20/11/2025
For her.
I am changing my whole life for her. ❤️
A few weeks ago I attended an online session on Racial Trauma. This time the focus was: what does racial trauma feel like in the body?
Not just the story, but what the body has learned since.
We were invited to share experiences, and the wisdom that came after them. My dear online friend Hermien shared something first. Her story stayed with me, but what really moved me was her strength at the end. Her wisdom. Her action.
Then the facilitator asked, “Anyone else?”
Inside, I was jumping up and down and hiding at the same time.
“This is too much.”
“But I want to share.”
“There’s no wisdom in it.”
“Maybe the wisdom is still to come.”
So… I spoke.
I won’t go into the details, but my story involved a close friend and a group of men. Sexual humiliation. The kind of things that don’t leave you, they flash. My breath went shallow. I had to work hard just to stay present.
I said honestly: I’m still looking for the wisdom. I work with a trauma therapist. I’m still learning how to come back into my body.
Afterwards, a few women messaged me privately. One asked if I had been r***d. I told her:
I hope not. I don’t remember clearly. My pelvis hurt when I spoke. That’s all I know.
After the session, I slept. And slept. For two days, I didn’t go to the studio. Just my bed. My body.
What stayed with me most wasn’t the memories.
It was the way the women held me.
How they made space.
How they didn’t rush it.
And I realised: I deserve time.
To integrate. To heal. To live.
It makes sense why I get angry.
Why I get frustrated.
Why my body always feels busy.
I’ve been coping for so long. So young.
With distortion, with fear, with stories of GBV, with being used, with gun violence, with emotional manipulation, with men who desired me but would never “claim” me publicly.
Sometimes, I really hate being a woman in this world.
Safety is always a calculation.
Tomorrow there is a Women’s Shutdown in South Africa, in protest against GBV.
I am thinking of all of us.
Not only the ones who speak loudly, but also the ones who are just learning how to breathe again.
The ones who survived.
The ones who are not silent — but are learning how to live, how to thrive, how to receive support without fear.
I struggled with su***de for many years. I know now it was never just about wanting to die. It was about disgust. Memory. A nervous system overwhelmed. A body carrying more than it could hold.
Recently I started doing BSR (Body Stress Release).
And something very slow is happening.
It feels like sensation is trickling back into my nervous system. Gently. Carefully.
Like rain touching dry ground for the first time.
I don’t want to be paralysed my whole life.
I want to be touched.
And I want to touch.
Not from fear.
From presence.
From choice.
I’m sharing a photo of little me.
Not for pity.
But for my own recognition.
She deserved softness.
She still does.
And I am still learning how to give it to her.
For her.
For us.
For the women who keep going.
