Feeling scared is nothing new to me. I’ve always been scared of something. Hugs were scary. Handshakes were scary. Smiling made me shit scared! You can probably come up with your own list of ten random things right now and you’ll find that I grew up scared of at least one of those things. That’s how bad it was.

One of my earliest experiences with fear was when I was seven. My mother was a business woman travelling long distances for her business. It hurt me every time she left. I remember one night in particular. She was gone the whole morning and afternoon. Eventually, it got dark. But she was still nowhere to be seen. My nanny’s son was bullying me, punching and pulling me in all directions. All I could think about was that if my mother was there none of the bullying would’ve been happening. When she wasn’t coming back I feared she’d abandoned me, left me behind with the evil nanny. But, no. she came back. At midnight she came back.

Sadly, I didn’t learn a lesson from that night. I didn’t learn about how my fears were crazy or that bravery is one of the reasons why a lot of people are successful and happy out there.

Instead, while in the Eastern Cape, in grade 6, my fears got to a new level. I was so scared of being bullied that I bunked school a lot and my days absent totaled 44 days for the whole year. Bullying brought my little world to a stop. Each morning I would get so nervous about facing up to my group of bullies that I ended up not wanting to go anymore. I was determined to not try and report them to my teachers again. I knew they’d deny it like they’d done the previous year, in grade 5, and my teachers would, once again, think I was being some drama queen who couldn’t play well with other boys. I was paralyzed by fear and loneliness.

There was only one person I could turn to – my mother. She, being the superwoman that she’d always been, took matters into her own hands. She first advised me to stand up for myself, to walk taller and hit back at them with my own brand of teasing and punching. When that didn’t work and my absenteeism from school got worse, she took me to a sangoma.

Going there, I still felt scared. But deep down I forced myself to believe that it could work, that the sangoma would prick me with some magical needle and let me walk out of there braver than I’d ever been. I wished he would tell me to chew some root or smear myself with some secret lotion that would make every moment of doubt, fear or nervousness fade away completely. But it didn’t happen. I walked out of his hut feeling the exact same fear I felt going in there.

My mother was so hopeful afterwards. Feeling the weight of her excitement, I had a new desire. I desperately wanted to make her proud, to make sure that the money she’d spent (which was our last real money) wasn’t wasted. I woke up the next day, still feeling scared, but the desire to not disappoint her was way more powerful. It made me bounce back in a big way. I stopped bunking. And at the end of that year I was given a certificate for being one of the best learners in the school. When I left for Cape Town at the beginning of the following year I felt like I’d found some peace. I was ready for a new beginning.

Arriving here in Cape Town, I was confronted with conversations over girls, sex and partying. It seemed like my life would no longer be about doing well in school, watching cartoons, playing soccer and fearing bullies. Suddenly, girls (and boys) told me my lips were too big, my teeth too crooked, my thumbs and feet too big, that I’m awkward and funny-looking. I went through high school believing I wasn’t worth hugging, smiling at or even kissing. I put my hand in front of my mouth and looked down whenever I smiled or laughed. I was hiding my smile.

Getting to university changed things. I started meeting people that didn’t care about how beautiful or ugly my smile was. They were more fascinated by my intelligence. But two of those people (Nosicelo and Nosiphiwo) were interested in my smile. They encouraged me to smile more and stop looking so serious in my pictures. For the first time, I realized that I had a nice smile. I started liking myself more and more. Hugs still made me nervous, but I practiced. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I practiced (not only on these two new friends of mine, but in the mirror as well).

Eventually, I got to a point where even if I stress about the little things, it never turns into the fear I grew up having. If it does turn into fear, I’ve surrounded myself with strong people who believe in me and encourage me until I overcome that fear. I now refuse to let fear control my life again.