Shut UP! She's (they're)Talking...: Nine Steps to Freedom From the Shame and Guilt of the Past and Living a Fulfilling and Authentic Life.

By Lova Nyemb Bassong

Shut UP! She's (they're)Talking... depicts the journey of a woman who was abused sexually multiple times by at least five different men at different period of her childhood and adulthood; and was restored thanks to her faith in God. In this heart-rending true life story, the author shares her struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts and her

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookTrail Publishing
• Release date: Dec 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637677773

Lova Nyemb Bassong

Lova is a life coach, a motivational speaker, a writer, and a Ph.D. candidate in Frenchlanguage literature at the University of Ottawa. She is also the founder and CEO of LOV'NB Coaching. Lova has experienced the trauma of sexual abuse and found healing in reinventing herself through her faith in God. She went from pain, low self-esteem, depression, and suicidal thoughts to love, self-confidence, wholeness, fearlessness, authenticity, and purpose.Her mandate is to help people, especially women, to recover from their broken past, build healthy self-confidence, love themselves, and thrive in a life free of judgment and limitations.

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Copyright © 2022 by Lova Nyemb Bassong

Hardcover: 978-1-63767-988-3

Paperback: 978-1-63767-776-6

eBook: 978-1-63767-777-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022903895

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

All names of characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Kansas City, MO 64114

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Prologue

Lift Up Your Dress

Hello Valerie!

I am not for you…

You are my wife

Admit that you like it!

How much do you want?

I shall not die…

Nine steps to freedom from shame

and guilt of the past and embracing an authentic

and fulfilling life.

Epilogue

Translated from French to English

by Pamela Egbe Messy.

French title: Silence! Elle(s) parle(nt)…

Neuf étapes pour se libérer de la honte et de la culpabilité du passé et embrasser une vie authentique et épanouie

Preface

Shuuuuush! Yes, Shut up! She’s (They ‘re) talking, and it’s better you listen. Don’t assume, don’t conclude on her, don’t judge her, don’t condemn her. Don’t despise her story, don’t downplay it, don’t belittle it but rather listen as she alone can tell it. She knows exactly what she has gone through. She knows her pains, her aches, her ugly and infernal experiences.

In this journey called life, most people who tell our story did not experience it. They can only assume, analyze, or summarize based on what they’ve heard and do a reported speech. A time comes in life when we get weary, and everything we have as humans in terms of strength, wisdom, experience, courage, knowledge can no longer carry us. The weight of nasty experiences such as sexual abuse, forceful marriages, home violence, bereavement, poverty, sickness, or heavy diagnosis and related issues can plunge us into a deep dive of fatal depression. Others who have no one to turn or talk to are tempted to choose lethal shortcuts. The fear of being judged or misjudged, the agony of not being understood, and the dreadful nagging of condemning words around us could make us feel unwanted and worthless. I strongly believe that the society as a whole and the Church should no longer entertain an accomplice silence on such matters who claims scores of lives annually.

When one is psychologically wounded, mostly women, it creates a situation of fear, guilt, failure, rejection, and lack of self-confidence, making life extremely difficult to live.

Thankfully, above human failure to bring some sort of solution to such profound matters, there is a Divine Being with real and lasting solutions to all human-related issues. It takes one to know him personally and anchor his faith in Him to receive all that pertains to his saving grace. Talking on how Jesus Christ alone can save and rescue us, Hebrews 4:15 has it this way For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, without Sin. These words show the nature and limitless sympathy of Christ. He suffers with His people, not merely showing compassion to those who are hurting and tempted but taking Himself a joint feeling of their wounds and pains. He can do this because He went through trials and suffered Himself in His flesh.

In this true-life story you are about to read, you will discover the rebirth and redemption of a modern time heroin anchored on true faith in God. Her story has made her an instrument of restoration to many and the work she carries out today is changing lives and impacting destinies.

Enjoy your reading!!!

Dr. Eric Joseph Bikai

Pastor, Sociologist, Lecturer.

Prologue

She is a young woman, full of life and overflowing with energy. Some find her pretty, others beautiful. Most describe her as intelligent and declare her strong. Very strong. But what they don’t know is that behind this seemingly unshakeable woman is a girl, a teenager, and an adult, sexually abused multiple times by at least five different men. What they may never know is that within this fulfilled, luminous, and inspiring woman, has long lived a little girl whom life has wanted to break many times; a little girl for whom the material comforts afforded by her parents, as well as an addiction to partying, chocolates, and shopping, were not enough to help forget the existential slump that plagued her. As proof, at age 18, she hits rock bottom, frequenting disreputable people, and has disastrous relations with the opposite sex. She hates herself. She’s mad at life and at the whole world. More than anything, she’s at war with her body; she’s horrified by it, for she holds it responsible for the desire, unclean and defiled, that drove her tormentors to throw themselves upon her so furiously. In trying to end to the demons constantly haunting her, she contemplates suicide, tries, and fails twice. She finally gives up, disheartened to fail at this too. Being rejected by death drags her down even further. She finds herself so insignificant and worthless that she decides to be satisfied with an empty life moving forward. To this, she applies herself meticulously until the day of a most fortuitous encounter that will completely upend her life. Aboard a plane bound for Dakar, Senegal, she finds herself sitting next to a former high school classmate who had boarded at Cotonou Airport, the last stopover before Dakar.

