Bekeme: Hi, guys. How’s everything today? This is Bekeme aka Mummy G. O. Are you listening to the Good Citizens show? How’s it been with you? It’s been great. But I don’t know, I haven’t been sleeping well. I haven’t been sleeping well. So I’m going to think it’s because I was away for a couple of months and it was five hours. The difference between my time and where I was five hours. The thing is I got there and it was hard, like switching over. And then now I’m back, it’s the opposite. So I’m staying up till late and I’m waking up early. I’m not sure my body is not sure because I was away for two full months. So, I’m like, I’m not sure. So I’ve been sleeping like four hours. I know that’s not good. That’s bad.
That’s a different thing entirely.
I know, but then I’m not stressed by physical stuff. I keep on saying that I’m not stressed by… It’s emotional things that stressed me. I don’t feel stressed, but I know that I should sleep more.
You see what I mean? She’s already psychoanalyzing me. That’s why I dressed for the show. She’s already psychoanalyzing me like I’m a brainiest. So that’s an early introduction to our guest. My name again is Bekeme aka Mommy Go, the one and only. You’re listening to the Good Citizen Show. It’s brought to you by CSR-in-Action. And it’s been nicely, kindly funded for the past three years or so by Act Foundation, and we’re still going strong. Thank you for listening all the time. And today we’re talking about something that’s really important to me, really important to a lot of women out there. It’s not something considering our climate that we like to talk about frequently, but it’s something that happens. I was talking to my sister yesterday and she mentioned that an uncle of ours had passed on. We start talking about some of the challenges that the wife may have and then we’re just glad that they had just one child and that the child just got married as well. So, we’re like, okay, at least… And then we started reminiscing about our childhood and the people who lost fathers early and how the women just didn’t seem to be able to get themselves together.
So you’re living a nice middle to upper-class life and then your father leaves the family or your father dies and then the lifestyle is like 100 % decline. So that’s how it is for these kinds of things. Women just tend to oftentimes bear the brunt. I get passionate about these kinds of things. So, it doesn’t make me a manhater or anything. I just know that there just needs to be a little bit more help. And so today we’re talking about intimate partner violence. We know that it’s not just on the one hand, it’s not on the one gender. It’s vice versa. It’s both ways. I’ve seen scary women. I’m like, again, we talked about it yesterday, my sister and I, a close friend from childhood who just seems to have become a different person. She’s a different person because I think that there are also mental health concerns involved. Then she was telling me about a time that she visited them, and this lady was kicking and screaming. She was literally throwing kicks at her husband and she packed her load and said, Please, this setting, I don’t think I can reside here. Let me be going to my house or wherever and all.
It’s both ways, but it’s something that happens frequently. But like we said, it’s typically born by women because physiologically, men are stronger than women, especially when it’s physical. I know that psychological women and our mouths can go, but oftentimes it’s against the woman. I’m just going to read statistics from the Nigerian National Population Commission that estimates that women’s lifetime exposure to intimate partner violence from a current husband or partner is at 19 % for emotional IPV is what I’m going to call intimate partner violence, 14% for physical, and 5 % for sexual. I think that these are highly underreported because oftentimes physical goes with sexual. It’s just that we think that it’s normal now. It’s not his property, his property, he paid for it. And so anytime he just jumps and humps and everybody’s fine. I have a very special guest who’s already chipping in, who was already psychoanalyzing me. I’m like, hey, God, I’m bad. I’m not looking after myself anymore.
That was intentional. Trust me.
I can see her eyes. So yes, I have Pastor Olabisi Usidame, who’s an experienced trauma therapist and a professional counselor. She’s well-versed. It helps that she’s a woman. So welcome to the show. Welcome to the Good Citizen Show.
Pastor O: Thank you so much, McKinsey. It’s nice to be.
Bekeme: Here with you. Thank you so much. Actually, there’s a little expert, she’s my pastor. She’s, my pastor. Yes, she’s, my pastor. Just know that word and no peace. We’re in good company. This is something I’ve talked a lot about and how frequently this happens. We’ve all watched videos about different… Violence. Yes, different causes of… Different people. I’ve seen them beating up women, beating up women and dragging them by their hair, and braids coming off. I’ve also seen women body slam men as well. What do you think is the most frequent cause of this disconnect that causes this attitude?
