The Untamed Mind: Secrets & Lies

By Zahra Alli

Zahra Alli Unravels the Story of Her Life in this Riveting Memoir
The Untamed Mind is designed to amuse and inspire the readers about life —
offering hope and encouragement for transformation and new beginnings
In an engaging memoir that narrates a story of life, author Zahra Alli unravels her own journey to inspire and amuse her readers. The Untamed Mind is based on a true-life story that reflects various emotions, deep thoughts, and soulful feelings. It is a story of a child, living in a world where she is naïve enough to believe that fairy tales are real. It is about a young woman searching for love in a world where lust can be mistaken for love—a foolish woman finding love in a world of seduction, charm and betrayal.
This book is a fascinating memoir that lays bare the author’s journey through life. The Untamed Mind allows the readers a glimpse of her childhood when she was trying to enjoy the innocence of life—the stage of her life that was stolen from her like a terrible dream. Here, she reveals everything that she went through, in a story of a life filled with pain and tears, sorrow and loneliness, and a quest for peace within herself. Zahra, without pretence, opens the chapters of her life that are already done, with all the hurts, the joys, the successes, and the towering dreams, which made her what she is today. She has woven this book to inspire readers about transformation and new beginnings.
In The Untamed Mind, Zahra has presented a beautiful telling of a story of life and some of its intricate realities and her search for love and acceptance in a deceptive world. It is a wonderful book that everyone will find enjoyable, inspirational and lesson filled.

About the Author
Zahra Alli is a freelance author and poet. She writes stories that touch a person’s soul and this is reflected in her writing. She has a creative sense with a natural ability to captivate her readers. Her next project is to publish the complete series of The Untamed Mind within the next 2 years. Zahra is a project manager by day and an aspiring author by night. Focused and driven, Zahra has set her goals on being a renowned author. She is noted for her skill in leaving her readers begging for more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zahra Alli
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005557096

Book preview

The Untamed Mind

THE UNTAMED MIND

Secrets & Lies

ZAHRA ALLI

Copyright © 2021 Zahra Alli

Published by Zahra Alli Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Zahra Alli using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Colleen Figg for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

ZAHRA ALLI

[e-mail]

To my Children

Zia, Skylar and Miquél

Earth child, Angel child, Heavenly child

You are my beacon of light that saved me from the darkness of my world that once was. Without you, I would not have survived all that I have been through. For you gave me the strength and the reason to fight, to live, to succeed and attain the self-respect I knew I deserved.

I hope to live long enough to keep on keeping on, building this great legacy that I will one day leave behind for you to continue on your own path and go further than I could have ever dreamed possible.

May you always remember that you are meant for greatness. Be humble, be kind, give love, and believe in the magic of gratitude.

Love you to the moon and back

Forever, your Mamma

Message from the Author

A long time ago, I read somewhere that having a journal was a safe place to collect your thoughts and set aside your feelings until there came a time when you were ready to reflect, unpack and release yourself from that which imprisoned you. My journal was a way for me to lock away my emotions and hide from my past and all of the things I was ashamed of.

What started off as single pages with a few words written every day soon turned into paragraphs and the paragraphs paralleled into an extraordinary story. A story that, if left untold, would continue to tear away at me, piece by piece if not released from my soul. I started to put together the pages of my story, but every page just brought about another story, unmasking hidden truths and secrets among secrets. The more I wrote, the more I remembered, and the more I remembered, the more I wanted to find release from that which haunted me.

The Untamed Mind, Secrets and Lies, the first of a series of books, narrates a story of how my life transformed from being an innocent child into an irresponsible adult with incessant struggles at every turn from then to now. My journey begins with haunting nightmares and continues with one life-changing moment after another. These continue to test my strength and endurance to this very day. This book – the first chapter of my life – only reveals the character of an untamed woman whose heart is broken in her quest for a love that is incomplete. The next series of The Untamed Mind unveils a deeper, more soulful woman, whose world is plagued by depression, more heartbreak and unspeakable tragedy.

With each chapter of my life, a new version of me was created. But somehow, I seemed stuck, emotionally frozen in a time of immaturity. I was the girl who never truly grew up until I was ready to accept the things that had happened to me, forgive those that had hurt me and, more importantly, forgive myself. This was not an easy journey. My faith wavered many times and I have given up more times than I can count. And at some point, I just stopped living and merely existed in the shadows of my burning pain. But comfort was always nearby through friends, strangers, and God. When the ground has fallen from under your feet, it is easy to become blinded and not see what lies beyond that moment. And so, another journey began, and another and another, with roads that just led to more challenges and never-ending heartache. I searched deep within myself and took the first step, never looking back at the darkness that once was, but forging forward with an indelible smile and spirited soul.

