How I Took Back My Power

By Nompumelelo Runji

‘I feel as if I have been holding onto myself and holding my breath; as if I have had a bomb strapped around my body and have had to watch my every step and move – just in case it exploded. Slowly, I’m gaining the confidence to breathe deeply and exhale longer. Slowly, I’m reclaiming the freedom to move my body, to dance as I sing.’
Dealing with the topical issue of trauma and mental health, Nompumelelo’s inspirational story resonates deeply.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Oct 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9780624092797

Nompumelelo Runji

Nompumelelo Runji is a political analyst, researcher, columnist and thought leader. She is the founder and CEO of Critical ThinkAR research consultancy and has a master’s degree in multidisciplinary human rights. Runji has worked at the Sowetan and has a weekly column in the Leadership magazine. She lives in Pretoria.

Book preview

9780624089810_FC

How I

Took Back My

Power

Nompumelelo Runji

TAFELBERG

To my firstborn daughter, the gift that helped me experience unconditional love and gave me permission to consider the possibility that authenticity wasn’t my biggest enemy but my biggest asset.

Note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of people mentioned in the book.

Preface

I was just eleven years old. My mother and father had had another shouting contest. This time it was not a scene that played out behind the shield of their bedroom walls. It was in the driveway, a spectacle for anyone who cared to watch or listen. My mother, who was heavily pregnant with my brother, took my sister and me by the hand. During a moment’s pause, as we walked through the pedestrian gate, I remember asking her something like: ‘Why do you stay here?’ It was my childlike way of voicing my own piercing pain. I could endure no more of the tension that permeated my parents’ relationship, froze every room of my childhood home and shrivelled my faith in love and relationships.

I had nowhere to go. No place to hide. Wherever I turned, I collided with my mother’s depression, anxiety and rage. While trying to find refuge I was confronted with my father’s passive aggression, manifested in the slamming of doors as he whisked through and out of the house.

Between those times when his frustration spilled over, my father was easy-going, seemingly in denial of the reality: a family cracking under the weight of discord and hostility. My mother hid her sorrow behind the role of domestic goddess, taking pride in her pristine-looking home and hearty meals.

My parents were not good for each other; they were a toxic mix. Theirs was a relationship characterised by avoidance, resentment, anxiety and a lack of authenticity. Their legacy was broken children. Because this, too, was their inheritance, they couldn’t give us what they didn’t have.

Although our physical needs were always met, regardless of how scarce resources were, my inner world was a giant void. We were emotionally neglected and malnourished. The mood in the house was never stable. At best, my parents were unresponsive; at worst, extremely reactive. Happiness was fleeting; just as we began to savour it, it would dissipate like vapour.

Never feeling secure in my mother’s love and always unsure of my father’s availability, I filled the void with addictions. I’m not talking about obvious addictions: I wasn’t hooked on drugs or alcohol. My addictions were subtle and difficult to spot. Other people’s approval and validation is what gave me my high. And this addiction led me down a slippery slope of unhealthy behaviours, underpinned by destructive beliefs about myself – my worth, lovability, acceptability and desirability – topped with chronic self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. Being emotionally unintelligent, I trusted when I shouldn’t have and distrusted when I should’ve trusted.

Loneliness was etched on the rock face of my heart. I lived in fear of abandonment and rejection. Always afraid that people wouldn’t stay, I worked hard to keep them around, even when it hurt. I learnt to live with trauma, to nurse it, to absorb it. I learnt that there could be no love without pain and that I couldn’t expect people to love me just for being me. I gave away my power very easily and became the plaything of toxic and difficult people.

For a long time I was silent about the discomfort I felt during my courtship. I was silent about the frequent devaluing, criticism and manipulation by the man who became my husband. It took less than a year of marriage for him to show his true colours: I was a mere appendage, not a companion or partner. He had no stake in our relationship, no real skin in the game. He relished putting on a public show of being the ideal husband, the paragon of love and support, and then, behind closed doors, breaking me down and eroding my sense of self.

I put up with it for a good five years, until my mind couldn’t take any more beatings. A depressed and anxious wreck with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), I ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

I have suffered excruciating psychological pain and emotional agony. I have experienced near-debilitating physiological health conditions. And I have been spiritually disillusioned. But it didn’t have to be like that. My default setting was wrong. Love isn’t supposed to hurt. Relationships do not have to be hotbeds of abuse and toxic behaviour. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that. I didn’t believe it. I had to go through my own version of hell to learn this crucial lesson about love and relationships.

It’s strange and sad how our childhood predisposes us to the kind of life and future we end up creating. School doesn’t teach us that we need to stop and reflect on our family tree and the legacy bequeathed to us. Many of us go through life believing we don’t have much agency. We live out scripts – beliefs about ourselves – that are written by our subconscious programming, and internalised during our socialisation. And we allow circumstances and other people to dictate our destiny. We also allow circumstances and people to silence us and censor us, or we silence and censor ourselves, out of fear.

