How I Took Back My Power

Author: Nompumelelo Runji
Publisher: Tafelberg
Reviewer: Hazel Makuzeni
I’m always in awe of people who brave the unknown and bare their souls to the world by sharing their utmost personal stories. People who are not afraid to tell their truth no matter how traumatic and intimate some of the details are deserve our undying support. Esteemed socio-political analyst and academic Nompumelelo Runji has done just that with this brutally honest and inspiring book about her life. Her journey begins at home where she takes the reader through the destructiveness of the relationship her 

mother and father had while she was growing up. Theirs was a toxic mix. With no stability at home, and with parents who at best of times were unresponsive, happiness was in short supply. Emotionally neglected, she was filled with void and loneliness from a young age. She lived in constant fear of abandonment and rejection thus seeking other people’s approval and validation became her addiction. “Always afraid that people wouldn’t stay, I worked hard to keep them around, even when it hurt,” she says. Nompumelelo continues, “I gave away my power very easily and became the plaything of toxic and difficult people.”  
To protect the identity of the people mentioned in the book, names have been changed. Nompumelelo’s husband is Sheffield - the person who will finally push her over the edge leading to her admission (not once but twice) to a psychiatric hospital. At the beginning theirs read like a fairy-tale that descends into a nightmare bit by bit. They met at church. He was a striking man, very charismatic, eloquent and full of surprises. He’d been a student at the University of Pretoria since 2002, while she started in 2005. Two years into their courtship, he proposed.  To this the author says, “I felt like the luckiest woman in the world, as if I’d run a race and won first prize.” After the lobola was settled, that feeling didn’t last very long. Sheffield increasingly started showing his patriarchal views on marriage. High on his agenda was a wife well trained domestically. He could never be satisfied with her efforts of trying to please him. Always pointing out her shortcomings and making her feel inadequate in every turn. The wedding finally did take place (after three postponements) on 23 September 2012. In her view, they should have gotten married in 2010.
The author chronicles her years of emotional abuse from the man who was Prince Charming in public but cold and uncaring at home. A man who couldn’t be bothered with intimacy but was manipulative, insensitive and controlling. Self-doubts, anxiety and loneliness were the hallmark of her existence. She could do no right. He would compare her to other women who were always greater than her in his eyes. All this trauma took a heavy toll on her health and mind. Compounding this was the fact that she was suffering in secret – to the outside world they were the perfect couple and he was everyone’s darling in church. “I felt increasingly unstable, emotionally and psychologically,” she says. She was losing weight, suffering from chronic fatigue, muscle tension and sleep disturbances amongst other physically devastating conditions. It took her second stint at a psychiatric hospital for her to see the light and leave her husband for good. Through therapy she also strengthened herself, learning to cut off old habitual patterns that no longer serves her. “To this day, therapy is my safe space,” she says.
By reading this book you get an understanding as to why for many women it is not easy to walk away from toxic and abusive relationships. And as someone who’s been in toxic relationships, I fully relate to everything she says. Mental abuse is the worst kind as it is unseen and remains a secret for a long time until you start falling apart. Abusers of this kind are the worst deceivers.  In public they’re Mr Nice Guy but behind closed doors, it’s Mr Nasty. Constantly undermining you and belittling your intelligence and efforts. You start to self-criticise everything you do and your confidence goes to the pits.
I thank the author for being so candid in telling her story - from her childhood pain to her difficult relationship with her mother. It must not have been easy, but by sharing her memoir she’s helping others to open up and no longer live in shame. ​