I have managed to inspire every person that has crossed my path, through my stories and through my courage and determination to survive it all. And despite all the sadness that has wounded my soul, I infuse people’s lives with love, laughter, and confidence, making each person feel good about who they are. As I have given a part of me and left my mark in every person that has passed through my life, so too would I like to leave my imprint on yours. Be it to affirm that ordinary people can go on to do extraordinary things or to simply show you that you too can let go and trust that whatever your truth is, it will change your life and you can finally just be free. Whatever you take from this book or me, let it be something that inspires you to be true to yourself. Nothing can set you free or give you the elevation of peace we all search for more than the simple truth. I have lived a lie for most of my life which complicated everything. Now I just live a simple truth!

CHAPTER1

Childhood Lost

My life began at age seven, a time in a little girl’s life where the world we lived in was made up of princesses and castles and all things fairy tale. But for me, that fairy tale ended when my innocence was stolen from me, and my world was never the same again. At that age, what it felt like was me being dragged out of my magical world and put into a dark place of terrifying monsters we call people. All I could think about and feel in every crevice of my body was the brutality of my childlike-self being violated and desecrated to a point where the child in me ceased to exist.

I was sexually assaulted and had no idea at that point in my life what was happening to me or what it meant. My blurred memory of these brutal assaults was of a repulsive, terrifying beast with an offensive-smelling breath, and great physical strength pushing me down, forcing something sharp inside me, causing extreme and unbearable pain. A pain so excruciating that it did not just ache in my body, it gnawed away my existence of being a child.

We were never educated or cautioned about such abominable acts because perhaps our parents and teachers felt they were protecting our innocence by locking us into a world with cute, cuddly, furry characters. But as adults, they knew that in the real world, monsters were real people, and acts of savagery did not mean that children were spared. I was one of those children savagely ruined by a man whose identity still appears hazy yet so very distinct. I have no vivid memories of his face, but I still remember his musty smell and forceful body violating mine. The mutilation of my innocence left me with scars that ran deep, and I was never the same again.

My voice had become muted and the words to describe what happened felt muddled. I did not tell anyone about what had happened nor how many times it happened. How could I tell anyone when I myself could not make sense of it? And even if I did tell someone, who would believe me? I was living in an era with strong cultural values where these kinds of immoral acts were unheard of. Or if they did exist, they were concealed so as not to draw attention to the imperfect society we lived in. So how could I speak of that which ‘did not exist’? So, I kept this secret and let the nightmares silently haunt me until I found ways to block them out. I withdrew from everyone around me and no longer laughed or played like I used to before it all started. Instead, I locked myself in my room and immersed myself in music where the sounds drowned out my thoughts and allowed me to live in a world where only I existed.

I would like to tell you that from then on, I suffered no other struggles in my life, but that is not the case. Just as I ended one chapter of crippling affliction, another one began…

When I was very little, I used to catch glimpses of my mum spending a lot of time with another man, but I could not piece together the acts of their illicit relationship. It was only after the sexual assaults that I had developed a mature sense of understanding and figured out that she was having an affair. They would see each other during the week when my dad was at work. Sometimes when I would return home from school, he would be there, and they would send me outside to play or ask me to visit with my friends. I was imperilled and left exposed, innocently playing with my friends near a house where, little did we realise, lived a treacherous demon who preyed on innocent children. He watched from behind the curtains of his dark room, carefully choosing his victim, a vulnerable, unguarded child to satisfy his hankering. And he chose me!

A few years had passed, and I started becoming conscious of my body and was struggling to cope with everything: school, family, the assaults. I needed my mum’s support to help me get through, but she was far too self-absorbed with her dark secrets, that she did not stop to notice I was falling apart, and I needed help. I began to get angry and became rebellious, as my mind kept reliving the sexual assaults and other incidents that might have led me to face the same fate. You see there were many times men tried to take advantage of me, at school, at our youth club, in my neighbourhood. Each time I tried to tell my mum about these incidents, she would shrug me off and not listen to my cries for help. I remember one incident where a friend of my mum’s, a schoolteacher, Peter, was helping out at the youth concert. He was a familiar face; he taught many of the kids at the youth centre and was liked by everyone. On the night of the concert, he had offered my mum and me a lift home. His car was parked at the back entrance of the centre, and he asked me to go with him to bring the car around. When I refused, my mum turned to me and in a strident tone forced me to accompany him. Even though Peter had not given me or the other kids any reason to be afraid of him, I was afraid, and a sense of uneasiness crept over me. I could hear the muffled sounds of my inner voice trying to warn me, but I was already at the car, and it was too dark to turn back. When we got into the car, Peter tried to kiss me and put his hand up my skirt. I pushed him away, but he was strong and came back at me trying to block my mouth so I would not scream. He told me to be quiet and managed to get his fingers inside me. I pushed as hard as I could. I broke free and I ran, unafraid of the dark anymore. I ran as fast as I could straight to my mum, shaking and trembling. I tried to tell her what had happened, but all her friends were there staring at me like I was a delinquent child stirring up problems just to get attention.

She looked around at them, then looked at me and said, Stop this nonsense!

