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Daddy's Young Lady

  • Untainted from my demons… The awaiting.

    April 2nd, 2021

    Through my mental health journey, I’ve grown to learn that it looses it’s aspect of private and individual just cause of what & who it ropes in along the way. In my case, my ongoing journey has roped in a few people, some were strangers who turned into family and others were family right from the start. It weighs heavy on me as a person who struggles quite often with the mental battles I go through, and this is not because of what it’s done to me, but because of what it’s done to those around me who’ve stuck by me despite my ailing mind. I have seen it tear down my sister and it was for me more excruciatingly painful than any insition I’ve ever put on my body. I remember last year when I had my depressive episode for about six months. It was right about the time when my country was on a lockdown due to the pandemic. I was stuck in our apartment with my sister and we had no means to go home due to a cessation that had been implemented on my country which prohibited me to travel. I self harmed more during that period than I ever had before and it became an instinct & it was such an impulsive nature for me to do, I grew numb about it. I ratted myself out to my sister cause I knew if I didn’t, I’d have probably not so intentionally hurt myself beyond what my little first aid after care routine could handle. Even then, despite being so out of touch with anything else besides the throes of my depression, I could see just how much my battle was weighing in on my sister. She carries her emotions on her sleeve so it wasn’t so invisible to me just how exhausting it was for her to see me go through that gutter. It’s not until recently in one of the countless conversations we have about my mental health did she admit to hating her work over that period when we were quarantined together and that she wanted to cry her eyes out everyday she had to do her job. She wasn’t sure if anytime I wasn’t in her periphery, I wasn’t cutting myself and now me being aware of what it must have been like for her to go through that, genuinely breaks my heart.

    My guilt in depression is tethered to what my battles have done to others besides myself. I can honestly say, I haven’t found love enough for me to feel guilty over what being mentally ill does to me. It’s what it does to those I care about that shatters me the most. To say I have tried to hide the ugly effects of my battles from my loved ones would be putting it lightly. Sometimes I just rather die with it and let it rip me from the inside out all on my own than let it seep out to those who matter more to me than anything. With my dad for instance, my old man doesn’t know just how much effort it takes his last born daughter to live through each day as a depressive. On some days, I want to shout it to him with such aggression about how I can’t seem to shake off this sadness that I’ve carried around for all my life. On other days, I can’t help but think he’s better off in the dark, from it all. Untainted from my demons.

    It’s been both a blessing and a curse having my father out in the clear from my battles. It’s been a blessing because then he doesn’t have to look at me different. For now he knows the bare minimum concerning my depression. He would still be in the dark if I had never needed his help on buying antidepressants last year after starting therapy. It was a hard enough secret to keep cause then it was just me and my sister having to find means on how we would get money to take me to therapy and for me to see a psychiatrist as well. It got so hard every two weeks trying to figure out how to come up with the sum of money I needed for every therapy session because I couldn’t tell my dad that I needed money for something he was completely out of the loop on. When I finaly had to ask for his help, I came home with a prescription letter from a psychiatrist with a list of antidepressants I needed to start taking. This was right after my county opened it’s borders and the cessation that had been put in place due to covid was lifted hence why I got the chance to travel home which put a halt on me going to therapy because it was in different counties.

    To say I was nervous bringing up that subject with my father was an understatement. I wasn’t sure he’d grasp what I was saying or if whether he’d even understand the gravity. This isn’t to imply my dad is slow or anything like that. On the contrary, my dad is pretty intelligent. What I was worried about was whether it would make sense to him the way it was meant to, from my understanding. It’s through him and our conversations together that the aspect of being an African and having a technically African raised father that I saw how much ones background and tradition affect different aspects and subjects which in my case was & is mental health. He actually took it quite casually which was what I thought I wanted but turns out it wasn’t what I needed. I didn’t see concern on his face when I tried telling him that I struggle with depression. Instead I got a speech on prayer & exercise and how much it would help keep me less idle. I told him that it had nothing to do with that and that it was a chemical imbalance in my brain that made me depressed and it still didn’t faze him. I was quite frustrated to say the least but I understood him despite it that he couldn’t just magically see it as I did. I gave him the prescription and told him that I needed him to buy me that medication and he was fine with it.

    Whoever believes that they can go through mental health on their own have it quite wrong. I never knew just how much I’d need my father’s understanding until I finally brought him into the know about my struggles. A few days before my last birthday, my dad finally bought me the antidepressants I had been prescribed and I decided to start on them the day after my birthday. I’d already been on a different set of antidepressants two weeks before and they had really exhausted me out so I didn’t want to be loopy on my birthday since I was gonna have a little shindig going on that day. Cue to when I finally started my new meds did I see true & genuine concern which was more than his impassive nature had ever expressed. A few days in after I had started on my new meds, I got some really scary side effects after taking them and I thought I’d get them under control by buying some antibiotics. I had major and I mean major heartburn and aside from that, my heart rate was over the roof. I had heat flashes and I could hear my own heart beating so loud and quite fast, I was certain I was having a heart attack. My dad’s girlfriend is a pharmacist and I asked her if she could prescribe something for the heart burn and she asked me about the meds I was taking and I told her what I was newly on. Later that night when my dad came home, he was beyond agitated. Apparently, after my conversation with his girlfriend earlier, it was apparent to her that one of the antidepressants I had been prescribed to was very severe and was mainly for schizophrenics. In basic language as was explained to my dad, he was told they were for ‘crazy people’. That was genuinely the first time I saw my dad loose his calm and look so terrified. I believe it dawned on him that he’d just bought his daughter over the counter meds that were going to completely alter my mind and irreversibly damage it for life. For the record, I never once thought of it as my dad’s fault because it wasn’t, neither of us would have known. He felt responsibile for that mistake since he hadn’t done research or any enquiry about the meds he was buying me before he handed them to me. I on the other hand was more upset that a supposed legal & professional psychiatrist had prescribed to me medicine he knew wasn’t meant for me and which would probably have adverse effects on me but went ahead and prescribed it regardless of knowing all that. I was livid and after that, I quit taking the meds all together because despite how badly they were reacting to my body, they weren’t meant for it from the very start.