Pastor O: It depends on the gender, it depends on the system. If you’re in a patriarchal system like how it works here in Nigeria, where culture has deemed it fit or passed down the knowledge to us that men are meant to be the breadwinners. Women are meant to be the house helper, basically, a friend for the children, and take care of the family. There’s this unwritten rule that economic support should come from the man. Now, the mindset of a man who grew up with that perspective is I am meant to take care of my family. That’s my job. With such a man who doesn’t have an adulterated view of that, comes across a strong, independent woman who speaks for herself, who expresses herself, or who is earning more than him, but may not know how to handle that. Such a man, depending on his personality, can psychologically be aggressive, which is the one part we don’t talk about. T hat’s the major violent actions when it comes to intimate partner violence, actually come from psychological aggression, which we don’t talk about. We hear about physical violence and we’re talking about it.
Bekeme: People keep on this. People say, Does he beat you? He doesn’t. You’re enjoying it now. What are you talking about?
Pastor O: Exactly. And that’s the worst because you see, women are born natures. When a woman is happy, everybody is happy. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. A happy wife means a happy husband and a happy family. Because women are multipliers, they are nurturers. When they’re happy, you can hear it in their voice, you can see it in how they nurture everybody and everything around them. When a woman is not happy, it’s obvious. It affects her mentally, affects her emotionally, affects her physically. Then you can see that things just begin to spiral downward. In the age of the patriarchal system, that’s what you would see. You’d see a man who cannot manage his emotions, for example, who is prone to anger, would definitely take it out physically on the wife. Or when we’re in talk, talk about sexual violence, it’s not just about maybe rape or forcing her to have sex, but also if she’s carrying a child and you’re being very mean to her, whether psychologically or physically, she’s unable to take care of herself. She’s missing hospital appointments. She can’t meet up. It affects the baby. Depression is passed on to the child. There’s mental health disorder, basically.
That’s for a parent, that’s for a man who is physical, but a man who is not physical, who is very reserved, who is cool, calm, and collected, who still doesn’t know how to manage a woman, who seems to want to be his equal, would probably passively be aggressive towards her. That also is part of intimate partner violence. Now, from the place of the woman as well, a woman who has been exposed to domestic violence as a child, who thinks it is not. It’s likely to carry on that cycle, I see that a lot.
They just think, look, you know what? You have to fight for yourself. You have to speak up. You cannot stay down. Especially for those who naturally when want to respond to stress, it’s the fight mode. Some would freeze, some don’t know what to do, but some will fight. Some will use their fist, and some will use their words, but they fight back. That’s when you see it on both sides. But whichever way you look at it, it’s all coming.
From a root, from some knowledge, a mindset that has been passed down, which needs to be broken down, which needs to be disabused, basically.
Bekeme: Yeah. You just said going into my next question, because I’ve often wondered, if you find yourself in that situation, what to do? But I want to encourage listeners to call in on 0700 923 923 923. Again, at 0700 923 923 923, I’d like for you to call in and call in anonymously and basically just ask questions about what you should do if you find yourself in such a relationship. I’ve dealt with really empowered women who are still in these relationships. You would think that they would know better, but then, as we agreed, when it’s psychological, it’s not that clear. It’s not that apparent. You almost can’t point it out. There’s no evidence.
A friend of mine was like, you know, recently she was saying, I think my husband has been gaslighting me. In case people are wondering, so something happened and she questioned him and he just blows it out of proportion just to keep her quiet. Then she starts thinking, Okay, maybe that didn’t actually happen. Maybe I was just imagining things, and I should let it go. Then this is also somebody who is helpful, who is supportive in other ways. What people see on the outside is a supportive husband. What exactly are you complaining about? But this is somebody who emotionally abuses you inside the home.
Pastor O: This is the very interesting part you are getting into. Now, the truth is the place of a woman in society is very dicey. There’s the place of the woman in her home. There’s the place of the woman in the community, her local community, maybe church, mosque, the club. T here’s the place of the woman in the larger society. Now, a woman who is doing very well will take care of the family. The family goes on trips. Everybody looks happy. Everybody’s looking well-kept. Makes her husband happy because when they’re outside, they are honored, basically.
There’s a tendency for him to appreciate her outside, honor her. But on the inside, it feels like I’m not contributing to the overall success of our home. With such a man, he can’t show it outside because he has to still be the picture-perfect husband. He’s dealing with so much insecurity on the inside. When they get home is where some of these things begin to manifest because he cannot communicate well with her. He’s not sure, okay, is she supposed to respect me? Am I supposed to respect her? Isn’t she supposed to be more submissive? Yes, she’s providing more of the financial aspect of our relationship and our home. But I am still the man. The woman thinking, look, we’re equal, we’re taking care of ourselves and the children, will probably talk to him, not in a demeaning way, but in an equal way. Because she thinks he’s laughing. Do you know? That’s the dicey part. That also contributes to gaslighting because, first, you are the reason he’s angry. He’s not going to be upset with everybody. He’s not going to be reactive, but he’s just going to be reactive to you. He’s going to be reactive in such a way that he’s not passing the message across and saying, look, I am intimidated.
