Daddy's Young Lady – Page 5 – Little Girl At Heart

Tainted on a ‘normal’ world canvas.

November 8th, 2020

I’ve always sorta prided myself over being a ‘different’ depressive. At the beginning when I learned that the cloud of sadness I walked around with wasn’t meant to be a part of me and that it was a shadowy black ghost by the name depression, I felt a part of a similar community. A community of depressives who struggled understanding why everything seemed to mean nothing to them. That was three years ago. Now, I lost myself in the midst of that crowd and became an alien even among those I’d considered my ‘flock’.

Everything has a stereotype, this inclusive of depressives. What would be considered as stereotypical characteristics of any kind of depressive is; the inability to get out of bed, the overwhelming turbulence of sadness, the need to cry everytime, the overwhelming urge to be alone, being so caught up in one’s mind, in every sense possible and the list is endless… I’d be arrogant enough to believe that my readers can tick off what among those characteristics I fall under from what they’ve read from my writing in previous post over the years but I can’t truly afford to feel arrogant right now. In the year 2018, when I first projected my pain to the world through writing, I did experience the wrenching difficulty of getting out of bed. It’s not a nice feeling if I may say so myself. It’s exhausting but what’s more toll taking is trying to get out of the bed exhaustion. It’s a lot like a tag of war, between will & exhaustion. Not only does your body loose any sense of need to leave your bed in the day but your mind doesn’t conjure any reason valid enough besides maybe to use the toilet. In my case now, I’ve escalated on the ladder of a depressive and being stuck in bed just doesn’t happen as less willingly as before. I do spend most of my time in bed but not out of complete mental drain but more as the only secure, secluded & silent place I have.

Despite my progress in pain, the sadness has to be the most permanent aspect of feeling anything depressive. It never leaves. I can’t express that any further than with the fact that its always there, in the good times, in the quiet times but especially in the bad times, it escalates. It clouds everything & tints every little ray of light that could be trying to penetrate through to you. When it comes to crying, from a stereotypical point of view, it seems normal for a depressed person to cry but it’s never been for me at least. I’ve never been one to cry, and I still don’t cry now… only maybe to Michael Bolton on the occasion of my vulnerability. And finally, I’ve withdrawn & still withdraw now more than ever before. At the start, I was naive to think that being vocal about what I was feeling was going to be my saving grace but it turned out that most people don’t truly care. At least not until their so called ‘advice’ seems not to work for you and you are still immensely unhappy. You just end up looking more of annoying to those who aren’t in your shoes. They often times can’t wrap their minds over why anyone would be stuck at feeling like shit and as a depressive, you’re caught between hating them for judging you & also trying to prove to them that your choice in the case of feeling depression quit mattering ages ago.

And now to make sense of where all this is steming from. I’ve gotta admit, there is still a lot of unearthed reasons entirely unknown to me of why I feel the way I do in my daily life. My self awareness radar is deeply unknown to me. On most days, I can’t tell what’s real in my head and what’s not. What’s logical and what’s absolutely illogical. What’s part of being Dawn and what’s part of my attached illness. Just thinking about all those unknowns is mind paining. Until recently, I’ve never truly wanted to acknowledge my lack of ‘direction’ in life. I’m in my last semester of college and I have absolutely no idea what I want to do after I’m done with my diploma. My peers seem to be flourishing and now this imaginary pressure has landed on my shoulders that is pushing for me to have to think further than just a few hours from now. Trying to justify to anyone that I’m trying to take it a damn day at a time and not a month from now, comes off to everyone else like a petty excuse.. and what makes this even more gut wrenching is that I’m beginning to feel like it might just be exactly as they are seeing it, just a petty excuse.

Feeling this conflicted isn’t fun for me. I don’t feel it lightly or regard it as something normal. Nothing about me has ever fit in the spectrum of normal. I don’t want to feel like I need to defend myself to everyone on why I don’t have my shit together. I don’t even know what it means to me for me to have my shit together so all this just makes me want to hide. Yesterday it made me want to die. I fight to never feel the need to die cause I might not have a visionary future like everyone else but I do have a family that I know would feel devastated if I died from my own hands. Fighting feeling suicidal is probably the greatest effort I’ve had to put into anything in my life. I fight to live for everything & everyone else but I still can’t seem to do it for myself. I don’t want to feel like I have no purpose in life cause it will be just a matter of time before that’s not just a thought but more of a replayed tune in my head and eventually, nothing will be worth trying for anymore.

