FEMME LOUNGE ::: Young Women Doing Life Together | Tag Archive

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Me

Posted on 01. Aug, 2010 by Lounge Lady in Real Women Real Issues

Good

Love: Love and I go hand in hand. I am addicted to love because it make my world go round, happy, self confident and fulfilled.
Helpful: I help people through prayers, advice, care, material things, could be finances and my precious time.
Intelligent: Sure, I’m a very intelligent woman. I’ve got my witness; Dad and Mum (both late), my brothers, my boyfriend and friends.
Beautiful: I am beautiful inside and out; large eyes, full eyebrows and lashes, pointed nose, kissable lips, nice set of teeth, full hair, full boobs, small waist, portable hips, straight legs, good complexion and nice smile + a dimple.
Confident: I can give several examples to prove how confident I am and how much my confidence has soared.
Smart: I am a smart ass kid.

Bad

Selfish: I am selfish because I always put myself first and I am greedy.
Self centered: The world revolves around me and all ever think of is me, me, me even if I’m thinking of a guy is for my own good – I will want him to love me than he loves himself.
Fornicate: I do fornicate because having sex before marriage is termed as fornication
Stealing: I do steal; meat from the soup pot, N50 from my mum’s purse, food in the kitchen, books, magazines and credit from a friend’s phone is still termed stealing. I’ve not gone Plc though.
Masturbation: I masturbate a lot except I’m in foul mood. Whenever I see a display of sex or hear sex I imagine the scenario and masturbate, I always feel bad after doing it but I can’t stop.
Anger: I have a quick temper, small things annoy me especially when it comes to matters of the heart or money.

Ugly

Envy: I usually envy people that are prettier than me, successful than me, have a better boyfriend than me, dresses well than me, anybody that has something good than me is who I get envious of.
Evil thoughts: Most times I think evil, like seeing someone and calling her ‘Bitch’ or ‘look at her big nose’ or ‘ I hope you slip and break your neck’ especially to people who do things to hurt me.
Lazy: I am freaking lazy and this makes me procrastinate or leave things undone or not done well. Like it took me ages to write this.
Malice: I can keep malice for years, might have forgiven the person but find it very hard to forget.

Writer: Wemimo

Image: G.I

Real Women, Real Issues – Marathon!

Posted on 13. Jun, 2010 by Lounge Lady in Real Women Real Issues

Femme Lounge presents Real Women, Real Issues Marathon, this month four young women share with us real issues weighing them down and they seek our suggestions and advise.

Question By Mrs B – I got married to my husband after one year of dating. He has always been very private but i didn’t take it too serious because we were just dating. Now that we are married, I am worried that he still remains very secretive and private. He doesn’t allow me to go through his phones, I don’t know the passwords to his emails, atms cards etc, I don’t even know how much he earns, or how much he has in his bank account, and so many other things like that. He gets angry any time i try to ask him these things. Am i just being overly sensitive and is it possible to have a good marriage with all these secrecy, and why all the secrecy?

Question By Sister T – My elder sister moved in with me and my husband six months ago because she was transferred from Ibadan to Lagos and she had no where to stay. I love her a lot, but she is always having clashes with my husband, she is very lousy, she talks to us in commanding tunes, and always pokes her nose into our marital affairs. Recently she also started bringing her boyfriends home to sleep over in our two bedrooms flat!

It is causing a lot of tension between my husband and I, and my husband wants her to leave but I don’t know how to tell her, whenever we have a disagreement she always says I am disrespecting her because I am married and she is not. I told my mother about her behavior, she said she is my sister that I should beg my husband to let her stay and learn to tolerate her till she gets her own apartment (which she is not looking for!).I don’t want to displease my family and I don’t want to jeopardize my relationship with my husband. ireally dont know what to do.

Question By Missy K – I was raped at gunpoint by an unknown man in the parking lot of a shopping mall about a year ago, after the incident I decided I wasn’t going to let it destroy my life, I went for medical checkup and counseling and I have been able to put the whole thing behind me until recently. I told my mother about it some months ago but I assured her I have recovered and I made her promise not to tell anyone.