    After that experience, I have not had therapy or been on any other antidepressants since. I soon after asked my dad if he could look for a different hopefully better psychiatrist to whom I would see and get a better diagnosis of my mental health as well as better effective treatment. This is where it has proven to be very difficult to get my dad on board because he quickly fell back into his slow paced process of doing things. It’s been a few months since that encounter with the antidepressants and after that, my life sorta fell back into routine. School opened and everything else took a seat at the back of my mind. I didn’t get better per say but the depression went back to being my day to day cup of tea, the one I was accustomed to. Now, due to different triggers, I am in the middle of another depression episode and I thought it would be perfect timing to see a new psychologist & psychiatrist but mainly the latter. I made my dad aware of my need now for a psychiatrist and told him I have been struggling again but he doesn’t seem to see the urgency of it. Even just thinking about it right now, is nerve wrecking. I’m triggered by his lack of motivation and urgency in getting me help especially now when I’m not at my best mentally. I admit he’s not fully in the loop of just how bad my mental instability goes, he is clueless of my self harm which has started again after I’d been clean for 98 days. I have racked my mind on how to bridge that information to him without alarming him but I just don’t know where to start. On some days, I want to just show him my arms and let them speak for me but I get scared of what he’ll think or do. It’s taken me a lot to admit that I am mildly suicidal as of currently and I am going through the days trying to find the will to see through the end of each day. He isn’t aware that I don’t know how much waiting I can do anymore before I can completely disintegrate. I am trying to be patient but it’s hard when my mind isn’t on board. So yeah, that’s where I currently am. Mental health is so contradictory in how personal & individualistic it is but also how communal it trickles down to. I hope that the wait isn’t going to be longer than my mind can hold off from completely falling apart.

  • Saving my own specifics…

    March 14th, 2021

    “I’d been depressed for so long, hiding it wasn’t an option anymore, not by choice at least. My body took the choice out of my hands.”

    Last night as I lay in bed thinking as usual, my mind drifted off and I began to wonder what the world around me sees whenever they look at me. In all natures, be it physically, emotionally, spiritually and even more so mentally. Only a substantial amount of people can give just a little bit of insight on what they think they know about my mental health and the struggles that enslave me on a daily. They see what they perceive as just the basic stressful day to day experiences one has to go through being at the point at which I’m at right now in life. It’s absolutely okay in their eyes that I’m stressed out about not knowing what I want to do in my life or whether I have a plan for the next phase now that I’m done with college. I can say with certainty that nobody sees what I feel or have to live through on a daily… not even a fraction of it. A friend of mine earlier last night mentioned to me that she has noticed that I’m extremely general on everything I relay to her and my response to that was that the world isn’t interested in the specifics of one’s life. People rather just know enough than know too much. It’s enough for them trying to be allies but too much to be a friend. It’s extending support but without having to be presently there, in the middle of it all. I would honestly rather not have any ally at all if that’s the case, therefore having to maintain my specifics to myself.

    If there’s a chance that the world around me thinks I’m normal, then truth be told, I’m offended. In the stereotypical sense of the word, normal is boring and I would be highly offended if anyone considered me boring. I may not be your ray of sunshine, but neither am I living through the normal cycle of being this person who believes that everything sorta just falls into place… not to piss on anyone’s parade who might live by the notion that everything does sorta just fall into place. Alright, maybe I am, even if just a little. Entirely, what I’m saying is that, I don’t think I have been afforded the luxury to believe that my life is following a mystical path where I’m meant to entirely live through mental suffering just for it to get better in the far future and that I’ll look back at it and think that it was all worth it. Simply, I’m not cut out for normal…and I’ve learned to accept that and maybe even embraced it.

    I’ve mentioned it before to my sister that the worst possible thing that could happen to me in life would be to be termed as cliché. Just the thought of it, makes me want to buff in my mouth and it wouldn’t be pretty. Cliché in my eyes would be anyone thinking that I self harm for attention. Just so you know, anyone who does self harm is seeking attention, just not for the reasons that the world thinks they are. It entirely could be a subconscious reaction to emotional pain but, from what I have felt in that moment, despite trying to hide it, there’s a part of you deep inside that seeks out hope that someday someone will see that invisible but obvious cry for help. That they won’t look at you like a loon but will take an initiative to get you help, the help that you might not have had the courage to ask for.

    “How can I afford to feel self conscious over my body but can freely walk around with no sleeves covering my wrist and with my scars bared out to the world.”

    I thought about that yesterday and if that screams normal to you, maybe you need to check yourself. I don’t have an answer to that, just like I don’t have answers to a lot of other questions about things that I do but can’t seem to have an explanation over. How I can even afford to walk out of the house with my marred wrist but can’t wear a dress because it will show out too much of my curves or in better terms, my fatness… It’s intriguing, isn’t it? That I am more ashamed of what was God given more than I am ashamed of what I self inflicted on my own body. It leads me back to the question of what it is the world sees whenever they look at me. Do they see the internal turmoil I have to face just with having to decide if I look more fat in a dress or whether I can pass on the lie that I was in a car accident to explain the scars on my hand? Are they remotely aware that I want to die but not necessarily from my own hands. “That I’m not suicidal but sometimes the lines get all blurry.” I know they don’t see all that, and it’s why my friends can afford to read my blogs and tell me that they’ll kill me first if I ever attempted suicide. That it will be selfish of me to choose my life over hurting them if I died by my hands. Oh, how selfish I will be if I died anyway besides what is considered natural. Well news flash, suicide is as natural as it gets. Until they can see beyond their hurt over me taking matters into my own hands, they will never see what truly lies beyond my eyes. They will never see beyond the lies of the fabricated stories meant to explain the scars on my hands. It’s not until they are ready to hear more than just the general, will they be aware of just how truly miserable I feel just having to live through everyday without the knowledge of why I’m even breathing.