I know that the world isn’t waiting for me to start living or to fit in with everyone. I may not match everyone’s energy at being a ‘normal human ‘ but I’m trying. I’m not glad that the world doesn’t give time outs, it would surely be a whole lot more easier if it did. But I’m trying, I’m trying to find reason to live, even when I’ve lost will within myself to do so.

P. S This entry is a jumble of too many thoughts and i feel like I haven’t made a lot of sense therefore if I truly do apologize if my none train of thought isn’t appealing to anyone who reads this. I shouldn’t care but I’m me, I care always and I care too much. Bear with me.

From your cool depressive,

Daddy’s Young Lady.
..fat old Lady

November 1st, 2020

Today I’m gonna go straight in cause I don’t wanna loose my drift or train of thought. So I truly had an eventful past week. Eventful in that I got called fat, old and had an anxiety attack all in a span of a couple days. I can definitely say I was on a roll. Sadly, not the good kind. So to break it down for you, I’m back to school after a long eight months of being out of it.. both literally & figuratively. I won’t go into the details of the reasons why school’s back in session, its probably happening all over the world so you can take a guess on why I had to resume. It’s my last semester in college and boy am I glad. School is just one of the things that have never ever appealed to me. Its always been a circumstantial issue for me, never voluntary. If I may say so myself, I’ve hated school since I was in daycare. Anything that required me to get out of the house for an entire day in such an excruciatingly pressurized experience, never did suit me.

So yeah, back to reopening school. It being my last semester, means that I’ve got my major final exam right around the corner and it entails a project that I had already started on at the beginning of the year in my first semester. But before I even get to that, let me bring you into things in a more chronological manner. Day one was on Wednesday and I started off my term by sitting for exams that had been prior cut short right at the beginning due to the surge of covid so it meant that right after school opened, we’d resume our exams which explains why I was sitting for a paper on my first day back. Wednesday morning, I gracefully arrive in class, somewhat set to sit for my first paper and since it had been a while since my classmates had seen each other, they was already a buzz in the air of people catching up on how they’ve been. Your girl here, quiet & in her element of silence & seclusion only said hi when greeted first. I’m not what one would consider approachable to my peers, I just rather not have people be comfortable airing their lives or opinions to me cause I’ll probably drift off somewhere in my mind but I guess due to the prolonged period of absence, a classmate of mine whom to be specific I’m not so fond of, came over to my seat and was blatantly open enough to tell me how “big” I had grown and further went ahead to ask me what exactly had I been eating over that period out of school. I honestly truly try never to let such comments and snide remarks get to me on most days but this just hit a nerve. She wasn’t done though, oh no! While walking away to her seat she finalized her opinion of how ‘old looking ‘ I’ve become…. Now this just threw me off a loop and I just smiled and shrugged it off.

Her words stayed with me. It got to me. Maybe it was the way she said it or the snide tone behind her words that struck a nerve. Whichever it was, it warranted a punch to her throat. For those who may not be aware, I’m meek on the outside but I’m very violent on the inside, especially when it comes to being vengeful. It wasn’t her assumption of that I probably ate a lot over the period I was out of school that ticked me off, it was her stupidity & insensitivity in believing I cared of what she thought of me. “For your information, Joan, the extra weight on me is from the different amounts and types of antidepressants I’ve had to be on to stay alive, you insensitive piece of shit “. It doesn’t matter if she was aware of why I am bigger than she last left me, she should have kept her two cents to herself cause she unconsciously planted an insecurity I didn’t need on my first day back. Weirdly enough, she wasn’t the only one daft enough to make that comment to me, a few other girls in my class who I might mention are nothing more than just classmates, thought it was in their place to tell me about how big I’ve become. I’m gonna leave this at that cause it truly isn’t my responsibility to coach anyone on being sensitive. It’s a conscious effort from the mind, clearly not everyone has it.

