What Her Brothers Did To Her Left Her Broken

Unfiltered Stories

In today's episode of Unfiltered Stories, we have the privilege of hearing Musenge Musomali courageously share her personal journey with us. Growing up in a challenging family environment, Musenge faced the unimaginable trauma of sexual abuse perpetrated by those who should have been her protectors. Her story sheds light on the complex dynamics of family dysfunction and the profound impact it can have on a child's life.   Through her remarkable strength and resilience, Musenge candidly shares the emotional and psychological toll that the abuse took on her. She discusses the feelings of brokenness and the long-lasting effects of childhood trauma. Yet, amidst the pain, Musenge's story is one of hope and healing. For the past decade, she has bravely embarked on a journey of self-discovery, working tirelessly to process her experiences and reclaim her life. Her story serves as a powerful reminder that healing is possible, and that speaking one's truth can be a transformative act. Join us as we listen with empathy and respect to Musenge's inspiring story of resilience and personal growth.   #survivorstories #unfilteredstories   Follow Musenge here:  FB: https://www.facebook.com/julianna.mus.5  YT: https://youtube.com/@Mussymusomali  IG: https://www.instagram.com/musenge_inspiredwriter/  Her book: https://a.co/d/dWpca8U   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.  Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00My name is Musengem Somali. I'm going to talk about my journey as a survivor of incest and

00:06childhood sexual abuse. I was born in a small town in Zambia called Kawit, which is in the central

00:12part of Zambia. And my early childhood memories are around the age of about three and five.

00:19When we were living in a small town, my parents decided to relocate to another town called

00:24$1 on the coca belt. So the whole family moved there. And I remember the abuse started around

00:30the age of seven. At first, you know, I was pretty confused about it because I was left to share

00:35the

00:35same bedroom with three of my brothers. And it happened that one night I was asleep when I

00:40felt somebody touch me. So my thoughts were maybe it was my mom because she was a nurse and she

00:46used

00:46to come at night. I said, maybe she's checking with me. But I realized that it was one of my

00:50brothers.

00:50And the first time he just picked me up and put me in his bed. And I was thinking maybe

00:55he just

00:56wants me to be comfortable. You know, as a child, I'm trying to understand what's happening. And the

01:00next thing I realized, that's when the abuse started. He touched me that night and he went

01:06and put me back on the bed. So when I woke up, I was stuck in between trying to think

01:10whether it was

01:11a nightmare, whether it was true. I was trying to really process all those things. And from that time,

01:16from seven going forward, that's how I remember the abuse started. When the abuse started,

01:22I was confused about a lot of things. And it kind of like became an everyday thing or every other

01:28night

01:29when my mother was working night shift. And then in the beginning, it was just the one brother. But

01:34over time, he was another brother. And so I had two people in the household violating me. And for me,

01:40it just felt like, well, maybe this is a normal thing that people do in families. And as time went

01:45by,

01:46it just became like a normal part of my everyday life as a child. Our home was a very abusive

01:52home.

01:53So my father was abusive towards my brothers, my older sister, and my mother. And it was such a

02:00constant abuse that we saw every day. And over time, my whole family was just like a home of chaos.

02:07And when he wasn't home, everything was calm. But the moment he walked through the door, everybody was

02:12scared. My mother was not herself anymore. We were in fear for our lives. Like, it was a constant

02:19struggle just to deal with the dynamics at home. One of the things that he did that I would call

02:25like the redemption fight is where he would tell my brothers to fight. And whoever was the one that

02:31won the fight, he was going to be spared of beatings. And that's just how terrible the abuse

02:36was. And if my mother tried to step in and stop him, he would hit her as well. So on

02:42most days,

02:43my brothers and my sister and my mother, when she was home, would be in the living room. We love

02:49to

02:49watch television together. And the moment that my father would come home and we hear his car outside,

02:55everybody would be scared. And as soon as he walked through the door, he would tell my mother he was

02:59trying to reach her at her job. They said she wasn't there. Or maybe she was not just responding

03:05to his request to find out where she was. Or maybe she had passed through like the grocery store or

