#flawntit

Keziah Okanga and Sally Kwenda: Part Two

Here on Flawnt It, we have never done a double feature story until now. We were very honoured when we were approached by Keziah and Sally to tell their incredible stories. They partnered with us to share about a condition that many people in this country and all over the world are living with; Ostomy. This is not a well publicized condition, and Flawnt It is happy to be a part of the conversation…

Keziah Okanga and Sally Kwenda

Here on Flawnt It, we have never done a double feature story until now. We were very honoured when we were approached by Keziah and Sally to tell their incredible stories. They partnered with us to share about a condition that many people in this country and all over the world are living with; Ostomy. This is not a well publicized condition, and Flawnt It is happy to be a part of the conversation…

“When do we start being ourselves? When do we first make the move that defines all our other moves or have the thought that influences all our other thoughts? Because ever since I can remember I have been an abstract thinker.”

My name is Olive ‘Nyox’ Nyokabi. My “flaw” as I can describe it is that I have always thought differently from most people around me. I always wanted to know why everything was the way it was. I was fascinated by the idea of who we are, what is out there and who God is. How is it that we are here on a rock hurtling through space all the while going round and round a big hydrogen bomb? As in seriously! It’s stranger than fiction. So I declared I was going to be an astronaut or a theoretical physicist. That way I would find out all the “whys”. I don’t need to tell you I got a quizzical look when I looked up at Mr. Kingori from my dad’s office and said I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. It’s the kind of thing adults chuckle about and think is cute. I mean who really thinks a little girl from the backwaters of Ngong is going to be an astronaut? It was a little lonely growing up. Thankfully I had my brothers who were also into the same things, but with my peers it was hard. I didn’t feel like I belonged to any group. I used to get lost in my head a lot, and I couldn’t lose myself in games like the other kids could. 

I read everything I could find on astronomy and that was pre-internet, so it wasn’t much. I had this big astronomy book called “Explorations” that I lost myself in at preps in high school, during class time I kept it in my locker in the hostel. One day I got called out of class, the matron wanted to see me. I walked in and she had the book on her table, she was using a pen to flip the pages all the while trying to get me to confess that I was a devil worshiper. It was hilarious. But it also wasn’t. It made me feel guilty; I was a good girl and good girls are supposed to believe in Jesus. All the things my mind craved were taboo. I was not happy and I felt I was always marking time. Choosing a course to study in University was a harrowing experience. I kept waiting for an owl to show up with a letter from Hogwarts. I told myself “Okay. That’s enough Nyox, You’re not a child anymore. Just pick a ‘marketable’ career. Something useful and just be normal.” And so Architecture happened. The first 2.5 years were actually pretty exciting and I realize now it was because I was absorbing the philosophy of architecture: why we build not how we build. When the how part started I got bored into complete and total depression. I looked around at everyone fitting neatly into these slots and I wondered how come there wasn’t a Nyox shaped hole in the Universe. So I quit. That was chaos. I broke everyone’s heart including my own. I let that pain consume me. Nothing mattered. So I burnt down my entire village, everything that I had built and the bridge to it and chased back anyone who tried to follow me. 

I was afraid of “normal”; you know how there’s this plan in life that you follow… you got to school, get a job, get married and have kids. This “box’ never felt normal for me; it felt like a full stop, like a cul-de-sac. I was drowning in inauthenticity, I felt like I was dying. Life for me, inside myself has always had possibilities, it’s open-ended… I went into the “wilderness” to literally seek the face of God. So when I say I went into the wilderness I just mean that I aimlessly wandered the streets of Nairobi and observed life. I painted, I wrote in my journal. It’s hard to explain a journey into yourself. The landmarks are so utterly personal. It’s really like trying to explain a joke. You just had to be there. I found Eastern philosophy: Zen, Buddhism, Taoism and I was rescued from my self-hatred, and I finally understood Jesus and I was rescued from my guilt and doubt and finally I could meet myself. I realized that magic comes from pain. I walked around for 2 months like a giant naked heart. Love was a tangible umbilical cord that connected me to everything. Every single breath was significant and full of abundant jubilation. I finally understood, and that’s all I had ever wanted. I got out of the box just by accepting that that was who I was. Nyox has always wanted magic, and I just had to accept it. That acceptance opened up a door to a whole new reality.