It was strange for me to come to terms with being someone who was publicly outspoken about social ills, including gender-based violence, but who failed to talk about her own experiences. It seemed to come easily to me to advocate for others and be an activist out there, as a distraction from the violence I was being subjected to in my own home.

My initial step in breaking my silence was a column entitled ‘Give victims of abuse back their voices and empower them’, published on 3 December 2020, which I wrote as the first of a two-part series for the Sowetan, to mark the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. I wrote that column in a hotel the day after I had left my husband, following several weeks of planning my exit. I had thought about it for years, while analysing my situation and going through a variety of interventions, including therapy, coaching and pastoral counselling.

In writing that column, I was giving myself permission to speak, to begin to advocate for myself. The extracts that follow were how I started telling my story. Tragically, they reflect the experience of countless other women, too:

What makes abuse so difficult to walk away from is that the abuser creates circumstances to make his victims feel beholden to him …

An abuser doesn’t only terrorise by violent displays of superiority. He uses the subtle tactic of guilting and shaming the victim into believing that everything that is happening to them is their fault …

The victims, usually women, invest a great deal of their time, energy and money trying to make the man’s life easier, better and sweeter. To avoid and evade the next attack they learn to capitulate to the abuser’s demands, even before he opens his mouth to speak. 

They change themselves for him … They censor themselves so as not to say things that will offend him … They close their eyes to the inappropriate things he does and their ears to the belittling things he says. 

All this leaves victims isolated, self-deprecating and invisible and even self-loathing. By causing them to abandon themselves and doubt their own sense of worth and value the abuser places himself in a most powerful position …

It is not enough to raise awareness and give victims information about their options. What’s more important is to validate victims and their voice; to empower them by helping them realise and accept their inherent worth and value. 

It is when they can say ‘I don’t deserve this’ that they can begin to claim their power: their power to think, power to act and power to choose themselves and their lives over their abuser.

Though I wrote the column in solidarity with abused women and children, I was actually writing it in solidarity with myself. It was an act of self-compassion and self-validation. I finally had the courage to claim my power and right to open the doors of my cage.

As a researcher and writer with the privilege of access and influence, I’ve always thought it my responsibility not to be a voice for others, but to give volume to their voices. I’ve always believed in the need to respect and facilitate people’s ability to speak for themselves, both as political actors and in their personal lives. Although I’ve analysed women and youth as marginalised groups that have foregrounded their quest to be seen and heard, I have often written myself out of the story of marginalisation and powerlessness.

Even though, as a thought leader, I have spoken on many podiums and written in many publications, I have grappled with the disempowerment of being silenced and censored in my personal life. This is not a contradiction that is unique to me, as a relatively successful young black woman who has carved out a space for herself in public life, in the academic world, and as a professional and entrepreneur. I have seen many a woman, like myself, celebrated and shining in public life, but being a prisoner of tyranny at home.

In the pages that follow, you will see me, you will hear me, and you will feel and experience me as I take the risk of being openly vulnerable with you.

Although this story is about me – my past, present and future – I couldn’t write other people out of my story. The characters in my story, most of whom are still alive, will encounter my true thoughts and feelings for the first time. For some, it will be like meeting someone they’ve never known, while for others it will put into context my opinions, beliefs and behaviours.

In writing this memoir, I have grappled with difficult questions about what other people might think of me and how they’ll feel towards me. I have thought about what the short- and long-term implications will be for my relationships.

As I release these words into the universe, I have considered that my daughter, just a toddler now, may not be spared the possible backlash and consternation that will arise because I dared to speak my mind and bare my soul.

I’ve wrestled with the following questions: when she reaches an age at which she can read this book for herself, will she look at me differently? Will it be the end of love and acceptance, or will it strengthen the foundation of unconditional love that I’m trying to build our relationship on?

What of my siblings? My parents and family are theirs, too. Will they endure the pressure that will come and, if they have to make a choice, will they stand by and with me as I defend my right to tell my story, which in many ways is theirs too?

A major part of my story is my account of my marriage. I can wager that telling this story may sow or cultivate seeds of resentment and bitterness in those who feel they have a stake in that relationship. It may expose me to shame for removing the cloak of respectability that made my family the pride or envy of many.

It’s not only the people closest to me, those who raised me and whose actions and omissions shaped me – my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents – who will be affected by my book. It will also shift the perceptions of friends, colleagues and, in particular, members of my faith community.