I was shocked when I started hearing it all around in my neighborhood, i went to confront my mother since she is the only one that knows about it. She said she told her two friends because she wanted their advice. The friends went home to tell their children and the news started spreading from there with all sorts of twists, someone even said I got pregnant from the rape and aborted.

I felt really betrayed and disappointed. I was so angry at my mother I yelled at her, I left home in anger and moved in with my friend in another part of the town. It’s been three weeks now and I am surprised that my mother has not called once to apologize for what she did, my siblings say she is still insisting that she told her friends to ask for their advice.

i am hurting really bad and its all due to her lack of discretion, i really don’t know if its worth reconciling with her if she doesn’t call to apologize.

Question By Daughter K – I caught my father having sex with one of his younger male colleagues, my mother was out of town and me and my siblings were supposed to be in school but I got sick and decided to go home unannounced. I was shocked when I opened the door and saw them on the couch. He begged me not to tell my mother that he would change and never do it again. I think I owe it to my mum to let her know she is married to a bisexual but I don’t want to be the one to destroy their marriage. Should I let it go and pretend it didn’t happen?

Here is a poem written by Gee Bee and dedicated to all women who need to stand tall and not fall!

Beneath my pretty face,
lies a battered fate.
Beneath those lovely smiles,
lies a crooked mile
bound by a twisted tale
of many years untold.

Beyond this pretty face,
the smiles and gracious steps
lies an aching heart and
a very troubled soul
borne from deep issues
rooted deep within my soul

Beneath the pretty face,
lies a bundle of issues.
Issues to personal to discuss
with a stranger;
yet to difficult to explain
even to the closest of friends.

Beyond my pretty face,
are issues minute but huge
which often storms my life,
leaving big scars and forcing
even worthy ambitions
to go into hiding.

But beyond and beneath
the many issues that may be
I’ve learnt to stand tall
and not to fall
knowing there’s victory
that lies beneath.

Image: Image Source

Help! My Parents Are Ripping Me Off!

Posted on 18. Apr, 2010 by Lounge Lady in Real Women Real Issues

Question By Angry Daughter;

I grew up in a poor family, my mother has been a housewife since she got married (and I always wonder why she chose to be) and my father was a civil servant until he was retired some time ago. I am the first of four children and we have never ever had enough to meet our basic needs.

I graduated from a polytechnic after years of struggling and doing odd jobs to finance myself, and after walking the streets of Lagos looking for job everywhere and anywhere I finally got a fairly decent one as an administrative assistant in an accounting firm. The salary is not anything to brag about, but it is at least better than nothing. I also sell cheap women underwears for some extra cash.

My problem is that since I got this job my parents have handed over their financial responsibilities to me, I pay the bills , I give them money for the family upkeep, I pay their debts and take care of my siblings, my salary doesn’t last a day!.

I love my siblings and hate to see them drop out of school or go astray. My immediate younger sister recently started going out with an old married but rich man to get money, because the financial burden is just too much. The funny thing is that my mother is closing her eyes to it; she says if my sister is able to marry one of the rich men, things will change for us.

My last boyfriend left me when my parents started making heavy financial demands on him too, despite the fact that he gave my mother money to start a small business twice. She spent the money and never started a business.

My life is practically on a hold, I can’t save to do any meaningful for myself, I can’t even afford to buy nice things for myself because my mother will say I am being selfish. My mother always manipulate me emotionally by saying they have done their bit by raising me up that now it’s time for me to take care of them too.

Both of them are less than 52 years old, and sometimes I wonder why they haven’t worked hard enough to cater for us and for themselves. They are so laid back and not ready to go out and rough things out to make a living for the family, they prefer to go around borrowing and wait till their children make money to take care of them.

