Every survivor of domestic abuse – emotional, spiritual, physical, financial, sexual… struggles to heal from other traumas gathered apart from the abuse itself.
Mine have been;
Cooking/kitchen/food – Am in a better space
Gym – I scroll very fast when I see a picture of a gym
Calm bornagain men 😊 – I sit at the fence to watch them
Church – I am a church myself and I have healed a huge percentage
Let’s talk cooking yaani upishi
There’s this girl on tiktok, who cooks for her husband 😊 she captions “cooking for my husband day 377” haha wueeeh, she gives me chills. I don’t remember watching a whole video of hers because my heart just races and am so done with her. I love her zeal though.
This just shows how much her kind of woman triggers me, the caption never sits well with me.There’s nothing wrong with her cooking for her husband.
During my wifing days, I religiously believed and had faith in my sufurias, I engraved the adage “the way to a man’s heart is his stomach” and cooking I did. Even if mashakura, I sure did cook. Even if it was boiling water I sure did boil 😊
I just remembered, we once stayed in the heart of Kinangop area. The environment was pretty good. I love the upcountry feel. I’d make a three stone fireplace and boil githeri.
Have you tasted meat or smoked fish broth made from firewood? aaah good food! When 4pm approaches I’d have done porridge and hot water would be waiting for my mupenzi. I was those type of “maji moto i tiyari nishapeleka bafuni, kaoge mpenzi, alafu unataka kukula ndio ukule daddy?” 🙂 I loved being a wife jameni. Cooking I did.
If you ask me the taste of my food I wouldn’t tell. I am very selective with food, but I thrived in proving myself a wife by cooking. Approval addiction. I ticked this societal box well.
Ancestors were happy each time I’d slide into the kitchen when the master would say “Emily today, this food ain’t fooding” I was Eveready or is it Energizer battery haha, I’d feel like the best thing that ever happened in women’s kingdom😅😅😅. At your service sir.
I’d show up in a women’s meeting and intoxicate their minds with my toxins of how ooh a house girl should never touch a man’s food. Little did they know at home my master had passed that bill.
I wore emotional abuse like a pretty adornment. It was well fitted in my frame. Waking up at 4am to cook breakfast, lunch and supper to mupenzi whenever he’d be around made me feel like I was an imported wife not from China but Germany ama England.
I was ticking his box while sitting on my self awareness. I had no business knowing that, at some point I needed to exhale and sit pretty and enjoy other people serving me and just disengage from being a servant wife.
I kept cooking. I kept qualifying. Years flipped through very fast.
Then one morning, my food couldn’t cut it. He was like “Emily you no longer cook the way you used to, this food ain’t nice, even that one is bland.🧐🧐🧐.” It landed like a slap.
Then I indulged myself into befriending Mr. Google… ooh food that makes a man happy, ooh what kind of food tickles a man and makes them stop seeing other nonsense. Oooh, me, I owned the whole food problem. I dived into the kitchen some more, he swam out of the table some more. A swimming wave.
One lunch hour my house help calls “Mama Kael, mimi naskia nimechoka, unaacha umepikia baba Kael lakini anasema nimpikie food ingine na leo sio mara ya kwanza, nimeona tu nikuambie!” 🤨🤨🤨🤨 Jameni I thought I was just wifing well, kwani what changed🤷♀️.
I reached a point where I couldn’t even fry an egg. I got so anxious that my love for the kitchen turned to fear and bad anxiety. My son has always loved good food, I’d try to cook for him, but still I was lethargic in that area. By the time the institution came crumbling down, I had resigned or rather disengaged from it all. What gave me a tickle as a wife and also what I grew up loving to do I couldn’t do anymore.
When an abusive spouse mutters under their breath how useless, worthless you’re in the kitchen, they won’t stop at that. They’ll dress you down in the bedroom, cripple you in your parenting and even at work when something happens they’ll say you deserve it because you’re worthless. I won’t talk about how he helped my boss cripple me eeeh!
Fast forward…
In 2022, I had started doing the things that I love having left the marriage. I thought of cooking with love just like before. So I invited a friend and her family over for a new year treat. I cooked. Abuse and trauma aside, I don’t struggle in the kitchen unless I’m so depressed that I can’t even boil water.
My guests didn’t show up, called at 3pm ati someone came visiting. I touched that food with disdain. I love hosting and seeing the joy in people’s faces as they munch my delicacies.
So my unhealed self spelt it as rejection.
My relationship with cooking got sketchier.
Then I joined The Farm – Global School of Missions (GSOM) in 2022.
The reception I got, tipped my love bucket. I laughed and loved for days, and I did the things I love. I started cooking again with lots of love. I’d carry snacks along for us to munch on our physical classes. Aaah it’s been beautiful.
The month of June for a whole week I was leading our morning devotions. And as we were catching up, some cheeky classmate said “I know Emily you keep saying… thank you for listening, please give your takeout. I’ll be off video am handing over to Amy Kyalo … and kumbe you’re headed to karanga vitu asubuhi 😊
I developed a culture of cooking in the morning for myself and my kids so that no one lifts a finger in the evening. We just bond and laugh and sleep. I even eat in the morning if I want because I hardly eat most evenings simply because my energy for anything is gone.
My mornings are onionated and musical. You’ll spot me smiling by myself most mornings. I do 3 things that I love, cooking, singing and dancing for an hour 😊 6 to 7am.
Even this morning after my offspring left for their CBC things I warmed up leftovers and ate before cooking for the day 🙂.
They’ll be like kwani mummy you finished all the meat, I’ll just be smiling, kwani are they the only children of God?
What’s that trauma you’re dealing with post leaving an abusive relationship?
I would like to hear about it.
One day I’ll tell you about ‘The Food That Heals.’ I’ve found healing through food. Other people are being healed from their emotional traumas through Emily’s Food That Heals. This came about as I embarked on my learning journey at The Farm – GSOM’s one year program.