I feel insecure. That’s the worst part. I’m having low self-esteem. That’s the worst part. He’s just going to be so nice to you this minute and the next minute. He’s reacting in a way and you’re asking, what did I do wrong? At that moment, begin to question themselves. We begin to question our decisions, question our abilities, question our opinions. That’s what happens to the successful women we see out there for the ones whose husbands don’t feel secure enough or they haven’t been having this healthy communication to know that we’re in this together. We are supporting the family together. And so what you see is the woman is going through so much at home, but she can’t say it outside because she has a different narrative on the outside. She looks like she’s happy. She’s from a happy home. She’s doing very well in her career. Finances are fine. You can see why so many of these things don’t get reported. We see more of physical violence in the rural areas where the men have not been taught to communicate. I don’t think if they are right, then you know it’s the way you beat a child.
Bekeme: This is my wife like, precisely, correct you to beat them. Correct to beating. Correct to beating. Take that, that is loud. Do you understand?
Pastor O: And so over there you see, you hear a lot of domestic violence. People may be stabbing each other, beating each other. You hear that a lot. That is reported a lot. But you see in the urban area, that’s when you don’t get to hear the reports. Because even a lot of times the females or the males can’t even say they are being abused because they don’t even know they are. That’s why we say it affects mental health. You’re just not there. There’s a lot of depression, there is suicidal thoughts, there is feelings of inadequacy. All these just go to anxiety attacks because you cannot sleep as part of it. So, when you’re not sleeping, you know that’s the thing with the rest of it. That’s why I’m not sleeping. That’s why I’m not sleeping. All of these are signs of PTSD, which is why sometimes there’s this speculation of, okay, is intimate partner violence, Is it a mental disorder, a mental problem? It’s not because you’re not like, Well, there’s no direct act of violence in every area.
But really, when there’s psychological aggression of violence, the effect has almost begun to show like that of PTSD. So many things go wrong. It’s quite unfortunate and sad, but quite a lot of people are going through this.
Bekeme: And they don’t know. They don’t know. I think that’s the bad part, but I just want to remind people to call 0700 9293 923 0700 9293 923. If you’ve had challenges, try again. Keep trying because this is an important discussion. I think that you can ask specific questions that will help not only you but others who may not be able to get across for one reason or the other. As you were talking, Pastor B. C, I was just thinking, communication is key in all of this. Every instance that I’ve dealt with is either the person just cannot bother to communicate and just thinks to sort this out, like I said, a quick slap, or they think that they don’t want to admit to that feeling of inadequacy, not even to themselves. Some people don’t even realize that this is how they feel. It’s both ways. So awareness is key.
It’s both ways. Either the woman doesn’t feel good enough and then she’s acting out, or the man doesn’t feel good enough and is acting out. Hello.
Hello.
Good evening. Hello. Good evening. Thank you for calling the Good Citizen Show. What’s your name, please?
Caller: Can I ring an anonymous?
Absolutely. Please go ahead. Thank you for calling. What’s your question or comment?
Caller: I’ve been with the thing in camp for the sake of privacy.
Bekeme: No problem.
Caller: I have a few…I mean, I listened to your show, and I felt like you were talking to me privately.
I survived suicide a few months ago. That was sometime in June, or July. I was just all married now. All from a place of being. I’ve not gotten very completely. I’ve just ordered that. I’ve just learned to be intentional about life, and about the things I do. I’ve learned to appreciate life better. I’ve learned to see life. I’ve learned to value each day. I mean, I live life one day at a time now. My question is, is it possible that you know your trigger for why you’ve got to express and then try that? And then you just want out of… It’s not like you want to express from the Marital to be with you, but you just want to think. But you don’t have the resources to make that space available. And to still end that moment, could that cause a relapse? Could that cause a trigger? The reason I’m asking this question is my wife was my trigger, I have to admit my wife was my trigger. And quietly up to now, she did not even think… She thinks I don’t get depressed. I literally drank Sniper. I just wanted to die. Just to.
Bekeme: Get away from her?
Caller: I just wanted to get away from that. But according to her, she just felt like I don’t get the point. And then the last time this issue came up, she just said, oh, you get depressed, I get depressed too. And I just laughed about it. But really, young people don’t understand the depth of what happened. But my question again is, is it possible to have a real love thing around the same person who could be causing an initial trigger? Yes.
Bekeme: I mean, even though I’m not a specialist, I would say yes. But I’ll leave Pastor B C to shed more light. Perhaps you have more questions to clarify before you diagnose something. Thank you.