Some of my friends are also experiencing the same thing, even those with working parents, many parents think that once a child starts working the child has to repay them all they have done to raise him/her up it doesn’t matter if the child is still struggling or not.

Honestly I am so exhausted and tired of all these, I don’t know how to make things better.

- Angry Daughter (Age 24)

Image – getty images

(Do you or do you know somebody that has a question or an issue that you will like to have other women’s opinion on? please send it to info@femmelounge.org for our Real Women,Real Issues Column. Identity will not be revealed)

Am I Too Close For Comfort?

Posted on 06. Apr, 2010 by Lounge Lady in Real Women Real Issues

‘Never be too close, never be too distant’ is a saying I have held on to for a long time in my adult life, but in spite of how close this school of thought has been to me , I still have not succeeded in drawing a line between the word ‘too close’ and ‘too distant’ in my relationships with people.

When I get close, I get accused of ‘meddling’ and when I try to mind my business as many have advised; I get crucified for being cold and heartless. Where exactly is the boundary between ‘close and distant’ because if there is, I desperately want to know. How does one know when to back out of other people’s affairs?

Over a year ago, I took up a job in an organization, one of the vows I made was to mind my business no matter what happens, I didn’t want to get too close to people beyond our work acquaintanceship, but here I am now minding other people’s businesses except mine and making it my duty to notice every little detail of my colleagues’ lives.

I can’t in my life ignore the tear streaked face of the front desk officer as I walk through to my desk every morning,

I find it hard to divorce myself from my unwavering habit of dishing out counsel to my colleague, whenever he goes on his usual mood swings.

My eyes can’t help running to and fro the office looking for an ‘unhappy single female ‘to pair with my weary bachelor friend.

My embarrassing display of exuberance when it’s time for a colleague’s birthday is one thing of the things I really hate about this disease!

Many times, my friends have subtly dropped hints to check this flaw of ‘overexcitement’ in me, but sadly they have been unsuccessful in their different attempts.

From office to home to church, every day, every minute I uninhibitedly want to be involved in the lives of my friends, siblings, to-be boyfriends, never-be boyfriends and even my haters (people that beef me unnecessarily).

In the case of never-be boyfriends, after turning down their proposals in different ways and at different times, I eventually become more than a girlfriend to them. Though I am not their girlfriend but I become their closest confidant , they see in me a voice that soothes during crisis, a shoulder to cry on when girlfriends disobey , a efficient financial analyst when forex and stocks crash , and a female buddy they can talk with without being crucified as a bad boy .

Now I just got accused by one of my male friends that I led him on , when this missile landed on my desk , I must confess I was very unprepared for it , I had no shock absorbers to resist this missile.

In his words “tolulope, why are you breaking my heart, are you not supposed to be my girlfriend’ the only word that could come out of my rose colored lips was’ haaaaaaaaaaa! I quickly reiterated to him that he must have made things up in his mind, and then he started calling me names that I know you wouldn’t love to hear.

For my untiring ears, my eloquent words of wisdom, and my unarguable show of support, all I get is be labeled a ‘heartbreaker’!.

Sadly, now as I sit to remember the different names that people have called me in my 24 years of existence, ‘Heartbreaker and Amebo (poke noser) ’ comfortably sit side by side in the middle grinning sheepishly. How sad can that be for a supposedly good girl?

Image – gettyimages

Writer – Tolulope Odeyemi

Help! My Husband Was A Serial Rapist!

Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by Lounge Lady in Real Women Real Issues

Question By Confused Wife;

I meet Lara eight months ago when Michael, my husband’s best friend introduced her as his fiancée. We hit it off right from the first day we met and have been very good friends since then, it’s like we have known each other for years.

Sometime ago she called me on a Sunday morning and asked me to meet her at her parents’ house, I was wondering what was happening because she had already moved in with Michael in readiness for their upcoming wedding.

When I got there she held my hands and led me into a room, I could sense she had been crying, her eyes were red. I kept asking her if she had a fight with Michael or caught him with another woman.