03:11something. And my father would get so upset with her. And my older sister always tried to defend my

03:17mother. But always he would just overreact and he would get angry with everybody at home. So the

03:22beatings were that when my mother could not really convince him that she didn't do anything wrong,

03:27he would turn to my brothers. And he would say, you are weak and I need you to fight. And

03:32he would

03:32say, well, you're watching television. Let's do another kind of show. And he would tell my brothers

03:37to fight. Most of the fights, because they were so violent and brutal, my brothers would normally have

03:44like bumps on their foreheads. And sometimes they would have a busted lip. And my father's choice of

03:52hitting was normally a belt. He had a leather belt. My mom, it was normally punchings, kickings,

03:59you know, and twisting her arms. And that's the kind of beating she had. So the abuse started around

04:05the time I was seven years old. And my oldest brother that first violated me, he was like four

04:11years older than me. Then the young one, who was my immediate elder brother, was like two years older

04:17than me. I would say the abuse that I suffered while my brothers were going through their own

04:23abuse with my father. I would say when he passed, I was like 10. And then we moved with my

04:28mom. And

04:28when we moved there, I was around the age of 13, 14. And the abuse was still ongoing. For my

04:35brothers,

04:36unfortunately, the oldest one died. I think I should have been maybe 17. But prior to that,

04:43before I went to boarding school, when my father died, the abuse kind of just took another turn

04:49because when my father was not there, it seemed like my brother still wanted an outlet. So they

04:54turned to my mother. So my brothers would hit my mom. And I would also be going through the sexual

05:01abuse when she wasn't there. I feel that when my father died and my brothers were angry, they were

05:06angry because most of the time they would tell my mom, you didn't protect us, you were not there for

05:10us.

05:11They really like put a lot of pressure on her, like just to give them answers as why she didn't

05:15defend them. And I was going through my abuse as well. Like the abuse just continued. And then for

05:21the abuse that I went through, it was more like now you can't tell anybody. You can't go nowhere.

05:26They always said, well, if you tell somebody, they're going to say that you were participating.

05:30And they made me feel all the time like it was my fault. I deserved it. I would go home

05:36and face the

05:36same thing. And it just made me angry as a young woman. Like I was almost like thinking about taking

05:43my life. I was suicidal at one point. And I remember taking my mother's because she had like a medicine

05:48cabinet. I remember taking medications out of there and just taking a lot of them. And I had felt so

05:55lightheaded. And I went to bed to sleep. And I woke up after some time. So I just kind of

06:00slept through it.

06:01Nothing happened to me, thank God. But I was like really out. I couldn't remember what happened during

06:07that time that I passed out. One day I'd come from school and I was so depressed from just thinking

06:13about the things that had been happening to me. I just wanted everything to end. The pain was too much

06:19for me to handle then as a teenager. And so my mother had this medicine cabinet. Being a nurse, she

06:24had

06:24kept medications at home. I went in there and I just remember grabbing different kinds of medication

06:29and I took it. I didn't know what it was, but there were tablets. I just combined many of those

06:34tablets

06:35and I went upstairs. And my mother was at home that day, but I didn't say anything to her after

06:40I took

06:41the medication. I just kind of started feeling lightheaded. I was feeling dizzy. And I just crawled

06:46into bed because I was hoping that when I just go into bed, I will not wake up. I didn't

06:51want to tell

06:52no one about it. And I was surprised that after a couple of hours, I did wake up. There was

06:57another time

06:58I was really young, but I pushed my head in the pillow and just, you know, pressed my head down

07:04really hard. And I was thinking that I would suffocate myself and nothing happened. So around

07:10the age of eight or nine, my father got sick. And when he got sick, the abuse slowed down. It

07:20almost

07:20came to a start because he wasn't physically able to do what he was doing to the family. And when

07:26he was

07:27sick, my mother started to care for him. You would think, you know, after all the abuse that he put

07:32her through, she would leave him when he was in that kind of position, because she would have

07:37totally the physical power to do so. She stuck with him and he was continuously sick until he passed,