I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what they think about me. I don’t care what they say about me. I don’t care what labels they give me. I know from experience that it’s often the people who know us who judge us most harshly – particularly when we spill the beans about what’s really going on behind closed doors and behind the facades of ‘happy family’ and ‘ideal couple’ and ‘good Christian’. I will, in all likelihood, shatter these constructs as I break the silence about a painful childhood and dysfunctional marriage, littered with trauma, abuse and struggles with mental illness. I am not afraid to expose my weaknesses, addictions and wounds, both generational and personal.

As I tell my story, I push the ethical and moral boundaries of widely held and accepted norms about respect and honour in parent–child relationships. I walk the tightrope of notions about what should remain private, within the confines of the hearts and minds of those who are party to an intimate relationship, versus what should be exposed to public view. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Chapter 1

I’ll do better

Divorced. That’s the last thing I ever thought I’d be. I wanted to do better than my mother. Better than my grandmother. I wanted so badly to be better. I was going to be the one who broke the cycle. Alas, here I am.

My first instinct was that I shouldn’t even bother with marriage. Sure, I had a series of boyfriends when I was a teenager, but I wasn’t thinking of long-term commitment. I enjoyed their company. Mostly, I relished their attention. It made me feel wanted, needed, secure.

I got my first boyfriend when I was fourteen, in Grade 8. He was about five years older and was two terms away from finishing matric at the same high school I attended. He was tall and handsome, talked a lot and was on the boys’ basketball team.

We lived in the same neighbourhood – the one my mom had moved us to after leaving my dad the year before. I’d seen him around almost every day as he walked up and down my street. We could see a lot from our house: it was on the corner of the main thoroughfare to our closest town, Germiston, and to the townships of Vosloorus and Katlehong. People also had to pass our house to get to the local spaza shop, which was in the adjacent street. Boys and girls liked to gather under a small tree at the corner just outside our fence, not far from our front gate. That’s where I’d often see this guy, Gregory, chilling with his friends while walking home from the bus stop. He was loud and charismatic.

Whenever he saw me, he greeted me and would try to strike up a conversation. At that stage, I was quite reserved. I’d been through a lot that year, what with my parents getting divorced, and changing schools twice. I had plenty of adjusting to do. Let’s just say that speaking to an older boy – a stranger – was not high on my priority list.

Circumstances would have it that I ended up in the same high school as him. I used a combination of scholar transport and taxi to get to school in the mornings, and in the afternoons I took the bus to get home. Gregory and I often ended up on the same bus, and we got off at the same stop. Having to walk with him and other neighbourhood kids made it easier to blend in and make friends. I began to feel comfortable to be around them.

Early in my first year of high school I went for basketball trials. I fell in love with the game immediately. The speed and intensity of the sport appealed to me. I had a lot of steam to let off.

Team practice felt more like preparing for athletic games than for basketball games. We practised five days a week, and most afternoons we hardly touched a ball; instead we would run laps around the field, run up and down the spectator stands, and do suicides (sprints) from one end of the court to the other. Then we would do a session of push-ups and sit-ups. Many people quit because they just didn’t see the fun in this musculoskeletal torture. I loved it.

I would get home too tired to deal with the anger and pain I felt on the inside. I would be too drained to feel disappointed and depressed about what I’d lost, about the things that were taken from me by my parents splitting up and ripping me from the life I knew. Of course, I wasn’t going to miss my parents’ shouting at each other. I wouldn’t miss the nights when I felt invisible as they continued their long-standing duel. I wouldn’t miss trying to be a brave eleven-year-old holding her four-year-old sister as she trembled with fear while the war of words and cursing that had come to characterise our home raged on. But that didn’t change the fact that I had lost a lot.

I’d lost friends and other familiar faces. I was never going to see my teachers again. Forget my spot in the netball team. Never mind the school concerts and fun days. I would no longer walk the streets of the neighbourhood I’d grown so fond of, would never ride my bike there, and would miss out on those adrenaline-filled afternoons when I stole away to play games with the neighbourhood children I was forbidden to play with. Most of all, I wouldn’t have my room, and all my drawings and artwork that my dad had put up all over the house.

Basketball helped me forget, as did the hip-hop and neo soul culture of self-expression through poetry and rap. When I got home every afternoon, after hours of thumping out my anger on the court, running, dribbling and shooting, I had enough clarity of mind to apply myself to my homework.

I was excelling at sports and academically; life outside of home was going well. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to fill a teenage girl’s longing for affirmation, for a father’s assurance of love and protection. My mother was doing the best she could, but although she tried to believe she could fulfill both roles, she couldn’t be both a mother and a father. Moreover, she was dealing with her own stress and grief. We were not spared the sting of her bitterness and sorrow over shattered dreams and disappointed hopes. We were part of a fairytale gone wrong; no happily ever after for her meant the same for us too. She was sure of one thing though: she was going to give us an