Who is Nia and why does she Speak? It’s a question I’ve been asked many times lately and one I find difficult to answer. How do i sum me up in a paragraph? How do I confine my almost 40 years of evolving into to a succinct sentence?

Nia Speaks is a woman who has overcome trauma and found a knack for comedy amidst the darkness. Or maybe, Nia Speaks is a mother of two who has been silenced so many times she now chooses to speak about any and everything because she realised her voice is her power.

That all sounds so contrived. I’m a woman approaching 40 who has just about survived through child abuse and rape. Literally by the skin of my teeth. There were moments when I didn’t think I’d make it to where I am now. And yet, where I am now is not quite where I need to be. It’s a work in progress.

As a child growing up, I was made to believe that abuse is something that happens to people from other households. Abuse isn’t something that happens to good girls, or girls who behave appropriately. Girls who sit with their legs crossed firmly together and their hems pinched tight at their knees, good girls are exempt. So, when tragedy strikes and you find yourself turned into one of “those other girls”, what do you do? Who do you tell? It’s not just the shame of what happened to you that you carry, it’s the shame of it being found out, the shame of people knowing, of your family knowing.

And if the shame wasn’t bad enough, you know you’d be blamed for what took place. Because, why were you there? Why were you talking to strangers? Why didn’t you run away? Why? Why? They don’t realise that you’ve asked yourself these same questions many, many times but hindsight is a mother*cker. It all seems so easily avoidable in the cold light of the aftermath but at the time, you don’t know what to do. You’re 12. No-one taught you how to extricate yourself from a dangerous situation because they thought telling you not to get into one in the first place was enough. It was not.

The internet was new. None of us knew the dangers that were lurking, or how someone could pretend to be someone they’re not. We were oblivious. I was oblivious. Until it was too late. And that single mistake, or series of mistakes depending on how you look at it, led me on an 18-year path of self-destruction. I didn’t take time to come to terms with what had happened to me and before I knew it, I was putting myself into even worse situations, I had no love or care for my own wellbeing, my self-esteem was in the gutter. I felt worthless because he made me feel worthless and in doing so, my voice was stolen from me. He didn’t silence me, I silenced myself.

And it took me 18 years to find my voice again.  

*to be continued

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