Considerate, kind, and full of empathy, he chats with her, talking about his life, his new, rather religious life principles, and the possibility for her to regain joy for life by believing in love and the kindness of God. At first, dismayed and then suspicious, in a surge of curiosity, she finally agrees to receive this outstretched hand, this new beginning offered her by her traveling companion. By accepting this outstretched hand, she wishes to begin on a path to healing but is surprised to find as she’s moving toward a total transformation. In this healing process, she reconciles with herself and learns to love herself and others. To top it off, she discovers the power of forgiveness and succeeds in freeing from her heart those tormentors whom it had long held captive. Armed with this new outlook on life, she makes a wish: to show unconditional love and compassion to all human beings in distress who cross her path. The reason? She knows where she comes from. She mostly remembers where she was taken from. She knows that without the love and unconditional forgiveness of the Creator of heaven, earth, and the universe, she would have said goodbye to the world for a long time. She would have been dead and buried a long time ago.

Thanks to God, she is alive today. Today she is a different woman! Today she is a woman of conviction and passion who communicates the joy of life, never without her ever-present smirk. A source of motivation for many, her painful experiences made her discover how strong, resilient, and resistant she is. Her love of life and legendary good humor are undeniably contagious. Unifying, influential, and strong, she wears many hats and leads many campaigns, first and foremost of which is the condemnation of the sexual abuse of women and girls in particular. She persists with it because deep in her scarred soul lies a memory. The memory of a girl-woman very nearly destroyed and forever silenced by lawless men. The memory of a scared and muzzled kid, now a steadfast and liberated woman who society has long kept in silence. A complicit silence that bade her protect her torturers, even though she was the victim. A silence that made her feel ashamed of what had happened to her when it was these guilty offenders who deserved to be exposed and booed.

It is to address this injustice and right this wrong that she chooses today, to break the silence. A silence which in today’s society continues to be imposed on young girls and women who have suffered and still suffer the pangs of sexual abuse. Now she, in turn, invites the world to be silent for she wants to speak. She wants to speak for herself, but also, and above all, for all those women and young girls who will never dare do so. On their behalf, she speaks and tells her story, their stories, as long as they are painful and unbearable. Stories filled with falls, ill-defined spite but also tinged with hope, healing, and restoration. To all those who will want to read or listen to her story, the story of these women who will perhaps be silent forever, she says this: Shut up! She’s (They’re) talking…

Lift Up Your Dress

Buea, Cameroon, 1986.

Francophone Public School, the new school.

The schoolyard is packed with people. Students from first through third grades run in all directions. In the distance, we hear cries, songs, and howls. In this scattered crowd, one may easily imagine a little guy blowing his nose or wiping tears prompted by a snack getting snatched away, or a little girl saddened by a little scrape. The older boys play tag, football, or even hide and seek while the girls jump rope or have fun playing tap. Frenzied by the rhythm of the songs, all seem happy. The girls feel lucky to be one of those chosen to attend the new school. All of them except for one who is impatiently waiting for the bell to ring her back to school, are happy to be at recess.

She is eight years old. She is in second grade. They call her smart. If at first, she really liked the new school, it’s been a few days since she has felt fulfilled there. Indeed, for exactly a week, a change of teachers has had her put temporarily in a class where the teacher feels more like a torturer. And now each passing day was emotional and psychological torture for her. This made her very much regret the old school, which, despite its military green color and the rounded shape of its classrooms, represented for her a haven of peace and security.

There, in the old school, she had her older brothers with her, while here, in this new building of white-painted concrete, she felt lonely. There she had her childhood friends, while here she had no one to talk to. No one to confide in the heinous blackmail to which she was subjected by her classmate and class head. So, every day, she faced in silence the fear and anguish that plagued her at every recess. Here she felt isolated and was constantly on alert, for she knew that at any minute, the perpetrator of her terror would send his gang to find her. A gang made up mainly of young boys who obeyed him unflinchingly. She had given up on trying to figure out why he, their boss, was pushing them so hard. There was nothing special about it, though. No aura. No charisma. No presence. Nothing! It was probably because the teacher had given him some power. As a result, he had gotten into the habit of taking whatever he wanted; among other things, cornering girls he liked in closed spaces, during recess; demanding to do nonsense¹ with them. It was these unwelcome and abject advances she had faced every day since being transferred to her new classroom. This is why she hoped, and secretly prayed through each recess, that she would have her classroom changed once more.

As if the class head’s bodyguards had read her thoughts, they gradually gathered around her. Although there were no more than fifteen of them, they still seemed like a swarm of bees rushing on her.

The boss is calling for you, one of them yelled at the top of his lungs.

Where is he? she asked, more to try to buy some time than out of any real curiosity. She knew exactly where he was. He was hidden in a wooden shed a few yards from their classroom. She also knew there was no point in refusing to go to their boss. Above all, she knew why he was calling for her. She looked around the crowd, then, escorted by the boss’s servants, she began walking like a lamb to the slaughter. When he spotted her, he smirked an ugly, inelegant, and fake smile. Before she was even up to him, he bluntly ordered her to stand in the corner and lift up her dress.

I can’t, she tried to argue. "You know someone’s going to see us. The teacher will scold