I fell back into a soul tie with one Whatsapp message

It be like that sometimes

Hey y’all,

This weekend served as a powerful reminder: prioritize yourself, regardless of others' opinions. When it's time to go, GO.

Black Coffee was in Oakland this weekend. The weather was perfect, and I got in for free. The girls I was with were all having a good time, hitting our best amapiano moves. It was a vibe!

Next thing I knew, one of the girls broke down into tears. She had just gone through a breakup, and this turned into a two-hour ordeal of crying, arguing, and the overall good time going sour. Plus, it was getting cold, my feet hurt, and Black Coffee hadn’t even come on stage yet, so my friend and I decided it was time to go.

However, the group was pretty upset about this. Understandably, girl code requires that if we come as a group, we leave as a group. I didn’t want even more uproar, so I almost gave up my feelings of discomfort for the group's desire for me to stay. I said I would stay for another 30 minutes, but my friend didn’t budge. “I’ll be boring,” she said and started leaving.

She chose herself over the opinions of others? What a concept! I almost forgot that was an option. Empowered, I left too.

Choosing ourselves over group expectations was liberating. We left, slept well, and avoided unnecessary drama. If it doesn’t feel good to you, leave. There is no need to force it. You don’t owe anyone anything.

P.S. - She was going through a breakup with a Jamaican man, she should’ve known better! (JK, I KID!)

This Week’s Story

This week’s story is a bit of a doozy. It’s a lesson about what can happen when you give your heart, time, and energy to the completely wrong person. Who has been there before? *Raises hand (and you better raise yours too)* This week’s writer, Avital Eri, shares how wanting revenge on someone who broke your heart can lead to serious consequences. While being pro-choice is a standard liberal ideology, this story highlights how even though you decide what to do with your body, feelings of loss and heartbreak can unexpectedly remain.

Take care,

Anayo Awuzie
EIC of Carefree Mag

A Journey to Self-Forgiveness: Embracing Love, Faith, and Resilience

by Avital Eri

Trigger Warning: abortion, emotional manipulation

I fell in love on May 3rd. It was love at first sight, and the guy ticked all the checkboxes on my secret list. This was the day the universe conspired to introduce me to love. After being single for at least five years, and living in a society where a single woman in her late twenties is frowned upon, I was determined to make this new relationship work. However, little did I know of what lay beneath the surface of this newfound romance but a labyrinth of challenges and lessons waiting to be unraveled. 

My newfound relationship was on and off. We never lasted more than three months without colliding. We decided to call it quits in September 2019. I quickly recuperated and proposed to move on with my life. Yet in January 2020, I fell back into the trap of a soul tie with one Whatsapp message, "Avital, you're in my heart.” This message sent shockwaves into my being because he was still in mine. 

And so, against my better judgment, I allowed myself to be swept away by the tide of reconciliation, clinging to the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, fate had deemed us worthy of a second chance.

What are the characteristics of a toxic relationship? Lies, manipulation, secrets from one party, the absence of true companionship, selfishness, and the silent treatment in the absence of communication are top of my list. By 2020 I had clocked the big 30. All my friends were married. I recall one day when I boarded a bus and the radio was on. The two radio presenters were talking about dating and one of them said, ‘If you are 28 and above, and still single. You are worn out. Who would want you?’ My heart sank as I heard those words which were followed by sadistic laughter from the radio presenters. There’s so much pressure to be married by 25 in this society, that once women cross that bridge they start entertaining the thought of having a kid just to meet the societal expectation. At least I have a child and someone who will be my friend. That’s what most single ladies tell themselves, only to end up with regret and postpartum after they deliver a baby with a man who will never be there. 

But I was in love. I finally had a guy who loved me, right? Despite the right flags, I took the risk and ended up pregnant. 

Pregnancy is a beautiful experience. I believe it is one of the gifts of womanhood. We bring life to the world, because we were designed to be full of life. I didn’t know that I was pregnant. I was moody, choosy with food, easily offended and bloated a lot. My body was in turmoil which I had never felt before. Little did I know that I was eight weeks pregnant. When I discovered it, I quickly told the ‘man of my life.’ But the man was silent. Later on I came to discover that while I had been nursing the wounds of our fractured relationship, he had been seeking solace in the arms of another. To make things worse, it was a friend of mine. 

Betrayal, it turned out, was a bitter pill to swallow. As the truth unraveled before me, I found myself grappling with a myriad of emotions, anger, hurt, and a profound sense of disillusionment.

After a round of quick mental math, I added it up and decided that this man ain’t worthy to be my kid’s father. I come from a broken home and I am the first-born. I knew that If people found out that I was pregnant, I would be shunned. The double standards and stereotypes in culture played tricks on me. You see, if you are an older woman then at least get a kid so that you’ll have a descendant, a legacy. But wait, if you get the kid, then you are a worthless single mother. I pleaded with the ‘man of my life’ for five days. He didn’t answer my calls and didn’t reply. He didn’t bother to explain himself. In a heat of rage, I decided I wouldn’t keep it. I went pro-choice. 

I paid for the best private hospital that money could buy. The doctors recommended the surgical procedure. I still held hopes that one day, I would have a family, and I wished the creator of the universe sent an angel to stop me. Yet such is the world, it lets us make our mistakes, and lose ourselves, only to find ourselves. The procedure was brutally painful. I pulled out my weave tracks in pain. I remember calling on the Creator every second of the procedure. One of the nurses laughed at me and said, ‘She is speaking in spiritual tongues.’ After about an hour of the procedure, the doctor took a second scan and found that there were bits of the baby still inside of me. So I had to spread my legs again to have them removed. I swore on that day that my womb would never again be a place of death. 