    So if you think for a moment that I’m normal, then I think you’re the worst kind of ignorant. It’s like if you treated a cripple like you would treat an able walking man…you’d be of great insult. Don’t look at my scars and then express indifference. I had that happen to me once before and it’s taken me over five months to express just how of a dick move that was. To completely disregard of my pain, is to disregard me as well. Don’t deceive yourself into believing that you’re doing what’s best by ignoring the elephant in the room. If you’re not going to kiss those scars like you would kiss every other part of me, don’t bother touching me at all.

    I wish that sometimes, I didn’t have to act like am normal as well. It’s a deception from me too. Why can’t I just scream my lungs out in the middle of the streets just because I feel like it will be the next best relief? Why do I have to hold the pain till I’m behind closed doors to make deep enough insitions on my skin just to bleed the pain away? Why can’t I just break completely apart and not question myself over it or care about what it’s consequences will mean for me? I wish I didn’t have to fight so hard to keep the crazy tucked in when all I yearn for sometimes is to disentangle myself to little bits and pieces. All I ever feel like is a sitting duck or so in this case, a sitting crazy. I can’t tick off cause I should care enough about the consequences of what it will mean to the world but what about me, what about what I’m having to hold inside to prevent it from breaking out. A jar can only hold so much of anything without spilling out. I can’t even be crazy enough to finally get the attention I need that will get me help. All I wanna do is be crazy enough to get help and maybe if I’m lucky, stand the chance to gain a little bit of normal, even if it means gaining a bit of boring.

  • Closing up my options ❌

    March 10th, 2021

    Do you ever have those discoveries in your life that make you feel like maybe life might not be such a bad shit show to live through… Yeah well, I just had such a discovery a while ago and it’s quite alright might I say so myself. I knew that through this platform I could view the stats of how people engage with my blog but today I made a new found discovery that let me in on the amount of people who interact with my blog, this being on a daily basis, a weekly basis, monthly & yearly. Let me just say I’m quite surprised but in a good way. I didn’t realize how far and wide my blog has traveled and I can’t help but feel so grateful that people are interested in the ‘insanity’ I often spill. It truly feels good and despite the fact that I mainly write here as a form of therapy for myself, I hope it brings a little bit of familiarity to someone who shares in what I go through in my mental health journey. So before I delve into anything else, thank you to anyone who comes across this and reads it and picks out something they think is cool, or simply anyone who enjoys having a peek at my mind through my writing. To express my gratitude, enjoy this rare picture of myself smiling.

    How often do you feel like your stuck in the middle of something? How often do you try to figure out where your thoughts or feelings lie concerning a precise matter? I don’t have answers to this either cause I very much never know which side I’m on, at least when it comes to matters concerning thinking & feeling suicidal …Yeah, that’s where I’m heading with this… I say this with the utmost calmness I can master. I realize how sensitive of a subject this is and the sense of alarm it raises anytime it’s mentioned. I truly don’t fully consider myself a danger to myself currently, therefore, please calm down if in case you weren’t at the beginning.

    I believe I’m what I’d call passively suicidal. In the scale of normal human existence, living would most times be considered as something automatic to human beings. Technically, being alive is essentially living, at least the most basic aspect of it. The more complex aspects of living require for one to feel a sense of fulfillment and pleasure in more than merely just existing. The secondary aspects of living become unfamiliar to those who may feel ‘plagued’ by any kind of mental turmoil…you know, the kind that has you wishing you were dead rather than waking up to a new day. Don’t get me wrong, I am living, at least the basic aspect of it. For me at least, I regard my suicidal ideation as more of passive in regard to those occasions when I don’t exactly wish to die. I live through the waves of wanting to fulfill my hopes and aspirations in life as well as wanting to die all in a matter of hours. Ideally, it’s more of just a means to an end for me. I just think that sometimes I loose track of where to begin living. If living didn’t seem as such an impossible task for me, I doubt death would skim through my mind as often as it does.

    If I could quantify the workings of my mind into one word, the word would be turmoil. It perfectly matches the back and forth, the up and down and side to side that my thoughts bounce off from every other day. It would explain how easily it is for me to tip over from reality and simply want to end things as they are, especially in moments of hopelessness. It’s a turmoil that evolves from basic sadness into what I’d call a gut wrenching hollowness that still to date has not enough words that could define it. Only unless one is accustomed to it, does it remotely make sense to you why dying would feel slightly more appealing than breathing. On those days when I feel an inkling of control over my thoughts, do I wonder whether the appeal of death is just that, an appeal. It gets me thinking over whether dying is a lot like keeping my options open, at least until I can figure out a better, less scandalous & less finalizing option. It’s on this days that I choose not to panic over my passive ideations regarding death and it’s on those same days when I envision for myself a life where I’ll have hopefully gained the capability to handle pain in whichever form it may come, but most especially, if it stems from my mind.

    I sometimes do think of letting go of dying as an option. It feels hard to fully both consciously & unconsciously let go of the idea that dying won’t solve all of my today’s and the rest of my life’s problems. Am I ready to close that option? I can’t say for certain. I realize that it isn’t something that just sprouted in the recent years since I began comprehending my mental struggles. No, I do believe that death has always just been a silent secret option for me. I recall a time before my mum was ever sick, I always made sure she knew that if she ever died before me, I’d die right after her. There was no question about it in my head and even despite how young I was, I needed her aware of my plan to never exist without her and that it was always going to be her and I in this life or the next. I wasn’t scared of the gravity of what it would mean to die…and for sure, I did try. I may not recall vividly what exactly I did to try execute my plan but the truth remains that I tried regardless to follow her in death just right after she passed on for I saw no need as to why I was required to be left behind. It didn’t make sense then and part of it still doesn’t make sense now. Therefore closing that option out for me is a lot more harder than just deciding to stop leaning towards it as a solution to my problems. It’s the aspect of no longer existing in this life to experience my turmoils that makes dying look so appealing. It’s the escaping factor of it that makes it look not at all scary but just maybe life saving instead.