Right now, the pressure is high in school and I don’t work well under pressure. I get anxious and it topples down from there rendering me completely in a state of panic. Besides my exams, I’ve got a back log of work that I should probably have been done with but didn’t get around to completing, ie my project. After a day of being back in town, I enquired from a few school mates on where they were at in their projects and most of them are done. That and learning of it’s due date being sooner than I expected, put me in a complete state of anxiety. It made feel cornered and I just wanted to hide back in my bedroom at home where it’s been my safe haven. I didn’t think being depressed would be reason valid enough to explain why I never got around to completing my project which carries part of my exams points for my final exam. My productivity was pretty much non existent ; I could only basically handle waking up and trying to live through the day but despite being aware of this, I still feel like I failed at trying to do anything productive. When I told my sister about how I was panicking and was just about to quit school and run away, she asked me about the days when I wasn’t as depressed, and why I didn’t work on it on those days. Truthfully speaking, that just aggravated my guilt on how unmotivated I was to do anything. It sure didn’t help with the anxiety, it pretty much heightened it.

For the past one month or so, I’ve been on a quest to get the right diagnosis for what exactly ails me. I’m not advocating for self prognosis. It isn’t right but for my case, all I’ve felt and still feel is helplessness when it comes to not having a concrete understanding of what happens to me when I go into a depressive state of mind. My mind has conjured everything and anything under the sun to try make sense of what goes wrong but even with my search for an answer, I still intend to get a professional psychiatrical opinion and evaluation. Besides wanting to know what goes wrong, I want to finally have the validity of reason to explain why certain things for me are more difficult to either achieve or to stop. It is frustrating not feeling valid even in turmoil and darkness. It begs the question of how do I prove to the world that I don’t always have an answer for what happens to me or for why I do or feel or react to things in a certain way. How do I prove that it’s not just all in my head and that there’s a messed up reason for the things that happen. I know I shouldn’t try to prove it to anyone, I owe it to no one. I know it’s an illness but I need the world around me not to look at me like some narcissistic cynic who slits her wrist for pleasure. I don’t know if I’m making sense anymore, or at all.

So here I am, still trying to calm down from the anxiety and formulate a plan on how to start working again on my project in a more clear mind. So that’s been my eventful first week back in school, I’m the fat old lady with anxiety 😊…

P. S I took this cute photos of myself today cause I felt like I’ve not seen myself remotely look pretty in forever so I’m going to share this with you just cause I think they are kinda cute.😄
Memoirs & Michael Bolton..

October 15th, 2020

I’m slightly certain I’ve probably thrown y’all off a loop with the title of today’s entry but you’ll understand it in just a few. Just to throw it out there, today’s entry is more on the light noted side so I want to in my own way give a heads up that anyone reading this, read it in a light spirit. I acknowledge that most times I write some pretty heavy stuff & I truly wish I had more ‘rainbows & unicorns’ to spew about but at the same time, I rather be real & honest, despite however unhappy it comes off…

Crying is hard guys… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before that crying doesn’t come easy for me. I guess I don’t easily know how to tap into the part of myself that should express itself through tears cause if I sure did, I’d have a field day with that. On the few occasions where I do cry, it is a forced effort cause man, 🙆🏽 does it take a lot to get the tears rolling.. but in recent events, I cried in the comfort of my bed, in the midst of the dark and with Michael Bolton blasting through my ears singing to … “said I loved you, but I lied… “. Yes, it took me listening to old school music by Michael Bolton, Whitney Houston’s count on me with CeCe Winans, Lean on me by Bill Withers and N -Sync’s This I promise to finally choke up the tears …. Truth be told, I was crying for nothing and everything all together. I don’t exactly recall feeling forlorn that night but in those wee hours of the morning, listening to that music put me in such a vulnerable state of mind and emotion, I didn’t know what else to do other than just force out the lump that was lodged in my throat till all that came out were tears rolling down my cheeks. Like I said, tears for me feel a lot like a closed dam that’s impenetrable on most days. It was relieving ugly crying in my sheets and trying to swallow the whimpers that kept trying to get out. Worse than crying for me would be crying infront of anyone or anyone finding out I’m crying. That’s sadly where I draw the line when it comes to the few times when I do cry. Old school music for me has always been so soothing, I can’t begin to explain how much it calms me down. I love the groove and the mood it puts me in. I guess I got my love for it from all the years I heard my mum sing in the kitchen while cooking dinner for us as kids or when she was washing dishes. I greatly appreciate those memories cause that connection and love she had for that kind of music is something I believe she passed down to me. I guess when you combine all that with the overwhelming turbulence that’s my day to day living, it was enough reason to bring tears to my eyes.