She accused me of making things up and pushed me aside whilst she said goodbye to her friends. Instead of receiving comfort from my mum, expecting her to stand by my side and make me feel safe, she curled her upper lip in disdain and sternly rebuked me. When Peter came around, he acted surprised when one of the ladies told him what I was accusing him of. He masked his guilt under his innocent guise and said, I swear she was not with me. She went off behind the club to meet some of the boys and when I followed her and asked her to come with me because it was not safe, she got angry and ran off.

My mum kept apologising to him for my ‘insolent behaviour’ as she called it and forced me into the car where we were driven home by the same man who moments ago had sexually assaulted me.

It was from that moment on that I began feeling a deep hatred toward my mum and plotted ways to expose her affair. The feeling of resentment grew stronger and stronger until one day I decided to tell someone about her sinful acts. I packed my bags to run away from home but did not get very far as I ended up at my mum’s older sister’s house, about twenty minutes away. Filled with emotion, I started to tell Aunt Sally everything about my mum, my abuse, and the dysfunctional family I was a part of. I was going to spill all the secrets. But starting with my mum’s affair was as far as my story would go because it became all that my aunt was concerned about. She was furious and quickly ran to the phone, calling on everyone in our family to see who else knew about my mum’s secret affair. Going over to Aunt Sally’s was a huge mistake thinking that someone else would care about me more than my mum did. Aunt Sally had her own agenda, and it was not to help me but to humiliate my mum. When I did not come home from school that day, my mum became frantic, calling on my friends and people close by in search of me. I had no idea my mum would even notice that I was gone because she always made me feel like I was invisible. And my mum had no idea that a storm was brewing, and it was about to descend on her, a storm that I had given rise to and one that was only going to trigger more hatred towards me.

Aunt Sally had gathered our entire family together and in front of everyone, she named and shamed my mum, spilling details about her affair, details that I had given her, exposing the hidden truth of my mum’s lover. I saw the hatred for what I had done in my mum’s eyes that night, as she stared down at me accusingly. She denied the affair and broke down in tears for having all these accusations thrown at her. My dad was more upset at everyone showing up at our house unannounced and taking control of his rightful position than he was upset about all that was being said about my mum and her lover. He was not upset with me, nor did he ask me anything about what I knew, but I could see the sadness through his anger. It was as if he had known all along but kept the secret hidden, perhaps even from himself. I hated myself for what I had done, and things at home between my mum and I were never the same, not for a very long time. I knew she hated me. I could see it in her eyes, every time she looked at me. It’s like she wished I had never been born. I wanted to go to her and tell her how sorry I was for what I had done. I wanted to tell her that I loved her even if she did not love me. But my mum was a cold and rigid person who did not know how to show affection. So, I recoiled in fear of igniting her anger and let the distance between us augment over the years.

A few months had passed by and the storm at home was starting to settle. But just as one storm settled, another one broke. Only this time it was a storm bearing its true meaning. It had been raining heavily for a few days and something about the gloomy grey skies and the disturbance of the atmosphere left everyone feeling uneasy like something bad was going to happen. And then something did happen…

Chapter2

Storms Brewing

It was the night of September 5th, 1987. The storm became fierce, and in its wake, began to sweep away bridges and roads, along with the house next door to ours. My dad saw it coming and in his quick thinking managed to get our family out of our house. As we were running down the stairs along the wet and slippery floors, we saw our living room wall start to break apart and the roof was starting to cave in. There was water gushing from all sides and we were trying to dodge things falling all around us. But by the time we had got out of the house and to the bottom of the road, with the thought in our minds that our house was going to fall to the ground, it was too late to help our neighbours. Their home had succumbed to the force of the storm and its violent rage. This was a time in the world where such things never happened; at least not in our part of the world so you can imagine the disbelief and great sadness that consumed the people of our town. Eight people died right in front of us that night. You could hear the screams as the house came crashing down and then the deadly silence through the roaring rain. Our town was severely damaged by the storm to a point that the land in which a home once was, has lain barren until this very day. Our home was saved or at least it did not completely surrender to the storm, but it was no longer structurally safe for anyone to live in. We had to leave most of our belongings behind, collecting only those items that had fallen outside of the house, and find somewhere else to live. We had lost everything that night but mostly, we had lost hope.

My grandmother decided to take us in, putting us up in her one-bedroom cottage at the back of the main house. My mum, dad, and older brother shared the cottage, and I was asked to stay in the main house with the rest of the family. I hated being in that house, it was like living with the Nazis under the reign of Adolf Hitler, only I was held in captivity, forced to obey the leader so I could have a roof over my head and get scraps to eat. I would be told that there was not enough food to feed everyone and would sometimes go to sleep without a meal.

When my dad would ask me if I’d had dinner, I would simply say that I was not hungry, excuse myself so I could go to the room that I was given a place to sleep in, lie down on my floor-made bed, and cry myself to sleep. But my dad could sense how unhappy I was as I think he was too. He would try to sneak me a bar of chocolate when he could to cheer me up. I prayed every day for us to have our own home again and a few months later, my prayers were answered. We received news that the city council had built new homes for all those who had lost theirs