    I’m not writing this to glorify or beautify suicide or dying in any form. Not at all. It’s a major symptom of mental disorders and should be treated as so. Don’t be mistaken, I have felt the shame and guilt it carries along with it. When I look at my dad & sister and think of what it would mean for them loosing another loved one, it breaks my heart. The subject on suicide has a long way to go in the world. To end the stigma it carries will take a lot but it needs to be spoken about and not shunned as this horrifying subject no one wants to discuss. I hope that this post doesn’t trigger anyone but shows how easily it is to fall into the head space of becoming suicidal. I know for me to begin living & fully erasing the parts of my mind that consider death an option, I must heal. I must start again. I hope to get there. To get to a place where I’ll be ready to begin living despite every little fear I have.

  • If I die young…

    March 10th, 2021

    “bury me in satin, lay me down on a bed of roses, sink me in the river at dawn, send me away with the words of a love song… “

    It just seemed right to continue with the lyrics of the song, as cliché as that may seem. It fits perfectly though with the context of what I wanna write about so I thought why not start it off with the lyrics to one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I listened to this song for so long while in highschool and it still felt right then just listening to it, despite its message entailing a subject most would consider mobid. I don’t think death is mobid personally but neither am I indifferent towards it to the extent of being unaffected by it. I find it narcissistic when people are cold and unbothered by the aspect of death. I’ve had different people use the phrase, “death is unavoidable, it happens to everyone and we can’t do much about it” … All those are facts about death but why normalize it like it’s your daily cup of tea. Death isn’t inevitable yes, but it’s not anything to throw a parade over, hence why I think referring to it so casually comes off as a tad bit narcissistic to me… Or I could be wrong too, and people just choose to view it as so as a means to cope with the inevitability and finality that is death.

    Anyway, that wasn’t my train of thought when I began writing this update, no.. I presume everyone has how they wish or hope to be remembered when they die by those they leave behind. I too am subject to having how I wanna be remembered and not just by my family, but by anyone who may have ever come across me in any and all aspects of my life. We need not to have shared a special bond or relationship for you to have any kind of memory of me.

    When I think about it now, it sounds a bit obnoxious stating to others how I want them to remember me but regardless of it, I think we all have a few aspects of ourselves we envision & hope that they will be remembered even after we are gone. Maybe it’s our unconscious mind’s way of letting the world know the parts of ourselves we might not have had the chance to express or show during the time we were alive but despite not having explored them, they still remained very much a part of us. Therefore, if I died tonight, this is what I’d want you to remember me as…

    Remember me by the fact that I was secretly happy being sad. That I no longer knew how to want anything else than to express just how beautiful and aesthetic I hoped to be, even in the depths of a sadness so deep, I knew no existing way out of it.

    Know that all I’d ever wanted in life was to seek and envelope myself in a life so tranquil, I’d quit searching for any other happy ever after. Remember me as the girl who was so lost of peace, it’s all she had ever hoped to uncover before the end of her life. Envision me as I had lived to envision myself, lost at shore staring at the sun sink at the sea. Remember me for the little peace I’d found within the depths of the chaos that lived within me.

    Remember me as the girl who’s words never seemed to be enough for the world…as the girl who had so much to write but not enough words to articulate just how much she felt. The girl who one day hoped to have a best seller, that would shift the world’s view of what mental health truly entailed. Through her words, she hoped to bring hope to those who faced a similar mental battle with every breath they took. A girl who hoped her words could cross globes and touch hearts with the flowing sadness that rippled through her veins. I wanna be remembered as the girl who struggled to be vulnerable. Who felt she had to hold a shield to herself at all times cause she didn’t know if she was strong enough to take the pains thrown at her. Look and remember her beyond her exterior, beyond the broken shields and high up walls put up around her. She felt everything.

    I hope you remember me for the unsubtle secrets I tried to keep hidden. The secrets of just how corny I was. Of just how much of a hopeless romantic I could get, especially after reading a very explicit novel. Remember me for the childlike dreams and simple pleasures that I kept tucked hidden in the small sunny sides of my mind. Remember that I wondered what the world would have been like for me, had I been made to be happy.

    …and finally, think of me as I thought of myself, a wondrous creative. I considered myself an aesthetic being who could spend hours tucked away with a book to my face and a pen in my hand. Remember me for all the sad songs in my playlist that I’d drown in at the devil’s hour. Remember me for the love I yearned to feel that would have me so drunk, I’d never need liquor again. Remember me for the funny thoughts of myself dancing in just a shirt and a pair of knickers, despite the fact that I never once danced in my life.

    I could go on and on about all the things I wanna be remembered by but I can assure you, none of it will truly matter when I’m gone. All I can do is hope to be remembered for all I hoped to achieve but never got to actualize…and if you can, light a cigar in my memory.

  • Breathe..

    March 3rd, 2021

    “Breathe girl, Breathe…”

    Why does it feel so hard to do that simple but exhausting task…

    Should it count that maybe I’m out of breath, out of will to live, out of options to choose from… Is it why I feel laboured just having to exist…

    “Goddammit Breathe Mercy, you need to breathe…

    If not for yourself, do it for your sister, for you dad… ”

    I can’t understand why I just won’t breathe …why don’t I want to breathe easy… do I want to breathe at all ?

    I expect this doesn’t make sense to anyone, welcome to the wagon, it quit making sense to me long ago…

    Am I breathing yet. I’m still in pain so I guess I’m still trying…

    Everyone needs me to live, I need to breathe instead… I won’t live if I can’t breathe, right ?