In this reality I found that everything is connected. I am never separate from anything, I no longer feel alone because I am a part of everything. When the experience started to fade I fell into an even darker depression. I had to go back to school to finish my course. I started to doubt my entire journey; I thought maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. I was in a really dark place. I got into meditation and it really brought balance into my life. I found Vipassana, a meditation technique that changed my life. Now I can live on that bridge between worlds and not fall either way. That bridge is the “Nyox-shaped hole” in the Universe. I paint. I am so precious about my art because it’s literally a piece of my soul every time. I’m studying psychology at USIU now, letting my mind wander into every taboo hocus-pocusy thing I can find. Some times I am afraid especially when I have to be around someone who I feel represents the public censure I am so afraid of, but I’m working on that. I love my mind, it’s really a constant source of surprise and entertainment and by God I’m going to Flawnt It.

I wanted to share this because I know that anyone who struggles with something in their life and yet sees others doing it effortlessly feels like a failure. I think there’s power in speaking about your struggle because it frees others from theirs. If we’re not careful the weight of our inauthenticity will drown us. I have no regrets about my journey. I needed to go through all that pressure and pain to get to my freedom. For your heart to grow, it has to break open. I don’t know why it is the way it is. I am grateful for all of it because it has brought me to this place. Everything now feels fresh, instead of just regurgitated. I no longer feel the need to isolate myself from the rest of the world and I am fully accepting of everyone’s reality. It’s not that I have it all figured out; I am out of the box, but I’m sitting on the lid of the box, looking around at all the possibilities around me.

My name is Atemi Mutisya. 

My “flaws” are adult acne (or whatever this is), flabby arms (fondly referred to as wings) and stretch marks (the sun rays that dwell on the back of my legs). I can’t say there was an exact moment when these flaws manifested as an issue. I’d say it just snowballed. Insecurity does that to you. It sneaks up on you. It may have been the comments over the years; some innocent and others not so much. I can’t wear a pair of heels without feeling like I’m highlighting my stretch marks. I love my legs; I just wish the sun had visited me elsewhere on my body.

My skin has been especially tough to deal with. The thing with having imperfect skin is watching people struggle between holding a conversation and taking a tour of the bumps and blemishes on my face. Advice from strangers is just the best, they have me totally figured out. “It’s because you eat fries.” Yes, person I just met I ate fries and nothing else and therefore I deserve horrible skin. Thanks. I fought the acne from a different front. I just refused to do anything about it. When the nodules (large, hard, painful bumps that appear in the later stages of acne breakouts) hit my confidence just went down the drain but still I refused to see someone about it. This was simply because I felt like I was being bullied into it. I wasn’t fixing myself for me but for them; those people that couldn’t look at me without pitying me. I’d see their looks and think, ‘this is acne not cancer. Don’t look at me like I need to be put out of my misery.’ I’m hiding all the time. I wear my hair in such a way to hide as much of my face as is socially acceptable. This is an upgrade from the hats I wore down my face as a teenager. Trust me, it’s an upgrade. I gravitate towards tops and dresses with elbow length sleeves to cover up my wings. I look less like I’m about to take off that way. And the rest I cloak in humor if you haven’t already noticed.

