Season 1 Episode 9 The Twisted Self-Image

After my mother abandoned me for the second time, my life in my grandfather’s house was full of suffering, worse than the first abandonment. This time I had already accepted pain. I was ready for it, but that didn’t make it easier. Some days were harder than other days when missing my mother would crush me so much I couldn’t even face the world. The longing for her distracted me from my daily routines and made me feel weaker, as if my survival had no meaning. I called these my bad days.

My mom’s absence in my life and her rejection made me start to feel like I had made a terrible choice. It was all my fault, I had chosen to be born a girl, and that choice had ruined my mom’s life. As a child, I thought, “Maybe all she wanted was a boy… but I entrapped her choice. I chose to become a girl against her will.” I blamed myself. I hated myself for being born and this was wrong. This feeling and thinking and wondering what I could do better to be accepted. Too much confusion made me hate my existence. I blamed myself for being the beginning of my mom’s heartbreak. I wasn’t allowed to be born as a girl but what kind of choices have I made? I regretted causing pain to my mom. “Maybe one day, I’ll figure out how to change and become a boy, then my mom will finally accept me.” That’s how deeply her words sank into me. So even when my mom’s step siblings kept beating me, punishing me, abusing me. This is what I deserved. Valiance becomes normal to me.

My mom and her family recreated me and shaped little Jeanette'to despair. When it rained, they kicked me outside into the storm. Even at night they didn’t care as long as it was raining, I had to leave the house. Eventually, it became a normal part of my life. When the other children prepared to eat, they would send me away “Go to the river, go find wood.” When I came back, they said, “You are late, no food left for you,” even though they planned it that way. If I managed to return before they finished eating, they forced me to wait outside until they were done. Then they called me in only to clean the plates. Whatever scraps were left, or food that fell on the ground, that was my dinner. I didn’t complain. Sometimes I was even glad, because leftovers meant I wouldn’t go another day or two with nothing to eat. And I was always hungry.

They gave me a big water bottle, heavier than my strength, and sent me to the piped spring. If I didn’t bring it back full, I would be beaten like a criminal. They showed me no mercy. I missed my mother so much, but she wasn’t there to hear me or see what was happening. In my heart, I thought: maybe I don’t deserve mercy, because the only person who could forgive me was my mother, and she had already left me.

Their demands were beyond what any child could handle. I was seven years old, carrying water up a mountain path for a family of six, on an empty stomach. The walk to the river took an hour each way. Some days I would fetch water from Monday to the next Monday without stopping or taking a break day and night unless my grandfather was around or I managed to hide myself where they couldn’t see me. And in all that I processed it and I mustered it but it was too much for what kid under 10 years old could handle..