator. A Nigerian man. A Yoruba demon. That’s when my heart really cracked. He gave her her first child, the one sent to save her. But how did she come to conceive the child? Through another violation of her being.

Trauma is such a joke. She was the breadwinner, the only one working, but the life she had led had her convinced she was nothing. Even though she was already remarkable. He kept her trapped, and she couldn’t even see it, because when abuse is all, you’ve ever known, when it’s the air you’ve been breathing since birth, you don’t think to question it. You just learn to live with it.

She spoke like someone who had died a thousand deaths and still chose to live and keep reliving it to help others. That kind of strength? It’s haunting. But it’s also a beautiful reminder that healing is possible.

My father never tried to kill me or my sister. But he tried to kill our mum. And honestly, he didn’t even need to touch us. Just watching, being too scared to move, it killed something in us too.

I can’t count the number of nights my mum would grab my hand and carry my sister, and we’d run. Running from my dad’s rage. The shouting. The crying. The blood. The nights we didn’t see her. The mornings when he’d try to make up for it like nothing happened.

I used to wonder why she stayed. Why she let him beat her. Why she didn’t run the first time. Why she begged his girlfriends—people he was cheating with to talk to him. Why she kept quiet when he brought other women home.

Why did I have to comfort my little sister when she cried? Who was there to comfort me?

We were always insignificant in their fights. Our screams, our crying, went unheard, none of it ever mattered. Sometimes we were just collateral damage.

One night, it got so bad she ran, but he found us at a neighbour’s house. He beat her so badly she had to be rushed to the hospital. I was terrified. But I didn’t even fully understand the fear. I was too young. But I knew it wasn’t normal. Even though a part of me thought it was.

As I got older, it made more sense. The disgust grew. The anger. The shame. At my dad. But also at my mum. For staying. But I was scared too. What if we left and had nothing? What if we ended up homeless? Would we become beggars?

When my mum got married, they had agreed she wouldn’t work. She’d be a housewife. And because of that, I thought she had no money, no options. We were sheltered. I didn’t lack anything on the surface. But leaving meant stepping into the unknown. It scared me. I felt guilty for even thinking that way. But I also knew, staying meant we’d all break.

Then, in 2010, mum finally pulled us aside. She said she was leaving. She was taking us with her. She told us to start moving our things out little by little, hiding them in storage. I cried. She was so brave, because I recall her saying she said she didn’t want to die. If she stayed, he would kill her.

She had stayed for us. To give us a home. To keep us safe. But what use is a mother’s love if it costs her life? I was 14 years old when she made that choice.

The irony isn’t lost on me. Ms. Nina was 14 when her mother truly and completely abandoned her, and it’s so strange because it could have been us, if mum choose differently.

Before that, we suffered. She’d buy diesel for the gen, and when he found out, he’d take the key so we’d sit in darkness. He brought women home. Shouted. Insulted her. Cheated. Made us afraid to exist in our own home.

Her fear of death saved her and saved us in return, because knowing what I know now and how life has played out since then, a life without our mum, would have been the beginning of our ruin.

Because he just didn’t care.

And was happy to be released from the burden of parenthood.

I’m so glad she left. She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t wait for a miracle. She saved us. That’s the kind of woman I want to be.

Mum didn’t just leave. She stayed standing. She made sure we finished school. Made sure we all still had a life. We didn’t go without. We didn’t crumble. She held it all together, even when I knew she didn’t have anything left to give.

Nina Aouilk said, “Domestic violence isn’t just happening to the person; it’s happening to the whole family.” And I’ve never heard anything truer.

The stigma and silence that comes with abuse is so heavy. I’m not sure I ever told my friends what was happening. Never spoke about how traumatic my childhood was. But somehow I held it together. Maybe because mum did. She made it feel like we were okay. Like nothing happened.

My anchor. After everything she’s been through, she still finds the strength to show up for other women. She’s helped them leave. Helped them fight. Given them somewhere to land. Somewhere to breathe. To rest. To figure things out. To start again.

Watching Ms. Nina speak that night didn’t just break my heart, it broke something open in me. Maybe because I’ve carried my own story for so long, and I never really tried to gather my emotions and let myself feel the pain about it all at once.

I guess, this is why I’ve written this. To name it. To feel the full weight of it stretched out.

Do I have trauma? Of course. There’s no way I don’t.

But I’m grateful.

For knowledge. For the power of women. For women like Ms. Nina, who remind us that we’re more than what we’ve been through.

So, if someone finds this, someone still in it, or fresh out, or still trying to name what happened, I hope you know:

Silence never protected us.

It only protected them—the perpetrators of our violence.

What you were raised to believe was normal—isn’t.

You’re not alone.

The more we speak, the better the world becomes.

Because so many don’t make it.

They die.

But freedom may be closer than you think.