So apart from the late night tears , I can say with absolute definition that I’m officially back to reading on a constant and God had I missed it. I’m not sure if I’d mentioned it before but I’d taken a forced leave from reading since the app I used to read from began charging and it became a lot of work to access it so it sorta put my reading on hold. It sucked cause reading is fundamental to me. It’s an escape, it’s a comfort, it’s a friend & a whole lot more for me. I can actually say this with certainty that since I started reading again, it’s improved a lot of my mental state, it serves as a great distraction from a lot of the forlorn feelings I get. So with finally being back to reading through out my day, I got a sense of curiosity over reading both fictional & non-fictional based books that center mainly on mental health. I guess with how my past couple months has been for me alongside how lonely and isolating the feeling of immense sadness has been, I wanted to explore the same feeling but from different minds. Probably among the fewer best decisions I’ve made in a while.

Just like with a lot of other things, the feeling of secrecy along with protection is one I get a lot with things that matter to me. The books that I’ve read and loved become very scared & dear to me. I’ve expressed before that I’ve felt something remotely similar that resembles possession towards my depression and a long comes this need to sorta hold it tight for myself, like a shield … not exactly sure why I feel like that but, the feeling is very much a like with how I am towards books that leave a mark on me. But despite this feeling of possession, I wanna share one or maybe two of the books that I’ve truly gotten the chance to fall in love with. Books that I’ve derived such a connection from especially with a lot of how it feels when caught in the throes of depression. My current favourite has to be one book by an author called Sally Brampton who wrote a memoir on depression called Shoot the damn dog. For starters when I started reading books based on mental health, I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic on reading biographies or memoirs. I didn’t want to necessarily read about people’s actual encounters with depression or any other mental illness so I stuck to fiction. It felt like a safe bet at the time to read what others had created but not necessarily experienced themselves. Shoot the damn dog is definitely a book I’d recommend to anyone who’s experienced depression, especially major depression. It brings you into the world of the author who goes through life dealing with this ‘monster’ that’s major depression in a time that wasn’t all too accepting of such a different and unpleasant trauma. I don’t want to go all in on what the book is about, just in case anyone who reads this wants to read the book but I will leave you with one of the many countless statements that stayed with me through out reading this book. ” I don’t believe that confronting an illness is necessarily an act of courage. The stigma surrounding depression just makes it seem that way. “

So where am I currently in terms of my mental spectrum..? I feel as if I’m waking up from hibernation; deep slumber. I’m groggy, I’m confused & trying to get a bearing of what my emotions are and how to calm the raging flow of clustered thoughts. That’s where I am. I know it’s not an entirely sensible painted picture of what I wish I could explain better as what I think is my state of mind but it definitely feels a lot like waking up. In this case, I’m waking up from the last couple of months of depressive episodes, dark thoughts, anxiety prone emotions & escalated self harm. That’s the sleepy fog I’m waking up from. So try envision how you wake up after a very long night’s sleep. Trying to gain a bearing of where you are, what you are feeling and trying to regain coherent thoughts flowing through your mind . I can’t ascertain that I’m not entirely out of the gutter mentally, but I do feel like I have a better chance at control over where my train of thought is and what I can detect as triggers for me. Frankly speaking, I was sure I’d be in the confines of depression all through till next year, but I guess with the resumption of school, I needed to really try gain a bearing for myself if I am to make it through the next two months in school for a semester.