    Once again I ask, why can’t I breathe, why I’m I lost at it…

    I’m thinking too much again, no surprise there… If I could breathe as easy as I think, I’d have no chance of dying, I’d probably begin living…

    I don’t want better, I don’t believe there’s any better… My mind knows it, that’s why I can’t breathe, I don’t believe in it.

    One can only breathe if they believe they can and maybe, that’s just it for me…

    I don’t like breathing anymore, it hurts to breathe, its exhausting.

    I’m tired…

    but I’ll breathe, for everyone besides me.

  • Hopelessness for this depressive…and others

    February 24th, 2021

    I know, not the most captivating title but I’m not sorry I didn’t come up with something better. That’s the best I could do anyway… So, again with the title, a little depressing but I’ve been meaning to elaborate to the world on my hopelessness and how wildly it sometimes makes me feel. For a precise elaboration, the term depressive is meant to bring insight to the fact that I don’t think that the drastic measures my mind seeks to end feelings in the likes of hopelessness is something that occurs in just any person’s mind. It takes a specific kind of sick to view shit the way I do, to want to solve issues the way I think makes sense which finally brings me to the highlight that the way I view or turn to resolving issues I go through isn’t similar for every person who struggles with mental issues. I was very precise in using the term ‘this’ to highlight that whatever I’m about to write is how I view things and how I feel towards them.

    Besides it being a first for me to explain my title in detail, I just want to put it out there that I don’t intend to be metaphoric in my words today. I’m too hopeless as it is to wow anyone with my ‘great’ expressions of pain. I’m too drained out; that’s what feeling hopeless is about right? Feeling like there’s not a chance for anything good happening or punning out for you.. Yeah, sure sounds a lot like where I’m stuck at right now.

    Where to start, not sure? A lot like everyone else, I had this grand plan for the beginning of the year but twenty days in, I’m willing ready to wrap this shit up. My needs are overwhelmingly piled up and I have no absolute means to meet each of them. To be frank, they aren’t some over the top things that I want but they are basic things that I need. I finish school in a three weeks time. I’ll be done with my diploma and where I’m from, the stereotype is that the end of one chapter or phase of life, is the absolute immediate beginning of another. No questions asked, no gap periods taken, its pretty much hopping from one wagon to the next at every stop. I’ve had it asked to me countlessly what I intended to do right after I’m done but I’ve pretty much got nothing besides heading home and working on my writing. I’m not upset about not having some grand plan to fall back on once school is done cause I genuinely need to ease off the pressure that’s been weighing in on me for a while now. What has me feeling a tad bit upset is those around me who feel like they are entitled to questioning me about what my plans are after school and why there are no immediate plans underway to get me a job. Like I’m not frustrated enough.

    Feeling hopeless isn’t something I’m unfamiliar with. What can I say, I’ve got a history of things never punning out for me, not much of a surprise there… My hope is attached to the part of me that’s a christian, the part of me that believes in God therefore I rely on Him for my hopes and aspirations. I’m not knee deep into religion, I’m not even sure I’m religious but I am spiritual. Even for the most basic of things that I’d require luck, I still sorta run it through God in a verbal and brief way.. ‘Hey, I know I’ve not spoken to you in a while but could you please let me not fail in today’s paper, I’d be really grateful ‘…This will be my words pretty soon when I sit for my finals. I can’t say my mini prayers always go through as I want but I do know they are heard but being the human that I am, I am constantly asking for more and crossing my fingers that miraculously it will pun out as I want it to…

    Weeks later….

    I can’t even recall how long ago it was when I started this precise update and for sure is that I’ve lost my train of thought though not entirely, can’t say I’m any more hopeful than I was while writing this. To bring y’all to where I’m at now, I’m done with school…(cue the applause). Truthfully speaking, I wish that applause was more real than the one that goes on in my head everytime I think of the fact that I’m done with school… but away from that, it doesn’t really matter anymore that nobody recognized that me finishing school was more grand than anything for me, at least in my eyes it was…

    Back to hopelessness, it’s still very much there…probably now more than ever. I’ve felt hopeless in ripples and it’s taken its toll and now it’s more of just a constant feeling that I’ve honestly become accustomed to. At first, I was sure it was gonna take me down the depression express but as I began to feel the wake of the dark season set in, I was like, am I honestly ready to deal with all the bullshit this early into the year, absolutely not. Therefore, I put on my big girl panties and decided I’d just let it roll off my back, cut out the things making me feel hopeless or better yet, assume their existence in my mind. I don’t dispute that I need to figure shit out but I won’t do it on the expense of my mind deteriorating. Truthfully speaking, I’m not ready to start fighting with myself and with whether it’s worth living through. So the hopelessness is still there, just tucked away for a later time…

  • 2021 is the year I say FuCk iT !

    January 5th, 2021

    I’m back, in less than two hours. That’s what writers block does to someone, when you start after such a while, you feel like you need to recap everything. So here I am, in a more calmer state of mind, the speediness I was feeling earlier now more simmered down. I’m grateful for feeling it though, it didn’t give me a chance to over think and overly assess whether what I wanted to write was worthy enough for a blog update. It might not have been my vision for a New Year’s blog update but as I’ve come to decide, I don’t need to drastically change things about myself or how I do things just cause of the notion that the new year automatically means everything new. So I will anticipate to change over the year but will try not get myself worked up over it. (que anxiety,”easier said than done “)A lot like everyone else, I have ambitions for what I wanna achieve in the new year. Sounds very business like but it’s just stuff I wanna do to better myself. Like for starters, I wanna get back onto the tattoo wagon. I’d decided at the end of 2019 that I’d take a break from getting any more tattoos over the year 2020 and I actually pulled that off. I’m guessing it was mainly due to how unexpected the year turned out but regardless, I’m grateful I was able to see that decision through. Therefore now, I feel ready enough to start getting new ink and rocking it. My choice of ink previously has always been more of sentimental & special to me but this time round, I wanna do more spontaneous & adventurous kind of ink. My sister tells me that my ink isn’t truly baddas just because it’s too sentimental and emotional; not that I regret any of it, I just think it would be nice to have a few spontaneous tattoos that don’t have to have a sentiment behind them. The sentiment this time could be cause I thought they were cool and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I guess wanting this for me is part of trying to live a little, at least beyond the confines of what is my normal which in the case of tattoos has always been deep sentimental value. I don’t intend to get ink that will be meaningless or that I just got out of a whim but I do want to get ink that years down the line when one of my kids probably wants to get a tattoo of their own, I can tell them that it’s fine and I can show them mine but still explain why I got it in the first place. Even if the explanation is that I thought it was cool. Props to wanting to be the cool mum.