Pastor O: Okay. I’m so sorry to hear about what you’ve gone through. No one, no matter what we’ve done or what we did not do, should get to that point where we want to take our precious life. But sometimes situations happen, things accumulate, and we cannot handle them. The truth is everybody has something that makes them uncomfortable. Everybody goes through something that reminds them of somewhere they were in the past that they don’t want to go back to.
Bekeme: Absolutely.
Pastor O: The challenge here is that some of us do not develop healthy coping mechanisms. That means the way we respond to some of those stressors and those triggers is not healthy. Now, somebody who is confident in himself or herself or in their abilities, when they go through certain triggers or stressors, may have learned to walk away, a may have learned to depend on their support system. But when over time, you’ve been isolated from your support system, and you didn’t learn a healthy way of managing some of these things. Maybe those things you just absorb it. You absorb it because you want to look in a particular way, like a man or like a woman who is strong, and you just take all of those things in and it just stays in there. It begins to affect you, affects the way you think, affects the way you behave because the truth is our behavior, our thoughts, our feelings, all of it is linked. Now, if you have not developed other ways of coping with this relationship, it may happen again. The question you should ask yourself is, what is our communication like in this marriage? I mean, if you’re talking to your wife that you’re depressed and she cannot empathise with you, that shows that empathy is missing in that relationship.
Without empathy, a lot of things can go wrong. If she’s trying to also see it as you get depressed, I get depressed. That’s a red flag.
Bekeme: But that shows a lack of understanding of mental health issues.
Pastor O: That is a red flag. And if you do not feel empathy as a person who is going through, there’s a tendency to begin to feel like something is wrong with me. I mean, if you’re saying that she’s not depressed, I mean, she’s depressed and she’s managing, and I’m depressed and I’m not managing, then maybe something is wrong with me. And that’s where everything begins to unravel even more. And so, you need to ask yourself, what are the ways I can cope with this? What do you do? What are the things you do? What have you infused into your everyday life to make sure this doesn’t happen again? It means you need to have a therapist or a counselor. It doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. So, when you can unburden to who empathises with you and who is actively listening, who is not there to say, Hey, me, it’s on me. It’s on me. You know this… It’s like a war. It’s a competition. It’s a touchdown about you being depressed, I’m depressed. I don’t feel loved, I don’t feel loved. No. But somebody has to listen. Somebody has to take the first step in reconciling the relationship.
Bekeme: I’m actually concerned that this is like I like to say in Nigerian thing, it may be that it happens in other countries. But I do find that a lot of us do not understand these things. When a person says they’re depressed, they just think that they’re just talking like it’s an excuse. That’s why she would say something like, I’m depressed too. I think a lot of education. She’s also coming from a certain place that is causing her to have those attitudes that trigger. If you see what I mean. What are these things? I do see a lot of room for communication, not just for him. If they have to continue this relationship.
He needs to be more expressive. I feel like it’s also maybe taking a lot of things. She also needs to because he’s probably triggering something in her as well. That makes her reactive.
Pastor O: Absolutely.
Bekeme: Absolutely that feels like that thing that she does to him. So. It doesn’t sound like a good situation just carrying on like this. It does sound like, yes, you will continue to be triggered, but because there’s something about her that hasn’t changed and that would continue to lead to you being triggered. I think we have three minutes and I think that what I want us to get out of this at this moment is, I mean, what do we do if we find ourselves in that situation? What do you do? I know that it doesn’t happen only in marital relationships. There are people who are in relationships that you think they should just walk away from and they just are unable to. What do you do?
Pastor O: You know the thing is even IPV of course, in both residential relationships and outside relationships. Now, the truth is factors, different factors, and bearing factors, lead to IPV. The first thing you need to do for yourself is to understand that this thing is really happening. When you begin to think it is happening, then it’s happening. So, you need to first embrace the situation.
Bekeme: Okay, sounds good. Is there any helpline people could call or website who are listening today?
Pastor O: Okay, you know, we have government agencies to deal with these things. We also have mental…
Bekeme: What about you? How can you be reached?
Pastor O: Yes. So, on my Instagram, my phone number is there, and my email address is there.
Bekeme: What’s your Instagram?
Pastor O: Okay, it’s @olabisi.usidame.
Bekeme: So, you can reach out to her.
Pastor O: Send me a message, send me an email, or call me.
Bekeme: So, thank you all so much for listening to this. You can also send us a message at @GoodCitizenng to continue this conversation. We can link you up with organizations who work in this space and with Bars of BC as well. Thank you so much for listening to the Good Citizen Show. I wish you all a great weekend and be careful out there. Use your communication skills well and be good. Take care. God bless.