My flaws have interfered with me in subtle ways. Childish ways even. I’m still unable to make eye contact with people as they talk to me because I hate to watch ‘the blemish tour’. I’m preoccupied with covering up my arms, which is a shame because my shoulders are beautiful. I have held back from connecting with people. I have felt inferior and insecure and I have put up a wall between “new” people and me. I’ve retreated right smack in the middle of a hang out. I catch my reflection in the mirror and remember that I’m not as beautiful as I think/feel that I am and feel completely floored. It’s hard to be vulnerable with people. It’s hard to say “I was having a good time, but I’m going to go home now because I feel completely unattractive and all I want to do is hide.” Right now, I’d say with my flaws I’m reaching acceptance. I want badly to say that I’m reclaiming my body again. Some days are easier than others. I’ll wake up in love with myself one morning and unable to stand my reflection the next. Ugly days are the worst. 

Often I wonder, who taught us to hate ourselves? Self loathing feels like war sometimes and slowly I’m learning to arm myself better. I’m surrounding myself with new energy, people that can be honest and yet be kind. The truth may be hard to hear but it’s not meant to be brutal. I’m choosing to be happy and contrary to popular belief this isn’t always the easy choice. I find comfort on somber days by listening to a happy playlist. I’m learning to affirm myself aloud; which feels completely weird by the way, and I often end up in fits of laughter. 

I want to be unapologetic about loving myself. I want to feel an inner confidence un-interfered with by my reflection in the mirror or by people's remarks. I want to say, “Yes, I am beautiful” without feeling like I need permission from the world. Flawnt It is teaching me that I can claim this kind of happiness for myself. I want to accept this at my core. I imagine that one day I will have daughter(s); I see myself looking through a magazine with them and saying, "Those ladies are beautiful and so are you." I hate that women compete; diversity is beauty and one doesn't take away from the other. 

Have you ever felt insecure about your skin? Have you suffered from acne and had to deal with the comments that people make about your skin? Or have you searched for creams and treatments to tackle those issues to no avail? After receiving so many questions about dealing with acne, Flawnt It decided to tackle this issue with a few amazing women who have dealt with the same issues many of you are. Check out our first ‪#‎FlawntIt‬ ‪#‎FlawntYourSkin‬ video. Special thanks to Ivy Mutisya and Urbantu Media

My name is Gathoni Mwaura and I am a teacher by day, and an artist by night.

I feel like I’m not supposed to be here. I feel like my “flaws’ are not pretty enough. Looking at other people’s flaws, I think that they are so pretty, like they are pretty enough to be “accepted flaws” but I look at my tummy or my arms or my scars and I think, “I need to keep them hidden”. I have struggled with my weight for a very long time. Like, since I was eleven years old I’ve been dieting, starving myself and over-exercising. I’ve been bulimic, and I’ve been anorexic, where I’d have like an apple every two days.

My skin has also been another struggle. I have eczema, then a couple of years ago my forehead broke out with acne. I had never dealt with acne before so I just did what I knew, I started bursting the pimples and that didn’t really help things.

As I mentioned before, my weight issues began when I was pretty young. I remember one instance when some relatives were coming from the UK and they were bringing clothes, so they asked for our dress sizes. I gave my size, or rather, what I thought my size was, and my uncle said, “No, you’re very fat. You should give them a bigger size.”

That was October. For the next two months I pretty much starved myself, and by the time the relatives arrived, I had shrunk down to the size I had originally stated. That’s when it clicked in my mind, “This actually works!” And that began my whole “starving myself” journey, although I reckon I had issues way before then.

I realize I probably didn’t value myself highly, because the things I did to lose weight were extreme! I tried every cream I could, every pill; I walked up and down River Road visiting those quaint Indian shops to look for diet pills. Do you know I once tried to give myself food poisoning? A friend of mine had lost loads of weight when she got sick. I told her, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. But it was so worth it because, look at how skinny you are!” She looked at me like I was crazy. Then, I went ahead and asked Google “How to get food poisoning”. I read this thing about bad chicken and fish and I tried it. Of course it didn’t work. First of all, I actually gained weight, then it made my stomach so tolerant of bad food, I can eat almost anything now and not get sick.