    Apart from ink, I might just have finally found a solution that will save me from having to go to the salon every other month and won’t need me to shave off my growing hair. I’ve had short hair since 2018 and from around mid 2019 I quit shaving it and began growing it out again. It has been a tedious task since I have what I believe is type 4C hair, fully African. Not the easiest to grow out and definitely not the easiest to tame. I’ve had an Afro since the beginning of last year and it was a lot but I enjoyed embracing my natural hair. It was liberating in a sense. Now though, I recently started plaiting it out which is fun and all apart from the fact that it’s costly which is mainly one of the reasons I shaved to begin with. But now, I just might have figured out how to have the best of both worlds, have plaited hair and not have to shit a ton of money for it. Temporary Dreadlocks. I acknowledge that I’m possibly late at finding out about them but I think it’s extremely advantageous to have them. I weirdly have never taken a liking to dreadlocks whether permanent or temporary before, until I recently saw someone with them and they looked bombass and it got me thinking of whether it would be a good look on me. So now, I want it to be the next new look for me. Temporary dreadlocks go for at most ten months and all they need is renewal which is cost friendly. It’s truly a win win for anyone. I hope to look good in them and be stress free for those months that I’ll have them on. If I like them and look good in them, they might turn out to be my new normal for a long time to come. (p.s for anyone who’d like to get them, they are also a very protective style for your hair which is what we strive for, ladies especially)

    Something else that I feel I’ve had as some kind of resolution for at most two years now is getting over my fear of wearing dresses. I’ve rocked a few dresses over the past two years and I’ve looked good in them, might I say so myself but on most days, my anxiety gets the best of me and my subconscious doesn’t let me leave the house in a dress because I’m extremely self conscious of my body. Being plus size for me is still something I’m learning to embrace; a step at a time. This year though, I truly do want to work on wearing more fitting and pretty dresses; getting my girly girl on. It will take me giving myself quite a few pep talks but I want to get over the fear that everyone is looking at me or that I probably look weird and the shaping of my body isn’t the right one for dresses… It’s a whole lot of insecurities but I wanna overcome them little by little.

    At the end of last year, I got to travel to one of my favourite places in Nairobi which is the giraffe center and it’s always fun for me being outdoors especially in nature where I can interact with wild animals. It brought about the need to travel more which I hope to do as well in this new year. I have no specific place I’d want to travel to but I do want to expand my social life beyond the four walls of my house. With me completing school this year, I will probably have too much time on my hands and I don’t want to spend it all copped up in the house, as much as I may be introverted. I want to at least travel locally to new places and create beautiful memories, even meet new people as scary as that may be for me. You can very much say that I have no social life whatsoever and I wanna work on fixing that.

    To add on to trying to get a social life, it will probably require me to be less of a loner and mingle more with people. As unbelievable as it is for an introvert, I do want to create new relationships with new Genuine people. Highlight on the word genuine because I honestly rather remain friendless than have fake friends with foul intentions. I’m grateful for those who I have but I’d like to broaden my circle a little. This last couple of months has given me a lot to think about on who I consider true friends and those who have entirely just been draining the life out of me. I’ve had occasions of serious disappointment towards friends I thought had my back but revealed they didn’t and it’s disheartening. I don’t have a number of how many friends I’d like to gain, one would be perfect actually. All I want is a real, raw and genuine friend who’ll have my back and I’ll have theirs. Who’s intentions in my life won’t be based on gaining anything in return but one who will care for my well being as I will for theirs. I know it sounds simple but in the real sense it isn’t. Along the same line of thought, I want to be more expressive of my actual feelings and intentions with people. I no longer want people to assume that just cause I hate confrontation, that I’m okay with being a pushover. I don’t want that shit flying with me again. I’ve been a pushover for so long just because I can’t tell someone that they have pissed me off or that they said something to me that didn’t sit well with me… I need to be comfortable with making others uncomfortable as long as they are aware that I won’t be sidelined or made to feel inferior by their opinions of who they think I am or should be. I’ve gotten immensely hurt by both family and friends dishing out their opinions over shit they shouldn’t have opinions over about myself. So what if I have a few scars, don’t mention it to me just because you think highlighting it will make me feel guilty just cause I put them there.(Trigger warning) My mental health isn’t up for discussion if I haven’t brought it up. I don’t want to discuss it with anyone just to feed their curiousity of how it feels to be a cutter. It’s not anyone’s business, regardless of whoever you think you are to me. So no more taking bullshit this year. I know it won’t be easy just coming right out and being brave enough to confront someone when they make me upset or feel uncomfortable but I sure as hell will try making them aware that it isn’t alright and that I don’t like it. This I promise to myself that I will stand up for myself, even if it means loosing friends and family.

    ..and finally, this year I intend to better myself at being a writer. It’s a passion of mine and I want to not care about perfecting it but more of being genuine in it and as raw as I can get. Words are magical and it’s relieving and liberating for me when I write. I have a few personal projects I hope to work on this year in terms of writing and you’ll just have to stick around to see, that’s for anyone who likes or enjoys to read what I write.So there we have it, my ambitions for the new year. Resolutions sounds too technical for me therefore mine are ambitions. I will give it everything I’ve got to achieve most if not all of them. I’ll be sure to keep you on the loop, at least for anyone who feels invested.

