BEAUTY BEHIND THE MADNESS
“I want to die so bad”!
I have always been a sad girl. If i am actually being honest I would say I have always been that way since I was born. All my baby pictures, not one smile.. not one happy picture, always a frown. So I knew..but I didn’t really notice. As I grew older and wanted friends, I started laughing more. I was a comedian and a storyteller. That definitely gravitated people towards me and I liked it. So I laughed the loudest, smiled the brightest and told stories that were both personal or otherwise, just because I didn’t want to be alone.
Depression is a significant public health problem, and at a prevalence rate of 3.9%, 7 million Nigerians currently suffer from it. 25% of this depressed population are young Nigerian adults. According to WHO, the burden of depression is 50% higher in females than in males. In Africa, 5.95% of females suffer from depression, compared to 4.9% among males. Studies in Nigeria have also reported that being female is a significant risk factor of depression.
So if you still think depression is a white man thing or an excuse to be lazy or sit at home or be emotional, shut the fuck up and refuse to be a Dimwit.
I lost my best friend and cousin as I turned eleven. I never understood why I had to loose her or why I was not told until 8 days after she was buried. That didn’t make a difference how painful it was when I heard or when I saw the burial brochure. It was a mass burial because of the situation of death. She didn’t burn, she suffocated. That was my first experience with pain. I truly believed then and maybe even now that all good things eventually go. She was too good for this world…
Secondary school was brutal! Especially the first 3 years. I was bullied and beaten and body shamed. I even knew a girl from my class that hated me till after I graduated from Uni. She could never even say why. Mean girls? lol.. my school was head quarters and nothing has changed even now in the group chat. I grew up too fast, too soon. I was raped, used, abused… and I never complained because who would I tell? I will get blamed first anyways, so I did it for them and kept it in regardless.
The first time I had the courage to kill myself was in 2016.. I didn’t succeed obviously but I tried so many other times after. I don’t think I can actually count how many times the thought has crossed my mind. Like my man would say;
“You feel the worlds burden at heart and you are fun when it is not weighing you down “
I always knew I had a mental struggle but I found out I had Clinical depression in 2019. I Went to therapy for the first time then too. I had great care for that period even though it was pro Bono and I met the most amazing set of lads of which I still speak to only one of them. In therapy, I was prescribed anti-depressants but I hate them so I don’t take them. I was cool for a month or so after group therapy. It took a broken heart and Unrequited love for me to go back into the deep black hole of depression and I thought about dying for 2 weeks straight. Fun part? It was the holiday period. I slept through the holidays and didn’t want to have or be any part of it. People couldn’t really even see or know much of what was going on, except a few who I told and who were there for me.
Depression is a hard topic. It is an involuntary tiredness of this world and all it brings. It is a longing to get the fuck out of here. It’s not a spiritual warfare or a consequence for sin. It’s just the chemicals in your brain disagreeing with each other and causing you pain. Sometimes I don’t understand why I am so sad. I would lay in bed all day watching shows and eating .. sometimes the whole weekend will roll by and I will barely notice. Monday will draw close and I will start having palpitations. I would have to go to work, deal with other human beings, be asked what was wrong with me a million times, tolerate people and watch others pretend like they care. I just really get tired tbh. I hate the circle.. no matter how much I try another approach, perspective and even love, it doesn’t go away.
Drugs help, Weed helps but for how long?… why or how do you think people become addicts? I promise you, it’s not a white kid or white people thing. Is it motivational speeches and quotes? Trust me, i have had a fair dose of those. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in God and the lord Jesus Christ but it’s not about that. The mind just get as e be mehnn.
Everyday I literally struggle to wake up. Sometimes I ask myself..so we are going to do this again??.. it’s fucking exhausting. Human beings are filled with emotional opinions or some all knowing sense of self, meanwhile they can not solve their own problems for shits.
I know this is a fight I have to win and I will do my best to keep fighting but never undermine the suffering of others especially those who are being sabotaged by their own brains 🥲🌚