Now with school starting in the next two weeks, I for sure don’t feel ready to tackle it. At all. I can say with enough conviction that a lot has changed about myself and I’m not sure how easily I can go back to masking my struggles like I did prior. One of my biggest concerns being that my cut scars are very visible, more prominent than the last time I was in school. I’m self conscious about them and anyone else seeing them or how they may react to them. I know I’m not ready to let that particular aspect of my struggle be something that I’m open to discussing with anyone who already doesn’t know about them. I’m naturally withdrawn from people but this time round, I feel like I have reasons enough to be consciously withdrawn from everyone around me, especially in school. I truly just want to be invisible for this next semester, hopefully, it will be my last. The fear of stigma is very much present for me especially since I’ve been on the receiving end of it first hand & in its self, it serves as a trigger for me. So if I intend to try survive school like a remotely normal human being, I need to not put myself in a position to get triggered. It’s frustrating as it is that I have to leave the confines of my home for school. I was fine hiding from the world and immersing myself in my books. That, I was comfortable doing for the rest of the year but I guess we can’t always get what we want. Wish me luck.
The run down…

September 24th, 2020

Hello.. To no one in particular.. It’s been a while. At least for me it feels like its been a long while. Thought I’d take a well deserved time out from writing cause for the longest I didn’t feel like I was truly letting out my thoughts and feelings as candidly as I had hoped too…not that I’m sure of myself as of now on whether this will be as articulate and precise as I want it to be. Like always, I have no sense of direction with what I’m writing right now but sometimes it’s just therapeutic for me to kinda go with the flow & let free of whatever that is swirling through my mind. For starters, it’s been quite the chaotic last couple months of my life. Calling it a rollercoaster sometimes doesn’t cut it, it doesn’t fully delve into just how exhausting & frustrating the cycle that is my mental state seems to get sometimes, if not all the time. I’ve felt everything and nothing all at the same time. Every inch of me knows chaos & turmoil so personally that I can’t seem to pick out the difference between the two anymore . I’ve felt the lose of bits of myself and the slow gradual process of becoming empty inside & hollow in different fractions through time. I truly wish I wasn’t here right now writing about my misery. I wish my life had some remote sense of comfort, colour, happiness & normalcy that I’d be able to truthfully share with the world without having to fall back into the subject of my battles with myself.In the midst of all that whirlwind, I have had moments whereby I have felt like I’ve had some kind of slow revelation. This being the days where I’ve felt okay, I’ve felt calm and collected in some form. But that’s just it, for a moment.. It kinda never last long enough for me to revel in that moment of peace because I’m quick to fall back into the state of panic of whether it’s just a matter of time before I loose myself again. I can’t seem to even cut myself a bit of slack. That’s the cue for my frustrations. The back and forth of my thoughts that are trying to convince themselves that they can get out of that depressive state still in the midst of the voice at the back of my mind that reminds me that I’m on the train to loony ville.This year round, every bit of feeling has felt more intense & deliberately prolonged than before. Each struggle felt aggravated & escalated more than ever before which in turn felt like I was unlocking an entirely whole new level of depression that I clearly had never experienced before. This level of pain reared its ugly head and didn’t mince it’s presence ; it was there and it wasn’t going anywhere . (Trigger Warning). In previous blog updates I have mentioned of my struggle with self harm and how much I latch onto it as a pain relief from my mental & emotional turmoil. That too escalated quick & fast and I was loosing grip of everything and relying on it nearly as often as countless times a day. It got so bad, I began to worry that I was running out of space to cut since I’d ripped up most of my wrist. I was in so much emotional pain I didn’t know what else to do… but a conscious part of me knew that if I didn’t seek some form of help, I was going to do irreversible damage that I’d have no way to get out of. I soon had to start on therapy which went on for a while. I got my first set of antidepressants and they were hard. It was a real adjustment for me in all aspects, physically, emotionally & mentally. I was going through it, that’s the only way I can express how grand the change was for me. It took time for me to feel like any positive change was happening and through it I got to feel something that had never been a sitting thought in my head but now seemed to swirl quite a few times through my mind. What most people don’t realize is that in not all cases does self harm mean that one’s end game is them taking their own lives. I for one never did it to die. In its own twisted way, it stuck as a reminder that I was still alive, that I wasn’t entirely consumed by my demons.Feeling suicidal for me was a shame I couldn’t bring myself to admit to anyone; that it was actually a thought in my mind. I for one didn’t want to raise any alarm over it cause I believed I was still strong enough to at least never actualize it. I kept repeating it to myself that I am too much of a coward to take my own life and that I’d never want to be the cause of such pain to my loved ones . What I didn’t realize is that, it was alarm enough to just think about what suicide would be like for me. Whether it would finally be peaceful & quiet. I began to feel unfazed by my self harm and it became more than just my norm, it became an addiction. This has to be the first time I’m admitting that to anyone apart from myself. It quit being a coping mechanism for me and it became a latch for whenever my mood would fluctuate, whenever I’d think about it, I’d want to simply actualize it just cause I could & just cause it made me feel better in its own way. I knew I should have been scared to be this unfazed and unbothered by it but a part of me still isn’t, till date. This went as far as consciously triggering myself sometimes so I’d convince my mind that I wasn’t in a calm state and that gave me reason enough to actualize the thought of cutting myself. This is hard to admit to myself and to anyone who’ll read this. Currently, that’s my greatest battle right now, self harming over every little shift that takes place in my mind. It makes me feel sadistic, crazy ,demented and mentally damaged. I’m not proud of it.So that’s the much of a rundown of my time, of what my life has been for the last couple months. I truly didn’t intend to write, at least until I was sure I wouldn’t be writing about how messed up my life is. I actually wanted to express something less depressive, something less exhausting, something less sad… but I guess, that’ll have to wait for a while till I can get the right treatment for my mental struggles. I often wish that I could get an actual diagnosis over what it is exactly that’s the root cause for the shifts and mental instability that seems to happen a lot to me. It’s my next hope that I can finally get a treatment for what specifically is ailing my mind. I’m hanging in there. I’m grateful for those who look out for me. I genuinely wouldn’t be here without some of the people in my life… and I hope that after all this is done and I’m able to finally get a sense of mental structure and stability, I’ll be able to be that sense of support to someone else who’ll need it at that time.
Unsettling Hope..