07:44like, I think a year or two after he got sick. And from what I understand, I know by then

07:52he had

07:52eight. And how I know this is because this is something that also my mom had. That's the thing

07:58that she passed from a few years later after his death. And for me, even though my father was not

08:04physically able to do what he was doing to my brother, and I was happy about it, my own abuse

08:09carried on. It may have been a break for my mother and my siblings, but for me, it wasn't. So

08:15from the

08:15age of seven, around the time my dad passed, even when he was at home, even when he was around,

08:21they still did it to me because I still shared the same bedroom with them. And my mother was now

08:26occupied with caring for my dad. So there was not much supervision for over me. When the abuse was

08:33happening to my mother and myself, I felt like there was no one else that existed in the world

08:39where we existed. Because at my school, I don't remember anybody like teachers trying to see, you

08:46know, if I was okay, or if they observed that I had a kind of behavior, like if everyone, all

08:51the

08:51children would run off to play, I would be the child that was sick by herself. So I wondered why

08:56the teachers like didn't talk to me or find out what was wrong with me. It just felt like we

09:02didn't

09:03exist to the rest of the world. I felt alone. I think my whole life, I felt really alone. There

09:09was no one

09:10that defended me. I was angry for the longest time with my mother too, because I felt that she didn't

09:15pay

09:15much attention. She was a nurse, you know. And I asked myself, shouldn't she have observed something

09:21wrong with me? Or my sister at least? For some reason, they were not close to me at all. My

09:27mother

09:27was close to my older sister, but not to me. And I wondered why it was like that. Because I

09:33feel like

09:33I needed the protection the most as the youngest. And I didn't get any. I just felt alone. Having been

09:39neglected that way, I felt angry. I had a lot of anger. I had a lot of pain. I had

09:45a lot of animosity

09:46towards even people that were not involved in the process. Like it just felt like you didn't notice.

09:54Like I spoke to my aunt one time and she said to me, well, you're complaining about you being abused.

10:00Do you know that it's happened to other people in the family? You're not alone. And you're making

10:05that a big deal. And this was my mom's sister. And I said to myself, how do you respond to

10:10somebody

10:11like that? More to say, you think you deserve to be heard. There are others that went through this

10:16and they don't talk about it. And it just felt like, you know, now I hear that some of my

10:21cousins have

10:21been talking about it now. Because it happened in the family. There were many other family members that

10:26went through it. By my brothers, actually. When my mother got sick, it started out, I think, one day when

10:32she came from work, she just felt sick. She just had this breakout on her body, like a lot of,

10:38you

10:39know, like rashes and stuff like that. And from what I know, like those were the early signs when

10:44she started to develop AIDS after my father died. And she was so sick. She was in and out of

10:49hospital

10:49too for a long time. And you can imagine that this time again, she was not home. So it kind

10:55of just

10:55made the abuse even more easy for my brothers. Like they just made it easy because there was no one

11:01there.

11:02She was in and out of hospital. And I was angry with my mother. She was sick. She was vulnerable,

11:07I know. But I feel like she didn't do much for me. And when she got sick, I was angry

11:12with her even

11:13more. And the day she passed, I remember I was at school one day and my brother-in-law and

11:19my sister

11:20came to pick me up. And they said, oh, well, there's some bad news because I didn't even go to

11:25the hospital

11:25to see my mother. I didn't see her in the last moment. She was in hospital. They just came and

11:30told me

11:30she's passed. And I had no emotion at all. I did not react in any way. I did not cry.