  • Speedy New Year

    January 5th, 2021

    My 2021 already feels too speedy for my liking. I already want to get everything done in a matter of minutes and it’s getting beyond me too darn fast. I already want to conquer every fear I’ve ever had in life and become an all new ‘perfect’ person in just a matter of a few days and it’s overwhelming. The anxiety to want to be different just because it’s a new year is honestly too nerve wrecking… Does anyone know why this happens? Why there’s this unimaginable pressure to better yourself, sometimes beyond what is possible and realistic just because a new year has started? Not that it’s bad at all to want to start on a clean slate but why have to wait till the beginning of a new year to become everything you want or do everything you feel like you need to accomplish. For me in this case, it feels like I need to create a whole new me and when I think about it, since the beginning of the new year, I’ve been running on high anxiety levels of becoming this sexy baddas looking, more interesting & intelligent, less of a push over and this unbothered girl all in just a matter of five days. I want to change all that I feel has made me less of who I should be into drastically becoming this amazing person of who I think is the epitome of unstoppable. In moments like this is when I get so far over my head because the inadequacy levels I go through sometimes give me major whiplash. Social media doesn’t make it any easier for me. In the past three weeks, I have deleted and re-download instagram more times than I can recall all because of how much pressure it’s put on me to look and live a certain way that the world considers aesthetic and cool. In a few rational moments, I was able to delete it and see how unrealistic I was becoming wanting to live my life in a way so beyond my means, it was ridiculous… but then, I would go a day in without logging into my account and I’d feel like I was missing out on something great like an epiphany of some kind which would then lead me to re-downloading my account all over again only to see that nothing has changed.

    All this feels very trippy for me. I have this hope that this new year will somewhat turn out better than the previous year but truly speaking what do I know 😕? All I’ve felt deeply in the past five days of the new year is anxiety, anger, pressure and a tad bit mediocre. Anxiety over the fact that maybe I’m just being over my head in hope that things will for some reason be different. I want to change things about myself that I consider weak and being me, I know it won’t be easy to keep myself on track cause again, I’m a high wired anxiety machine, patience isn’t exactly a strong hold of mine. Anger cause I already feel like a pushover with my sister. She seems to have discovered a means to piss me off everyday over little things and it’s honestly unnerving me to the core. Pressure cause damn, I can’t seem to do anything & everything right. I’ve been feeling so pressured on writing here for a while but every time I’m about to start, I get this feeling of inadequacy and that what I have in mind to write isn’t good enough. Even if what I have in mind to blog about sounds solid, there’s still a flicker of doubt over whether it’s at per with what I consider a good blog update. I honestly can’t deal with this pressures anymore…Mediocre cause I considerably think it’s cliche for me to want to be like those people on social who’s lives seem so put together and fun. Let’s just say I consider myself better than being drawn to what’s on the surface which is entirely just what social media portrays, just what’s on the face value…clearly, I’m not all immune to a bit of mediocrity as it seems. It’s all just too much, feeling all this…makes me want to scream so loud and get it off my chest.

    I truly didn’t intend for my first blog update of the year to be a rant about how I seem to have absolutely no inkling of control over myself. It’s sad really 😅 but I do believe I still have 360 days or so to pull myself together and calm the fuck down. I know that I won’t change shit about myself and my situations all in a span of a day or a week, my anxiety may not know it but I sure as hell do. Therefore, I will calm down, and organize myself ( can’t believe I’m shrink’ng myself) and see what I can work on immediately and what I can’t change. I’m possibly aware that I won’t become instagram pretty all in a matter of a few weeks, at least I don’t think I can but I can hope to become pretty enough for myself and to remember that it doesn’t matter to the world who I really am. I just need to know what is good about myself and believe it even if the rest of the world doesn’t. (p.s self confidence and self love are still things I’m trying to get a hang of, not easy just so you know)

    So my advice to anyone reading this, it maybe a new year but calm down, it doesn’t have to automatically mean a new version of you, the current version of yourself might just be all you need. Happy New Year folks.

  • A letter to the Girl who should Be.

    November 25th, 2020

    Just like everything else I do different, this isn’t a conventional letter to you. It may as well be an apology for I feel I should be sorry for the failed attempt to be you, to attain the likes of you. I should be You but I sadly haven’t achieved that yet. It’s all but a hope that some day I will.

    Like a ripple in still waters, you are a blur to my reflection. Tucked behind the walls of my mind, entirely unknown to anyone. Still very much just a concept of who I should be and not what I am. You are intertwined with my dreams & hopes of who I wish I could become. Like a living torment, you are a just but a vision of who I wish I wasn’t scared to become. I easily get lost in merely just envisioning what it’d be like to exist as you.

    You’re the girl who should be, and not me. I feel like I owe you an apology for not fulfilling you as my potential. I’m sorry for my failed attempts to grow into you. You deserve to be a whole lot better than everything I’ve made you out to be to the world. Life for you should never have to feel like a bargain for everything. A bargain with God, a bargain for love & attention or even a bargain with me not to possibly destroy what’s left of me. You deserve to feel deserving of everything great and at the back of my mind, I know we are deserving, I’ve just never felt ready to fight for those great things for myself. You deserve better than a body that reeks of fear. Like a permanent stench, it’s stuck to me. It’s what has grown so much, enough to never bring you into exsistence. I apologize for all its done is hold me back from actualizing into the girl who should be and not the girl that is. The fear of rejection has stopped me from becoming you; a loving wild child, with no inhibitions or stresses over things beyond her control. It’s this same fear that has me willing to take unrequited love from just about anyone. I know we deserve better than that…a whole lot better.

    God knows you deserve to be…. You deserve to live a life that doesn’t hold you back from feeling happy and not just the kind of happiness that is with everyone else. You deserve the out of this world kind of happiness that pours out of your soul in torrents. You deserve to hear yourself say the word Happy without it weighing heavy on your conscious.