August 5th, 2020

I truly applaud anyone who can maintain even just a fraction of themselves when battling depression. Just watched this video of a lady on her YouTube channel talking about how it’s been tough on her recently and she’s been feeling like she’s uncertain of who she is anymore. I gotta give it to her though, she looks so put together & preppy, at least from my frontal view of her… But even on a general note, it’s mad impressive how anyone who’s self aware of their depression could have the ability to maintain themselves with acts as simple as having their hair done or having make up on & dressing up. As for other cases, like myself, I can hardly gather myself enough to take a shower on most days, let alone worry about my hair. I’ve not looked ‘picture perfect’ for myself or anyone else for about four months now. I’m what you’d call a slob and honestly, I’ve got no motivation to change that. I think it’s enough that I get to have to live through each day only to have it repeat itself on the very next day. That’s all the motivation I got, at least for now it’s all the motivation I need.I’d take breaking down & crumbling over whatever it is I’m feeling right now. Maybe finally breaking would force out my recovery process . I’d take breaking down over this void feeling inside me. I can feel every little inch of me die a little each day. The unsettling feeling in my gut that just won’t let me live enough to have the will to fight. I’m not entirely sure what I’m fighting for anymore. That’s just the battle, fighting against myself over a person I’m no longer sure I recognize anymore.But maybe there’s hope.. Even though I may not fully see it now, I’ll fight to feel it. I’ve been off therapy for a month now cause I traveled home. I know I need to get back on the therapy wagon therefore I called my therapist earlier today and she gave me the small glimmer of hope I’m feeling right now. I suppose her reassurance that she’s still with me through this was well needed and I’m grateful for it. I’ve not felt reassured over anything for a while now therefore I relish the new found feeling. I wish I had the right words to explain to anyone how hard it is to see hope when all there is around you is darkness. I envy those who’ve gone through depression & mental struggles and have stood up to say they beat it. I can only assume it took effort to get to such a position. I compromise myself a lot when it comes to having any kind of hope over anything in my life. Truth be told, I beat myself down more than any depression does.I’m a compilation of zero to no self esteem which when I think about, has been me for all my life. I don’t know what it’d be like to stare at myself in the mirror & truly appreciate the reflection staring back at me. I have always subconsciously been aware that my effort to stand out to anyone or even to myself has been on a bare minimum. I’ve always been okay being at the back & hidden from the world cause it’s always felt safer for me. I’ve always been behind this wall where letting anyone in has always been close to impossible. It’s not until recently that I got to learn that I shouldn’t be comfortable being in the back hiding. My therapist brought it to my attention that there could be a lot more of myself that I haven’t given the chance to exist. A lot more that could mean better & greater than all I have ever been and known. Maybe despite everything, I still have a shot at more than just being alive.
Loosing..