11:36I just had

11:37like a numb kind of feeling over me. I felt like at that time I was 15. I had so

11:43much I would have

11:43wanted to tell her. And my anger was more like, she's gone. I'll never be able to say to her

11:49what

11:49I feel. When my mom passed, there was a decision that I needed to go to boarding school. And so

11:56my

11:57brothers, once again, they had nowhere to go. And so my sister with her husband decided to take them

12:03in. That was a good gesture. And there were still, you know, teenagers and they needed to finish their

12:09high school and all these things. But then the sad part of it is when I went to boarding school,

12:15it was an escape for me, but it wasn't an escape for my sister. My brothers actually turned against

12:20her as well. So while I was at boarding school and I was in a new environment, I was not

12:25being abused

12:26anymore. My sister, over the holidays, when I would go home, she would experience the same violence

12:31that my mother experienced, my brothers. They were once again a terror to the family. So a few months

12:37later, after I'd gone to boarding school, one of my brothers got sick and he was an alcoholic and he

12:45was struggling with a lot of things. I guess, you know, from thinking about it now, the abuse probably

12:51took a turn on all of them and he drank a lot and he got sick and passed. Like his

12:58death was really

12:59quick. And when he passed for me, when my oldest brother passed, I don't know, I would say I felt

13:04bad about it. I didn't know what to feel because two of my brothers passed. So the first one, when

13:10he

13:10passed, that was one of the people that abused me. I didn't really feel anything. I was just numb and

13:16we don't, he passed. It was kind of a feeling of relief, kind of, that he's not going to do

13:21this

13:21to other people. Hopefully he didn't do each other people, but from what I hear, he did do this to

13:26other people. But then one brother died and then another one. So two of my brothers passed, but there

13:31was a couple of like years between them when they died. So one of my outlets, after I'd been through

13:39all the abuse, was writing a book. I'd suppressed my feelings for a very long time. And so one day,

13:47I, one of my friends said to me, I've never thought about writing a book. I said, no. He said,

13:52you might

13:52want to write that because some kind of therapy. And I'm a type of person I love to write. And

13:57so I

13:59wrote this book, Glow After Pain. At first, I didn't really have a title for it. I just wrote. And

14:05that

14:06one year was the worst year, I think, of my adult life. I relieved through every moment of what

14:13happened to me in that, in while writing this book. And that for me was the first time that I

14:19truly

14:19cried. I spent weeks and months just in my bedroom. I had, did a lot of socializing and I wrote

14:27the book.

14:28And when I was done reading it, writing it, and I read it through many times, it was a therapy

14:34on its

14:34own. I accepted what I'd been through. I learned that I needed to forgive. And just a lot of crying

14:41was therapy. And then talking to friends during that process that were there for me was a therapy.

14:47When I came home from boarding school, I was about 19. And I met a young man, he was like

14:54two years

14:54older than me. So he was like 21. And we started a relationship. I just come from boarding school,

15:00I was excited about stepping into the real world. And when we started the relationship,

15:05my sister was sick. And so at one point, I didn't want to stay at home anymore. And I left

15:10home. And

15:11even though it was not the ideal situation, I wanted to leave home. And I moved in with him. It

15:16was not

15:16too long after I moved in with him when he became abusive. And I didn't really know how to respond

15:23to

15:23that abuse. Because I'd been through it a lot of many times in my life. And so I just embraced

15:28it

15:29because I loved him. I would say it was my first love. So I accepted it. And I feel now

15:33when I look

15:34back, I accepted it because that's what my mom went through. So it felt like just it happens to people.

15:39This is normal. I still carried on with that same idea that it's normal. And I loved him, but I

15:45felt that

15:45it was a wrong kind of love. I just thought that maybe he was a support system, but he wasn't

15:50really a

15:50support system. And the abuse went on for a couple of months. And I got pregnant. And when I got

15:56pregnant, he left me alone. He wasn't at home. He just did what he wanted to do. And when he

16:02came,

16:02he would hit me. Even when I was pregnant, he would strangle me. He would twist my arms. Like I

16:08would

16:08literally have a problem with my hands. So my right hand now, my wrist here still hurts even after so

16:15many years because it twisted me so bad. When I leave something heavy, I still feel pain.

16:20And this has been over 20 years and I still feel that kind of pain. That's just how violent he

16:25was.

16:26The day that I decided it was enough and I was going to leave, I didn't have that thought initially

16:32because we had just had the barrier for my daughter. And so those few days we decided to hang

16:38out with him and I used to hang out at the local pub. So I went there with him and

16:42he kind of got jealous

16:43that I was talking to somebody. And he became physical outside. Everybody saw him try to be physical

16:49with me. So I ran off, I went home and he came home too as well. And he started hitting

16:55me. And I said,

16:56you know what, this is enough. I'll need to go now. Then he said, well, he grabbed the scissors and

17:01said,

17:01well, if you go, it's not possible that you would go anyway, because one of us in here is going

17:06to die.