When we entered the room, she closed the door behind her and turned to me, She said, “please brace yourself up, because what I am about to tell you, will change your life forever”.

The night before, Michael had woke her up in the middle of the night and said, he had been keeping a secret for many years and cannot live with it anymore, so he decided to tell her.

He said, he and three of his friends were serial rapists while they were in university, and they did it continuously for three years in and outside the campus and didn’t stop until one of their victims, a girl of about 12years died.

I opened my mouth in shock, wondering what kind of monster Michael is, before I could catch my breath, Lara said, “I am sorry to tell you this, but your husband was one of them”.

I dashed home with my heart pounding so fast, I had never been that scared in my life. To my shock when I asked my husband he smiled and brushed it aside casually and said it was just youthful exuberance.

He is not even showing any remorse or soberness, I tried to talk him into seeing a counselor in church, (we are not so spiritual but we believe in God) and then he got angry and said I should never talk to him about it again.

My husband has raped countless women and killed one, I am afraid that the repercussion of his devilish acts can bring calamities on me and my children, especially since he is not repentant. I am willing to forgive him and move on if only he gets sober and repentant of his actions.

Right now I am thinking of staying away from him, I feel like I am married to a beast and a stranger, I don’t even know what evil he is capable of doing again.

He wants me to pretend it never happened. How possible is that?

- Confused Wife ( married for 17 months, with a 9 months old baby)

Help! Jealousy Is Killing Me

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Lounge Lady in Real Women Real Issues

Question By Worried Girl:

I’ve known my friends, Nneka and Yinde since our undergraduate days and we have all been good friends for about six years now. Things seem to be working so well so fast for them, they both have great jobs, and are married to rich men, and they both travel outside the country at will. Everything about them is perfect!

I am still struggling with a low paying job, despite my hard work. Nneka’s salary is nine times more than mine, and her husband just bought her a posh house last year. Yinde just bought her second car and is having her second baby very soon.

My own relationships with men have been failures upon failures, and I have been in and out of hospitals for fibroids, and I can’t afford to buy a car.

I used to be so happy for them, always praying for them as I pray for myself and always at hand to celebrate their successes, I have even helped them to babysit their children several times, but I recently discovered that I am getting overly jealous of them and their achievements.

I try to put on a brave face, but it’s so hard because they are always showing off and bragging about their successes. Whenever we go places together I’m always treated like second best and it’s like I don’t even exist anymore, they are so insensitive to my pains.

The worst part is not being able to be happy for them anymore and deep down me wishing them bad things, so that they will know how it feels to be in my position.

I feel horrible and don’t want to feel this way anymore but it overcomes me and I can’t help it. How can I stop feeling jealous of them?

- Worried Friend ( 32 year old lady)

32 Things Women Are Afraid Of

Posted on 05. Dec, 2009 by Lounge Lady in Everyday Living

According to the American Psychiatric Association, a phobia is an irrational and excessive fear of an object or situation. In most cases, the phobia involves a sense of endangerment or a fear of harm. This list offers a glimpse at the phobias that are especially particular to women and can have a serious impact on their lives. These are just few of the over 500 phobias that has been identified!

What Are You Afraid of?

Achluophobia – Fear of darkness.

Agraphobia – Fear of sexual abuse.

Androphobia – Fear of men.

Anuptaphobia – Fear of staying single.

Arsonphobia – Fear of fire.

Bibliophobia is the fear of books

Cacophobia – Fear of ugliness.

Chrematophobia is the fear of money

Decidophobia is the fear of making decisions

Eleutherophobia is the fear of knowledge

Gamophobia – Fear of marriage.

Genophobia – Fear of sex.

Gerascophobia – Fear of growing old

Glossophobia is the fear of speaking in public

Hypegiaphobia is the fear of responsibility

Kakorrharphobia is the fear of failure or defeat

Lockiophobia – Fear of childbirth.

Mechanophobia is the fear of machines

Melanophobia – Fear of the color black.
Necrophobia – Fear of death or dead things.

