Fall of 2022 was a turning point. I sarted my self-discovery journey and never looked back. 

I was tired of feeling trapped by my own decisions. Always being a push-over. Going over and beyond for everyone else and getting nothing in return. Dating men I don’t like to protect their fragile ego. The list goes on.

I fell down a rabbit hole of self-work. At first, my only concern was that I was a people pleaser—I was saying “yes” way more than I wanted to. So, I looked up people-pleasing on YouTube. 

That search cracked open a Pandora’s box.

Validation Seeking Rooted in Low Self Esteem

I uncovered body-image issues I hadn’t even realized I had. This girl in high school told me that her sister (a commercial model), said that girls with legs like mine can never make it to the runway. Not that I ever wanted to pursue modeling, but my teenage self took that to mean that I don’t meet conventional beauty standards. Another teacher in high school said my breasts had barely developed – loudly in front of the whole class. A male teacher. Everytime I’d walk in a certain side of town in Nairobi, very fair-skinned women would call me left right and center to sell bleaching creams. Billboards all around the city barely had women of my skin color. The men were black, the ladies were fair skinned, and the kids were mixed-race. That’s still the norm today. As a result, I avoided swimming pools, or any other environments that would require wearing revealing clothes. Including….you know, the bedroom.

I started deconstructing these ideals of beauty. Especially in regards to appealing to the opposite sex.  One realization led to another, and before I knew it, I was knee-deep in self-discovery. At the same time, I was doing other things—journaling, reconnecting with my spirituality, walking. I even went to see a medical doctor to figure out why some parts of my body were the way they are. I walked out with a PCOS diagnosis, and so many things started making sense – the mood swings, the excess body hair, and even underdeveloped breast tissue.  Life started feeling lighter. I don’t know which of those things was working, or if it was all of them combined.

One day, I saw my friend interact with her dad, and it was the first time I realized I had unresolved issues with my dad. You know… daddy issues. But given how African my dad is, sitting down with him for a heart-to-heart and finding closure wasn’t an option. No matter how many YouTube videos I watched or how much I journaled, the problem didn’t go away.

Fast forward to 2025, and I’m still determined to make things right with my dad. Maybe become friends with him. Openly express my affection for him, maybe get him to verbally say he loves me. And to permanently regulate my nervous system. 

What’s the next logical step? Find an affordable therapist. I do my research, make a few inquiries, and finally land on one who charges Kshs. 2000 per session (about $18). We have a discovery call, schedule our first session, and I go in with cautious optimism.

And… it’s underwhelming. Everything she tells me, I already know. She tells me that happiness is an inside job. That I need to start seeing my dad as a human being and take him off a pedestal. That I need to understand my attachment style. That I need to love and appreciate my body. That I need to start writing my thoughts down in a journal. Turns out, three years of deep dives into psychology can do that to you. Or maybe I just picked the wrong person for the job.