17:06It's not me. And so he grabbed the scissors and he was going to stab me with it. And I

17:10said, no,

17:11no, no, wait, I'm not going to leave you. But at the back of my mind, I said,

17:14when he falls asleep or there's an opportunity, it's time for me to leave. Because at that point,

17:20he had destroyed all my clothes, all my shoes. He had cut them up with the same scissors.

17:25He had piled them up and I was scared for my life. His actions were extreme that day. And after

17:31he

17:31fell asleep, because we were both intoxicated, but I was as intoxicated as he was. So as soon as he

17:37fell

17:37asleep, I grabbed the little stuff that was left of mine. And I climbed through the window because he had

17:43locked the door and the key in his pocket and slept. So I had to open a double window and

17:50jump

17:50out of our window. And I left. His mom lived not too far. Like we lived in a back house

17:56at the mom's

17:57home. I went to her and I explained to her what happened. And she said, you have to go for

18:01sure,

18:02because, you know, I don't want my son hurting you. And so she understood and I left. And she let

18:08me

18:08sleep on the couch. In the morning, I had to go to one of my sister's best friend's house.

18:14So I called her up and told her what happened. And I went over to her. So she was like

18:19in the next

18:19town. And one of her friends came by, picked me up and dropped me off. So they actually gave me

18:26a

18:26ride to there because it's spoken to her. And she was okay with me going to live with her. She

18:32had

18:32always been there for me when my sister passed. And so that was how I left him. When I found

18:38out,

18:38that I was pregnant with my daughter, I was very happy because I really love children. And I wanted

18:44to be a mom, even though he wasn't there to support me. I was happy with the fact that I

18:50was going to

18:50have a baby and I was buying clothes for the baby. I was just so excited when she was born.

18:57It was just

18:57like a whole different life, like a whole different phase of my life had begun. I was so happy. I

19:04was

19:04taking care of her. Even if he was an absent dad, like he would just not be home to help

19:09me care

19:09for her. So one time I was with my friends and I felt her body and she had a temperature.

19:15So I was

19:16like, she feels hot. I need to take her into the hospital. So I did that. And they said, oh,

19:21she had

19:22malaria. So they gave me some medication, which I gave to her, but then she didn't recover. She was

19:28just getting worse. And so I took her to the hospital because she just could not breathe

19:33properly anymore. So his mother was there. She wasn't really my mother-in-law, but I would say,

19:38you know, his mother. And she said, well, this child is not breathing properly. You need to take

19:43her to the hospital. And so we did. And while there, they had to, you know, put out on like

19:48some oxygen

19:49to help her breathe. She was in one hospital for about a week. They said, well, you know, because

19:54she's had so many, you know, antibiotics given to her. We're not trying to, we're trying to figure

19:59out what's wrong with her. She's got sepsemia. And so she would need to be moved to a specialist

20:03at another hospital. And all of this time I was alone in the hospital. It was just a lot

20:09of stress, a lot of anxiety. I was like, what's happening with my daughter? When they finally

20:14moved her to another hospital, it was kind of too late. She was not breathing as she would

20:20like the breathing was just, just wasted because the hospital where at first said they did not

20:25have enough oxygen. So we needed to, they needed to move her. When we got to the other hospital,

20:31that's when she was put on oxygen. It kind of just made me angry that I was in a place

20:36where

20:37there was not enough healthcare available for that child. Maybe she would have survived. But

20:42from that experience that she had, she never recovered. She just got worse every single day.

20:48She used to move. She couldn't move anymore. She just became almost semi like coma state. And

20:54it took another extra week seeing her like that before she passed. So that in itself was

21:00like, wow, I've experienced so much death in my life. Like it just was surreal. I couldn't

21:06for a long time, I kept asking myself, like, is she gone? Like she was laying on the bed.