August 4th, 2020

I’ll try keep this as short as I can cause honestly, I don’t know where I’m going with this…I just know that I’m in the middle of chaos that I need to find a way or a means out of. When I feel like I’ve probably felt enough in conjunction to how low my mental struggles can take me, I’m reminded that I’m falling into a bottomless pit. Honestly, I’m at a war and I can’t ascertain to whether I’m winning or losing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it always feels like I’m drowning but the difference this time round is that something keeps pushing me further down into the water ; I’m suffocating on the chaos that’s raging in me. I’m battling as it is to simply put to words how much turmoil I’m feeling but I feel like the harder I try to emerge out of it, the harder it is getting for me to breathe…like I’m having a panic attack but nobody else can see it cause it’s behind my eyes. Even as I write this, my breathing is laboured & I honestly just wish I could scream out the turmoil. The scariest thing out of all of this, I don’t know why I’m drowning…Tonight I’d have stopped the chaos, even if it’s just for a little while. I wanted to, I had every intention to. Sadly, in the only way I know how. Depression for me is taking an entirely new height..one I’m not sure I’ve been to before. One that’s paralyzing and crippling; I don’t know how to calm the hell that is coursing through me. I feel psychotic cause the world around seems entirely oblivious to the war that’s waging in my mind. I’m a breathing shell of the person I’m meant to be. I wanted to hurt myself, it was the plan a few minutes ago but somewhere along the line, I’m convinced it truly won’t make a difference. I no longer seek pity or remorse over the fact that I cope the way I do. Self harm keeps me more alive than I can attest to. It may be just another slash to my wrist or another scar to the collection but it’s sadly how chaos has me surviving. I don’t want to die but my spirit might not be strong enough to pull through this battle. It’s petrifying to think that there just might not be a way out of this. If I could choose death tonight, it would be outta of the utter helplessness that is coursing through me at this very moment. The feeling of having no hope whatsoever is like a blanket wrapped tightly around me to the point of slowly suffocating every bit of air inside me. I want to pick myself up from this shackles tied around my mind, I just truly don’t know if I’m strong enough to break free. Where would I even start? My spirit feels a lot like its been trampled over, fully decimated. I’ve got no hope & will left in me. The light in me is slowly dwindling. Your probably wondering why can’t I ask for help. It’s hard to see hope from others when it’s pretty non existent in yourself. Not to sound ungrateful but I don’t believe there’s much anyone could do for me anymore. At least not until I find strong enough will to help me back up & help myself fight for my better state of mind.
Conflicted simplicity… 🌪

