I AM SOMEBODY

by:Nicole Binder

Book Description: “I was trying to keep it from everybody, but I was not fooling anybody, I was only lying to myself.” Checking bad incidents in one’s life is of primal importance because these experiences would become one’s constant company in pursuing life’s ends in one’s everyday existence. These incidents are usually in forms of undesirable and unbecoming acts done by people such us but not limited to one’s friends, colleagues, relatives and even one’s immediate family members. These can become sources of one’s trauma which render one less and less enthusiastic and positive about life that would drastically become integrated into one’s moral consciousness and character. These make life’s perspectives ambiguous and to some extent even perplexed. “I am Somebody”, is a colourful, meaningful and inspiring real life story of Nicole Binder. This centres on her experiences since childhood up to where she is at the moment. She is bold in saying that she does this not to hurt other people but to help herself and all other women like her, to heal from a crazy life lived. In this work, she accounts the misfortunes, pains and sufferings and even her addictions that made her life getting crazy by the day. In retelling of her story, she shows that; She is sexually abused at a tender age of five. She is molested by almost all people who come to her including her father and brother. She does abortion a couple of times to avoid responsibilities of rearing a child. She is an addict to drugs that drives her to have sex with anybody who can offer her a crack. She is an irresponsible parent to her children and daughter to her mother who dearly loves her. She is incorrigible. She is a battered wife. She is persistently rehabilitated and imprisoned. Nicole recalls her being not to belong anywhere. Initially, she thinks that she is a little girl with no idea of what her world looks like which leads her to only wonder in fear. For her, everything is a failure. It is as if nobody believes in her or thinks that she can do good for herself and be somebody special. Everything seems to fall apart as she lost time, as she lost herself rendering her to be on the verge of breaking. She wants to be loved but she looks for it in all the wrong places. Moreover, she wants someone to love her, someone she could trust but how could it be possible that the ones she loves and trusts are those that she should not have. She thinks that if guys have sex with her, it means they like her, this she misconstrues to be a step to her real goal of being truly loved and accepted by somebody. This leads her to depression that makes her to hurt herself. Consequently, she blames God for what happen to her growing up and later to her life. She acknowledges that she develops a strained relationship with God. Now being imprisoned, she realizes that her life could not have been like this should she talk to somebody of what happen to her. She says, “I wanted to tell somebody of what happened. I wanted someone who could tell me what to do. But at that time I kept all to myself. How would I tell anybody? What would they think”? What is positive however is that she starts to hold a spark of hope, healing and recovery. She is still in prison but she thinks she is more free because of the dawning of hope and positivity. She wants to cope with her mistakes. She wants to go back to her family make up for the lost opportunities and responsibilities. She wants to get out clean and be somebody to her children, family, siblings and to others having similar experiences with her. As such, a very touching moment in her life is that when she writes a letter to little girl who is molested too. She gives her advises so as for the little girl not to thread on the same route Nicole takes. Indeed, “I am Somebody”, is a story of one who wants to prove that anybody, no matter how delinquent you are, if you get up and help yourself, ways of recovery and corrections are numerous. You just have to create them and make them happen. Thus, for her life is not all about our mistakes. It is more on our realizations and resolutions to amend. Watch out for the explosive sequel. The inspiration and the message: This is the message Nicole wants to convey. Do not let anyone touch you in any way that you do not want to be touched, whether it is being molested or being beaten or even being verbally or emotionally abused. If these happen, tell someone. Do not keep it inside, because remember that you do not do anything wrong. They did. Someone out there will listen and believe you. If you keep all these inside of you, it will be harmful to you in some way. Talk about it and keep talking.