21:12Like I was looking at her for a while. I couldn't take her body because I wanted to just hold

21:18her.

21:18And I said, I don't think she's gone because death to me was like, what is this? I was only

21:24like

21:2521 at that time when she passed because she was only two months, three weeks when she passed about

21:31there. It's been such a long time. You know, I have very vivid memories of her because that was the

21:36one pain in my life that I blocked out. I'd never really talk about her passing. I wanted my daughter

21:42so bad that I was always with her, playing with her. I'd put on my back. I would feed her.

21:49I would

21:49visit friends with her. It may have been a short period of time that I spent with her, but I

21:55created

21:55so many beautiful memories. I think I wanted very much to leave my childhood through her. So I made

22:02sure I was a good mom. I gave her what she needed, but I created so many beautiful memories with

22:07her

22:07that when she passed, I wanted so badly to hold onto those memories. But I guess the trauma was

22:14so much that I even forgot her date of birth. I cannot remember none of that stuff. Her date of

22:19birth. I remember the hospital she was born in, but I have no pictures of her. I have no clothes

22:25of

22:26hers. I used to have those things, but over time, because of the way my life was, I lost a

22:31lot of those

22:32memories. And it just kind of comes down to, I don't have family memories of my family either.

22:38The family pictures, I have no such memories. And so I hang on to the little memories that I have.

22:45It's been over 20 years that my parents been gone and it was a long journey trying to get to

22:53where I

22:53am today. I went through suicidal thoughts, depression, pain, anger, and forgiveness. I just did not

23:02function the way I should have. But over the last 10 years, I've had to really work on a lot

23:08of things.

23:09And I started to work with nonprofits to help other people. I've always worked in a capacity where I have

23:16to help people. Like I just feel that, you know, everybody needs help when you can give it, give it.

23:22So I've been the type of person I work with organizations that give back. And over the years,

23:27after working for those organizations, I have now like two beautiful daughters, one that was born

23:33in 2007 and have one that was born here in the US in 2020 during the pandemic. Both of these

23:40children,

23:41I've just added so much value to my life. And every single day, I just tell myself, I wanted them

23:47to

23:47have a good life, be raised the way I was never raised. And I, I want the best for them.

23:54They're my,

23:54my life. They're my world. I love them so much. After going through a traumatic and abusive childhood,

24:01it's really affected me in a, in a way that I would say sometimes it can be a positive and

24:06other

24:07times it can be a negative. I'll say the positive in a way that I am more overprotective of my

24:12daughters.

24:13I'm always cautious with who is around them and who I can allow in their space. I'm more guarded. As

24:20a

24:21mother, I just do not trust anybody around my children. Like I say, it can be a positive thing,

24:26can be a negative thing, but I always work on one assumption, better safe than sorry. My advice

24:32or encouragement to other survivors is that first of all, I want to say you're not alone. There's so

24:39many of us that have been through this kind of abuse, different kinds of traumas, and that can affect

24:46the way that we relate with others and how we feel about ourselves. I will say this. No one should

24:54make

24:54you feel differently about yourself, just because they were selfish enough to take away what was so

25:01precious from you. They can abuse you. They can want to destroy you and just make you feel like you

25:07have no voice, but you do have a voice. And the voice that you have is one that, you know,

25:12I can overcome this. When I first came out to talk about my story, a lot of people were receptive

25:20of

25:20the story, but there's some people that will make you feel like you're making it up. This cannot be

25:26real. And that's one of the things that many survivors struggle with coming out to talk about

25:31it because there's a lot of people that are always into the name calling. They don't understand the

25:37process that we have to go through as survivors, and that keeps a lot of women from speaking up.

25:43But I'm above those kind of people because at the end of the day, it's my story, it's my journey,

25:49and no survivor should feel that they have to hold back telling their story because of how someone else

25:55feels. It's their story, they own it, and they should tell it how they want and in the way they

26:00choose

26:00to. That's how we just reclaim the voice as survivors, by telling our stories how we want and how we

26:06choose

26:06to whether people accept it or not.

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