Ophidiophobia – Fear of snakes

Opthalmophobia is the fear of being stared at

Peniaphobia is the fear of poverty

Pentheraphobia – Fear of mother-in-law

Phabdophobia is the fear of being severely punished or criticized

Pocresophobia – Fear of gaining weight

Quatophobia is the fear of being an insignificant and worthless person

Socialphobia is the fear of social situations

Venustraphobia – Fear of beautiful women.

Wiccaphobia is the fear of witches

Xenophobia is the fear of foreigners

Zeusophobia is the fear of God or gods

On the causes of phobia, latest studies show that there is likely a complex interaction of factors including genetics, brain chemistry, environmental triggers and learned behavior. Treatment ranges from the use of self help advice to seeing therapists

For a longer list of phobias, the causes and treatment please go to the sites below

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/phobias/DS00272

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Phobias/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Bed Wetting at 30!

Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Lounge Lady in Healthwise

If children feel embarrassed when they wet their beds, imagine what it is like for an adult who does. Yet there are adults who experts say probably number in the millions, who are bed-wetters. Because of their problem, they often live in constant fear of embarrassment, afraid to share their beds and rooms with loved ones and guests.

For those adults, bedtime is not as simple as ABC; it is in fact another time of dread and a reminder of a problem most people have outgrown at an earlier age.

For 30 year old Ogechi, who suddenly started bed wetting as a teenager, it has been a devasting nightmare, she wakes up each morning hoping to see dryness and words can’t express how what she experiences affects her social and emotional life.

She says, “I constantly think that I am a “blemished piece” because I have often been rejected and mocked by people around me. It’s been hard to keep a relationship with a guy, who wants to go to bed with a bed wetter? I have never known what it means to be self confident; it affects my self esteem and all areas of my life.

I have visited so many doctors, even a psychiatric and psychologist; they have all suggested different reasons that could be responsible for the condition. Ranging from emotional trauma I faced as a child, to my deep sleep pattern, and environmental allergies. And someone actually had the guts to suggest that I wet my bed because I was lazy to go to the toilet at night!

There has been lots of improvement over the years but I still look forward to when I will never have to worry about waking up wet anymore”.

There are several medications and medical conditions which can cause adult bed wetting. Fortunately, there are aids and treatments that can minimize the incidence and impact of bed wetting in adults.

Please see more guide on the causes and treatment of adult bed wetting at

http://www.nafc.org/bladder-bowel-health/bedwetting-2/adult-bedwetting/

She’s Pretty, She’s Young, She’s Got Cancer!

Posted on 18. Oct, 2009 by Lounge Lady in Healthwise

Survivor Story

You’re too young for breast cancer, my doctor told me in a most confident tone when I pointed out the lump in my right breast.

“Besides,” he continued. “You don’t have any of the risk factors. You’re not obese and you have no family history. Plus, you breastfeed your baby. It’s probably just a plugged duct. This isn’t breast cancer.”

I love my doctor. He has been a faithful guardian of my health for nearly a decade. Moreover, he recently helped me deliver my precious baby, my most beautiful son, my gift from God. He has always had my best interests at heart, and I readily place myself in his care.

But he dismissed my concerns based on statistics (most lumps are benign and most young women do not get breast cancer) and the fact that he couldn’t feel what I could. I knew in my heart that this lump was something bad. Having massaged away plugged milk ducts in the shower nearly every day since my son was born six months prior, I just knew this lump was different. Yet, I wanted so much to believe him. After all, I was only 32. Who ever heard of a 32-year-old getting breast cancer? Breast cancer is for old women. So, I clung to my doctor’s assurance, put aside my misgivings and ignored the lump.

It wasn’t until six months later, at my next routine check-up, that my doctor felt the lump himself. (Note to all women: You have the benefit of being able to feel tissue from both the outside and inside. Your doctor does not.)