I did the abortion in a heat of rage. My friend who had gone out with the guy, had shared texts with me where the guy disclosed that he was once with me but he rejected me. I felt betrayed, and in response to that betrayal, decided that I would not have a child with a man who rejected me. Looking back, that decision was a classic case of lack of self-love. A classic case of a narcissist and an empath in an unholy union. A toxic soul tie. 

Rejected me? I gave myself a week to rethink my decision before the abortion. I even disclosed to some of my closest friends about my intentions. All of them were against the abortion. I mean, who would tell you to kill a kid? In my country, what’s in the womb is already an innocent being. A lot of thoughts ran through my mind. For instance, the thought of raising a kid by myself in a society where it's rare to find support made me anxious. Another issue that clouded my mind was that he rejected me by ghosting me. 

Rejection? I wasn’t going to let that slide. Instead of seeing the baby as mine, I saw it as his. Instead of being mindful of the experience, I felt I was getting back at him for rejecting me. A day after the procedure, I had a dream. In the dream, I was in my apartment and it was pitch black as if it was dead in the night. I was in my bathroom in the dream. When I came out, I saw the same doctor who had done the procedure, choking a baby that was lying on the edge of my bed. I looked at him and did nothing. I just stood there and watched him. The baby had my features. It was a boy and he looked like me. 

It was after the dream that I proceeded to get therapy to try and find meaning, self-forgiveness, and closure. Things started going well for me as I got better-paying clients for my job. I redesigned my house and started buying fresh flowers to put on my workplace. I ate right, bought outfits for myself, and tried to move on. 

Yet the truth was that I wasn’t ready to move on. I felt a strong feeling of guilt over the abortion. I felt that it was a child that didn’t deserve to die because no one raped me or forced me. I should have kept it. Although everyone was telling me to love myself, choose myself, and move on. The soul tie was hard to break. So when the guy came back two months later, it wasn’t difficult for him to convince me to forgive him. 

They say out of the frying pan into the fire. I didn’t know I was getting myself into the fire. To me, I was trying to fix things with a man that I deeply love. The guy played his part well. He removed passwords from his gadgets, we moved in together, and even prayed together, what could go wrong? 

Long story short, he cheated again. By the time I found out, I was about eight weeks pregnant, again. The realization hit me like a freight train, knocking the wind from my sails and leaving me gasping for breath. How could this be happening? How could I bring a child into a world that had already shattered my hopes and dreams?

It was my apartment, so I decided to throw him out. He repaid this act by sending money for another abortion. But I had made a vow that my womb would not be a place of death. I won’t lie, I was tempted to go back there. But I chose myself and chose to keep my kid. 

In the quiet solitude of my thoughts, I made a vow: to choose myself, to honor the sanctity of my worth, and to walk away from a love that had long since ceased to nourish my soul. It was a decision born out of necessity, fueled by a desire for self-preservation in the face of overwhelming odds. And though the road ahead was fraught with uncertainty, I knew, deep down, that it was the only path worth treading.

I gave birth to a boy, a November baby. The day that I gave birth, a friend of mine took a picture of my baby while he was in the neonatal intensive care unit. When I opened my eyes, she was by my side. She told me he was healthy and showed me the picture she had taken. When I saw it, I looked away saying, ‘That’s not my kid. He is too cute to be mine.’ When the nurse brought my son to me later that evening, I was beside myself. 

I tried my best to get him involved. Yet it only hurt me and my child more. I chose to move on with my life. I continued with therapy again, this time, choosing to be open and honest with my therapist, unlike last time. I also found a good church where I could be a part of a community and in some way, find my footing in the faith. 

Single motherhood is not easy at all. Yet, I look and feel stronger and more beautiful than I ever have. Part of this beauty stems from the wisdom and experience that comes with dating a narcissist and having the courage to walk out of a five-year relationship. Most times, I feel it when people look down upon me, and some friends distance themselves from me because I am a single mother. Some ladies didn’t even trust me to have a conversation with their husbands, there is the stereotype that single mothers are ‘loose women’ who could steal their husbands. I’ve developed a tough skin and narrowed my focus on my well-being and the well-being of my son. 

He picks a stick, I encourage him. He smiles at me, I smile back. When I sing a lullaby, he adjusts his hands to clap. I asked him, ‘Where are your shoes?’ He excitedly looks and roams about the house to look for his favorite shoes. His eyes beam with joy because he knows it is time to go out for a walk. I talk to him in public. I sit on a bench at a park and watch him take it all in. The trees, the grass, the earth, and other kids. I shut my eyes to the world, to the society that condemns me for my ‘foolishness at love.’ 

What is womanhood? To me, womanhood is a journey that should bring you closer to your Creator. It is a journey where every experience should make you stronger, tougher, wiser, and more beautiful. Never chase a man and conform to the norms. Be yourself, love yourself, have faith, build resilience, and where you’ve messed up, learn to forgive. It is not our mistakes that define us, but rather, the courage to rise above them, embrace the journey of self-discovery and emerge stronger and more resilient than ever.

I am a survivor, a warrior, and above all else, a woman empowered by her journey of self-forgiveness.

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Avital Eri is a content writer, marketer, and poet. When not strategizing, she can be found tending her garden or playing with her kid.