I also tried the cayenne pepper-maple syrup diet. In fact, I don’t remember having proper meals when I was a teenager; I would just nibble things here and there. I didn’t understand how people would sit down and eat a full meal of like rice and chicken and veggies. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized that I could actually eat a meal and I would be fine.

I have an apple-shaped body, so when I gain weight, it’s on my upper body. I had always wanted a sizeable bum and thighs so I tried “bum growth” creams. I even considered suing a particular well-known chemist in Nairobi because they promised me that a certain cream would give me a bum in two weeks. Of course, it didn’t.

Growing up, I didn’t really have a lot of positive body affirmation; not the kind that I would like to give my kids in the future anyway. The first person who affirmed my beauty was a man, who later took advantage of me and molested me. I lived with that for many years. For the longest time, I thought that that’s what I was good for. I was really cute when I was a kid, but because of that experience I started praying to God to please take away my beauty! The bulk of my issues started from there. Later on, I started seeking validation from other people. I had to constantly hear people tell me that I was beautiful.

It sucks to dislike yourself, because you’re with yourself 24/7, so you can’t run away from your negative thinking.

One of my mainest flaws is that I have scars because I used to cut myself. I’ve come to terms with depression; how it’s a disease and I don’t have control over it, but I tend to dislike the scars I got from cutting more than my other “flaws” because I did it to myself. When people ask me, “What happened to your arm?” I’m not sure what to tell them because it was just me doing it to myself. You see, with “flaws” like stretch marks I can say, “Yeah, I just gained/lost a lot of weight.” Or, “I had a baby.” But how do I say, “I did this because I disliked myself”? Cutting for me was never a “high” like I hear people say. It really hurt. I was so miserable for so long, and a lot of that misery had to do with how I looked, so I guess that’s just how I expressed it.

I was always a drinker, even when I was young, as young as eleven. As you can tell, that eleventh year was a significant one. But my drinking escalated and got really heavy when I got into a deep depression a few years ago. I went through a phenomenally difficult time and after that, I felt like I had two choices: either kill myself, or deal with the depression and the issues.

I’m still here. In the past couple of years, I have been getting help for my depression. The person I went to see about it guided me through a self-love process. It was hard for me to love my present self, so he said to me, “Why not focus on loving Gathoni as a child?” When I thought about myself as a child I could see “her” so clearly: scared and insecure and already hating herself. I felt compassion for her. That child faced a lot of difficult things and she grew into me. Considering what she went through, I was doing pretty okay. That self-love process helped me to start loving myself. And I was able to see the support around me, too. The family that I considered to be judgmental actually ended up being my support system. I have been cutting myself some slack since then, understanding that I’m going through a journey of healing. It has helped accept some of my “flaws” too, like my scars, especially from acne, which developed because I was taking anti-depressants. I look at them kindly because they were a part of my healing.

Right now, I’m not yet where I want to be in terms of confidence, but I’m definitely not where I used to be. I’m still on a journey to self-acceptance. I still have days where I’ll wear high-waist pants to hide my tummy or I’ll wear all black to look slimmer, but I’ve done a lot of work on myself in the past two years; a lot of self-love self-affirmation, where I tell myself “I’m good enough”.

I was drawn to Flawnt It because I love all things body positive. I have come to see the beauty in imperfections. So I thought to myself, why is it that I can look at someone’s imperfections and love them but when I look in the mirror, even when I’m skinny, I have a hard time accepting my own? I want to begin seeing the beauty in my own imperfections. I want to be significant to myself; to have self-confidence and value myself. I also hope that my story will help someone see that for themselves, and help them begin to love and accept themselves.

I think if I was to project myself into the future, and I was loving myself totally and being confident and happy, and I looked back at this current Gathoni, I would want to say to her, “You’ve been fine all along. You didn’t have to work so hard to change anything about yourself. You shouldn’t have accepted everything that every human being told you about who you are, especially guys. You are alright. The battle was worth it to get where you are.”

Then, I think I’d hug me.

Photos courtesy of Kombo Mutuku Muoka, Urbantu Media