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Selah Marley, the daughter of singer Lauryn Hill and entrepreneur Rohan Marley, sat down for a two-hour Instagram Live on Monday where she detailed her upbringing and the trauma she experienced as a result.
The conversation pulled the veil back on her relationships with her parents including her thoughts on her absentee father and how she suffered spankings at the hands of her mother, due to what she believes was unresolved anger. As the second oldest child of their union, she explains that she is angry, lost and traumatized because of what she was witness to.
She began the conversation talking about her father Rohan, who is the son of music legend Bob Marley. Selah said that a lot of her trauma is triggered when she fights with her boyfriend Michael and now realizes that she was passed on certain traits from watching her parents volatile relationship.
“I came to the conclusion of how much of my life I’ve f—-d up and how much of me is f—d up simply because my dad just wasn’t around. And there’s just a void where there should be a person. And it’s honestly really hard. Like it’s so hard day in and day out. And I feel like this is common in the Black community–not even that I just feel like the things I’ve done because of the trauma, like the deep trauma,” the 21-year-old model shared.
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She said she recently called her father and asked why he was absent, and followed up a call to her mom, wondering why her parents didn’t fight harder for their relationship even though they had five children together.
“I was on google researching what’s it like to have a father,” she said. Selah said she feels lost, and realizes that her boyfriend cannot fill the void of her father.
In turn she feels she may have developed a possible split personality disorder and has unhealthy relationships because of her father’s absence. She says she has been to therapy “a million times,” but also has issues with the therapeutic process.
When it comes to her mother, she said that she is devastated when she thinks back on her mother’s absence because of her work commitments and the spankings she received from her mother.
“She would spank us to no avail,” Selah said. “She was just very angry. So, so, so, so, so, so angry. She was literally not easy to talk to and then half the time we didn’t live with her. I lived with my grandparents half the time… It’s crazy, I’m playing this trauma back in my head as I speak to you.” She explained that her mom would order one of the kids to get a belt and then hold both hands up so they were hanging, “as she beat us. Literally, just like that.”
“And then the threats, the constant threats… That belt man. That’s that slave s–t. That was some slavery s–t. All Black parents were on that s–t,” she continued.
She detailed how she struggles with accountability realizing she’s an adult now and must take inventory of her actions and choices.
“There’s no running anywhere,” she said.
“Honestly guys, I’m just hurting. I’m actually really hurting. I can’t even front like I’m not. And I’ve been hurting, I think for so much of my life. And so much of my life is like–so much of my life has been me avoiding how much I’m really hurting just from the circumstances,” she said.
“I’m scared to be like them. I’m scared to be like them bro,” she continued.
She explained that because of her father’s absence she finds it hard to believe in God, and struggles with creating discipline and structure.
Selah posted a second video detailing a new code of commandments for herself, the first being, “never harm another soul,” and other beliefs she will envision for herself as she heals.
While it’s painful to recant the process of undoing your trauma, Selah seems resolved to understand how her upbringing affected her and the tasks she has to take to undo her generational trauma.
