Present

“I’m a poet and a model as well.  I’m extremely sex positive and body positive and conscious of the way I move in this world and the way I relate to other people because I’ve always had to be hyper aware of my existence and very watchful of my love and my body”

Childhood

She grew up in a family that had experienced genocide on both sides.  Her mother lost family members in The First Liberian Civil War between 1989 and 1996, which was led by the Warlord, Charles Taylor.  Her father was Nigerian, surviving the Nigerian Civil War between 1967 and 1970. “There were various levels of generational trauma and undiagnosed mental illness.”  Her familial relationships were very fractured, “because of the mass trauma caused by colonization. These topics, I think about on a daily basis because of the memories of the way I was affected by the people coming out of those conflicts.”

At 5 years old, she was already being told stories about events from the First Liberian Civil War.  Her mother was the anchor of the family and she came to the US on a student visa in the 1980s, becoming a registered nurse.  

During mid-late 1997, her mother brought 8 family members from Liberia and their household grew to 5 children and 5 adults with her mother being the only working person.  She faced insurmountable stress and coped with this by not being present and spending the majority of her time at work.  Tarnynon was the youngest in the house and didn’t speak the same dialect as most members.  She was teased and picked on by members of her family.

The horror culminated in two older female cousins raping her on a nightly basis when she was 6 or 7 years old.  “I use a metaphor of a sliding door.  The door would slide closed at night and I would be in horror.  Every morning, it would slide open again and it was a new day.  I was a child and I wasn’t able to deal with it.” Her cousin would go to school and tell people of what she was doing to her.  She’d force Tarnynon to do her chores or perform sexual favors to the point where “I’m sure, it’s very hazy, but I think I would pass out from fear.  Like I said, I would wake up in the morning and it would be erased.”

Within her household, she understood apathy at an early age.  Along with the sexual abuse she experienced, children would be punished, exercised for hours at a time or beat for no reason.  They were watched by their grandmother while her mother was at work.  Her grandmother had been diagnosed with  Post War Trauma and recieved medication for this, but was also medicated with alcohol.  

High School

She suppressed the memories of her sexual abuse until she was 16 years old.  At this time, she had met her first boyfriend and began to feel natural, positive sexual feelings.  

Her boyfriend was Nigerian, so they shared a common ancestry.  He lived a mile from her house and quickly integrated into her household.  After high school, they went to college together and attended UIC.  While he was her boyfriend for nearly 7 years, he was never a fully active partner and even though they shared common experiences and background, she felt alone in their relationship.  She shared with her boyfriend that she was bisexual and non-monogamous, but was unable to live in this way, because of respectability politics, and pressure within the relationship. A contributing factor in this is that she had brainwashed herself into feeling guilty or dirty for experiencing incest and rape at such a young age.

“He was my best friend but my biggest torturer”

He would emotionally and psychologically abuse her.  She constantly experienced gas lighting. “He’d make it seem like I was a heretic in some way.  I’d like to go out on dates, I’d like us to try new things together.  We came to college together, why don’t we spend more time together?  I’d give him space because of the sex trauma I experienced as a child.”

On the surface, she was well put together, got great grades, and was social with many friends.  Inside, she was screaming that he wasn’t right.  Even though he never beat her, he was still abusing her, tormenting her.  Any time she’d meet a new friend or go to a new place, “he would just stand right in front of me to steal my joy, to build himself up as if he was using me as some sort of stepping stool to prop himself up.”  

Remaining Present – Working Through Trauma

At 18, she sought therapy, something she did alone without the support of her partner. After a few years in her journey of recovery,  she began to actively be a role model for her younger family members, providing them inspiration, especially for her 15-year-old cousin who is her best friend.  “I began to create a roadmap for how to navigate a life of trauma with intention.”

She tries not to focus on what she called the horror flicks, or memories of her abuse.  When this happened to her, as a coping mechanism, she created what she refers to as, “Ty Toons” which is an endless stream of music, flowing through genres as they relate to her emotions. The music helps her process and end these memories.  

She works on meditating and being present every day in her life.  Music, writing and modeling help her manage the pain she feels as right now she is unable to deal with her pain unfiltered daily.  She’s currently working on producing her memoir in 3 months. “This is how I cope with the vast dark experiences that I’ve had. This is how I shine light on people that I love and those who want insight into experiences like this. I speak about black female toiling, because this is my experience as a black woman in the diaspora, being a black woman from the Southside of Chicago, but also about how the diaspora has affected my experience of abuse.  The vast partner abuse, rape, gas lighting but it’s also the element of colonization, it’s both vast and specific at the same time.”  Her memoir will contain photos and short, 1st person, free-verse poems discussing these topics.

She focuses on light, art and building a legacy of black excellence and perseverance, not only for her young family members but for people in general who need inspiration “when they feel like they’re in the middle of the sea, out here trying to stay alive.”

She tries to remain active because she’s had months where she couldn’t even get out of bed to go to class or work.  She grew up in a space where her voice was stolen from her.  The elders in her household knew what was going on but failed to do anything about it.  One aspect that impacted adult intervention is the fact that immigrants rarely obtain a feeling of permanence because they’ve been subject to the reality of being temporary and are constantly in survivor mode and “things both vast and small get thrown to the wayside.  There’s this idea that children should be seen and not heard and I think that’s disastrous.  Children are perceptive and honest and when cultivated in the right way, they are loving, the spirit of evergreens.  They are this loving force that always replenishes goodness if, once again, are cultivated in the right way.”

She often thinks of gardens, using them as a symbol for herself.  Even though she had been used and abused she is also being replenished.  She prays to her ancestors, especially her grandmothers, her maternal grandmother Nancy and her paternal grandmother Mene.  “Those two women are the guiding spirits of my existence” and she feels they’ve shown themselves throughout her life, especially this past year in very intentional ways.  

“I don’t wish to put my family on blast for the sake of money or pity, but it’s important to tell these stories in the first person because we need people to unite in their experiences in sadness to produce joy.  We live in an age struggling with interpersonal communication so we need to move forward from that.”

She spends time investing in art.  When she was unable to go to class or work, she would go thrift shopping and build around all the ideas she had, from being a designer to an artist.  She majored in African American Studies and English Literature and she’s very interested in the written word, diaspora studies and the expression of a person’s experiences impacted by global events.  

On a daily basis, she says her mantra “I’m a strong black woman.  I’m proud to be it, glad to see it and glad to believe it.”  

Advice

“Life is a struggle. Please continue to struggle, despite the ache.”

Instagram: @tyyuhnuh