    Like I said, this letter is a lot more of an apology, for you deserve better. You deserve more than the ungraceful hands that have tainted the most intimate parts of our body. I have no defense for that fault to our body that instead should have known nothing less than adoration & glorification. I apologize for my reckless need to feel a sense of intimacy & validation, especially from all the wrong people. You deserve a skin not marred by my self inflicted scars… A conscious mind loving enough to know it doesn’t need to feel pain to feel alive. You deserve the kind of flaws viewed as beautiful to the world where one is capable of falling in love with you just cause of those said flaws. Your spirit should be filled with will & purpose… not one that takes time to break itself down at every waking chance it gets. You deserve a spirit so unforgiving and unrelenting at achiving everything it wants and desires. One willing to take risks and venture into terrifyingly exhilarating fields.

    I can’t ascertain if this letter expresses a dime of how much I wish things were different and that you were here rather than me. To the girl who should be, you deserve more than just a meager letter from me, you deserve a step at proving myself worthy of becoming You. I’m sorry I’m not sure how to achieve everything that you deserve but all I can do now is hope to meet you somewhere along the way in our journey. The least I can hope for is that I’ve not entirely ruined the transition of becoming you. That despite everything, there’s still a chance for me to correct and prove myself worthy to bring you into existence without a doubt.

    Finally, I need you to know that I don’t expect perfection from you. I’m not looking into becoming perfect or prime & proper. All I hope to achieve is to bring you into being someone I can be proud of. Someone not driven by fear or bargain but one willing to fight for their spot in the world. One filled with everything self love. I may not have that now, just cause you’re yet to actualize but I can all but hope to actualize you as myself & feel worthy of it.

  • What now? 🚬

    November 18th, 2020

    What now? You’re probably wondering what else about my depressing life I’ve unearthed…and to answer that question, there’s nothing new really. I truly sometimes hate that the best I’ve always got to give to anyone who reads my posts is entirely centered on my depressive life cycle. I truly hate that and I hope it’s a consolation to you knowing that I don’t like always being a Debbie Downer. I find it extremely hard to write anything general based on my life. Like currently, I’ve got a ton of things I could vent about concerning nothing depressive but I have no idea where I’d even start or how I’d express those piled up thoughts & feelings together. I never feel like those thoughts are what trigger my niche for writing. It’s always gotta be something dramatically sad. I guess that’s entirely just what sums up my life…

    What now seems like the perfect question right now. For me and for anyone wondering what else this sad’ist has come up with. For me, I’m asking this question cause I very well don’t know what to do now… what’s next. You may be wondering what’s next from what; what next after a long eight months of being in a depressed state. I’ve said it before that it feels a lot like waking up from a hibernation period. So here I am, a month in from a long period of exhausting ‘slumber’ …I’m reeling from quite a few new experiences from the past couple of months, not sure what to do with myself, I’m not as accustomed to feeling normal. Normal for me in this case is everything non suicidal, non chaotic, nothing self harm, non overwhelming… Make no mistake, I’m not complaining about feeling better from all that. It’s a break and I’m glad that I’m not mentally sinking. Though, I’m not delusional enough to think that this feeling will last forever, nah, depression doesn’t work like that just in case you don’t know. It’s taking a break, and just like every break, it eventually comes to an end.

    Why does it feel this hard rolling back to this mind space, away from the darkness & turmoil ? I’ve done it before, two years in a row I’ve gone through this. Gone through a space of depression for a couple months and towards the end of the year, I ween off it like waking up from a long exhausting sleep. I expect myself to fall back into routine and tackle life as it comes. I’m no longer depressed after all, right? Then what’s so damn different about this time round? Why I’m I so darn tired, why don’t I like it as much, the aspect of being back to ‘normal’ ? Why is it that assimilating back to my own life is so hard…

    ..Or maybe, it could be cause I’m having to pick up the pieces of the tarnished person I was in those last eight months. Maybe it’s cause I’m having to deal with the judgement from others around me who seemed to have spent their time better than I did. For sure spending time finding ways to make short change was way better than popping pills & slashing wrist…yeah. Maybe it’s cause of the overwhelming guilt & shame I’m having to feel for not trying hard enough to be a stronger person… Jeez, how hard could it be to get myself out of sadness. I ask myself that every single day too. Pardon me for not acknowledging that struggling mentally is a ‘comfort zone’ which isn’t a good enough reason for why I never tried harder or why I never came up with ways to get myself a little bit of money … I’m ‘sorry’ that I was working on staying alive rather than making pocket change.

    Being caught in this rift of shame makes it even harder for me to convince myself into believing that it’s not my fault that those last months were hard for me. That if things had been different, I’d have done more for myself. I already feel conflicted as it about what exactly is wrong with me, I honestly don’t need anyone else pushing it down my throat that I don’t try hard enough.

    So here I am, clueless, frustrated and still not good enough for the world. In no place or time do I seem to be doing the right thing so honestly why start now… All I’ve been having all year long is a pity party for dear old me, well guess what, I’m tired of that too. It’s been so tiresome for me to try act normal that I even picked up smoking. I’ve been holding off on saying this so I don’t continue doing everything wrong in my life but guess what, this girl needs to quit caring. I’ve pondered over the thought of smoking cigarettes for a while now actually, I’d thought I’d replace ripping open my wrist with a more calmer, less bloody and more slower towards death kind of way. Best part about it, I like it. Couldn’t wait to simply admit that but truthfully speaking, that shit is so relaxing, makes me feel like a pretty butterfly.. Maybe not pretty, more like a floating butterfly. Been told that it’s addictive and I see why. I’ve smoked pot before but it doesn’t really do much for me besides make me loopy. With a cigarette, I’m just mild. I’ve never had a poison before, but I think I might just have found myself one. I’ll actually keep you posted on how smoking is going for me. I’ve not had something excite me in a long while and this does.

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