Still sure of his assessment, but, perhaps, hedging his bets, he sent me for an ultra-sound. An ultra-sound led to a mammogram (a most amusing experience if you are lactating, I found) and a mammogram led to a biopsy. This led to a lumpectomy, which confirmed without a doubt that it was cancer. And, ultimately, a breast cancer diagnosis led to a mastectomy and several months of aggressive chemotherapy.

Despite all this, I am alive and here to tell you: Young women can and do get breast cancer. Forget the risk factors. They are not causation and nearly 80 percent of women who get breast cancer have no family history. Make no mistake; if you have breasts (and yes, this means men, too), you can get breast cancer.

Young women diagnosed with breast cancer face dying from the disease much more often than their more mature counterparts. Women over 40 have the benefit of recommended routine mammography, which can identify cancer in its earliest stages, giving these women the greatest chance of beating the disease. For those of us under 40, our youthful breasts seem to conspire against us. The firm, dense tissue hides lurking abnormalities from the mammography machine’s x-ray eye and makes the films very difficult to read. This is why mammography is not always a very effective diagnostic tool for us.

We don’t know what causes breast cancer, so we cannot prevent it. For a young woman, the most important thing she can do to survive a breast cancer diagnosis is conduct monthly breast self-exams. A young woman needs to get to know her breasts intimately. Once she knows the topography of her body, she’ll know which lumps and bumps are normal and can differentiate them from those that are not.

Furthermore, a young woman must be her own best health advocate. If you find a lump, insist on a diagnosis. FYI “You are too young” is not a diagnosis. If you can point to a specific area of your breast, you can request a diagnostic test a mammogram, ultrasound or biopsy.

Admittedly, the under-forty breast cancer crowd is not large. But we exist, and we face a whole different set of issues than do older women with breast cancer. Not only do we face a higher mortality rate (which some attribute to the more aggressive nature of young women’s cancers and an often later stage of diagnosis) but we also have fertility issues. Many are the young women who cannot conceive because chemotherapy has thrust them into early menopause.

Then there are the studies and clinical trials. By far and away, most of them focus on women over 40. We die of this disease more often than older women, yet we are not studied with the same frequency and intensity.

And, let’s not forget support groups. While I found the women in the group I attended to be wonderful and supportive as I cried and cried, it was difficult for me to relate to them. They were all at least 15 years older than I am. Some were more than 35 years older.

How unfair, I thought selfishly. They lament their disease, but they have had much fuller lives than me. I have a 12-month-old son and fear that I will not be able to help him grow to be a man. What if I die in the next few years and he doesn’t ever know who I was and how very much I adore him? And what of my husband, who, at 23, watched as cancer, attacked and then consumed his father in less than a month. Is he destined to be a widower with a young son before his 35th birthday? He certainly thought so. Oh, yes. I would give anything to be these older women dealing with this disease.

For me, salvation came not in the form of a support group, but from a group of activists’ The Young Survival Coalition. These women, all diagnosed with breast cancer in their 20s and 30s, are striving to make the voices of young women with breast cancer heard.

It is our mission to educate young women about the very real risk of breast cancer and how to protect themselves, to meet with legislators to direct attention and funding to our needs, and to virtually jump up and down in front of the medical community to get them to study us and stop dismissing their young patients who present with breast lumps. This group is exactly what I and many other young women living with breast cancer need. It is our way to affect change and give young women a fighting chance against breast cancer.

I told every doctor that I saw that I wanted nothing more than to dance at my son’s wedding. It became “and continues to be” my ultimate ambition. I focus on this daily when tears threaten as I consider my fate and as I help other young women deal with their diagnoses.

My mother promised me, when I was just beginning to come to terms with my disease that I would indeed dance at my son’s wedding. “You and I are going to do the silliest dance at Jason’s wedding,” she told me. “Even if we both have to use a walker to do it.”

I’m holding her to it. I plan to do the chicken dance.

By: Tracy Pleva Hill, as shared on http://www.youngsurvival.org