July 29th, 2020

So a minute or so ago, I was thinking that maybe it would be a cool idea if everytime I wrote a post, I should probably tell y’all a random thing about myself. Not sure if it’ll reduce the mystery around me 😅, that’s if it’s at all existent…I could be very well flattering myself here but anyways. The said random fact that brought this idea to mind is that my favourite ice cream is plain vanilla. I understand that most people go crazy with their ice cream flavours & toppings but I’ve never really seen the appeal to having one too many flavours all meshed in my mouth. My taste buds wouldn’t like the confusion of it. I’ve actually always taken a secret pride in loving plain vanilla. It’ll probably sounds silly but the reason for my ice cream preference is cause I’ve always perceived myself as a simplistic person hence my reason for liking a singular type & taste of ice cream. I probably sound extremely corny & cliché saying that so I’m gonna stop there with my not so impressive personal facts about ice cream.. 😅I feel obligated to tell you my readers that I have been relatively in a balance for the last couple days which is a good thing, I think. This meaning that I’ve felt what I’d call a resemblance of normalcy which I haven’t had for over four months now. I take regard of this feeling of obligation cause this is the same platform where I’ve released every bit of my depression and pain out to the world. My actual world may not see it as clearly as I express it here, in my blog, therefore anyone who has ever taken their time to read & have a sense of concern over my mental health is deserving to know when my mind is striving to regain a sense of peace.Not to rain on my own parade but I am so conflicted on what to feel about my new found sense of normalcy… where my days aren’t racked by depression, self harm & possible suicide ideation. The sense of normalcy being, I may not be at the very perfect place in my mind but I can live through a day without having to wanna rip myself apart. I’m conflicted over whether to feel happy or scared shitless over the fact that I’m no longer fully immersed in my own little dark bubble which has been home for me for so long. In less complicated words, I don’t know if feeling better is a good thing or a bad thing. I at first thought that the reason I wasn’t acknowledging how different I was beginning to feel was because I didn’t want to jinx it but now I’m no longer sure if that’s a convincing reason. I’ve heard it before… That it’s not easy to accept recovery from a mental illness. Over my years in therapy, it’s been identified that I’m very attached to my pain & my depression. From the very act of owning & acknowledging it as my own. I’ve been told by therapist that I cradle my depression like I’d cradle a baby. I don’t want to believe that this could possibly be what I’m doing in this exact stage of the beginning of me recovering but it’s hard to deny that I’m scared to feel anything different from what I’ve been accustomed to. I honestly don’t know where my emotions lie right now when it comes to the changes I can feel happening.A part of me believes that the change in my mind is as a result of the three weeks I was on antidepressants. I wanna convince myself that they helped despite how hard & mentally exhausting it was for me to take them. I’m supposed to start on a different dosage of antidepressants & maybe I am just a tad bit too eager to get on them than I should want to be. I shouldn’t want to take them but a part of me feels that I need them. The twisted part of me that needs the chaos and the turmoil to feel like my usual ‘normal ‘ self… in pain.In conclusion, I think that I’ve probably rained and crushed on the initial parade I had of me being better.. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed anyone. I wanna convince myself that this is just part of the recovery, the part which feels like a withdrawal of some sort. That the feeling & yearn to go back to the dark parts of my mind is just a minor setback.
Sandcastles 🎑 …

July 25th, 2020

Have y’all heard sandcastles by Beyonce… My God isn’t that song beautiful. It honestly is my current all time favourite. Beyonce being the QUEEN she is, is my ultimate favorite artist in the world. That’s the one cliché aspect of myself I don’t feel allergic to. She means a whole lot to me and explaining the impact of her importance to my life would honestly be an unfortunate waste of time…cause I barely understand it myself on most days…but that wasn’t where my line of thought was or is at this precise moment, no. It just so happened that I was listening to her song sandcastles and I came to the realization that I’ve not been in love with anyone for close to over five years.. It’s safe to say I’m still relatively young to be alarmed over the fact that I’ve not had my heart fall majorly head over heels over someone. Listening to the song sorta put me into the mindset of whether the love expressed in the song, through the lyrics could ever be existent in the ever constantly chaotic pattern I call life.

Not that it worries me if I’ll ever fall in love. I in my own twisted sense sorta still have hope of meeting someone who I’ll actually fully believe when they say they will stick around long enough to be by my side even despite my insistent need to push people away. This being said, I have felt what I’d call a resemblance of falling in love but I was highly naive then & probably sorta still are. I don’t think the naivety ever really leaves when one cares that deeply for anyone. That’s why I truly do believe love makes one extremely stupid rather than weak. But again, what do I know…

In the midst of the current chaos going on in my life, I’ve had to purposely chose to keep off from feeling anything remotely love related to anyone of the opposite sex. I honestly don’t think anyone should have to have my mental instabilities as anything burden like on their shoulders. A friend of mine suggested that I should have fucked the depression out of me by now but I was certain that wouldn’t have technically worked… Haha. Not that I have anything against the idea.

To be truly honest, when it comes to my mental battles, I have never really believed that a problem shared is a problem half solved.. This being the case in terms of bringing in a significant other (s/o) to my life. It’s tough enough that explaining the ‘workings’ or ‘non-workings’ of my mind to anyone who’s never experienced a similar battle is borderline impossible. Bringing anyone to an understanding that I’m not always ‘normal ‘ is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to experience through out my journey with mental health. This inclusive of family & friends. Therefore, I see no need to antagonize myself by allowing myself to be emotionally vulnerable enough to bring in a s/o into my already complicated life. I don’t doubt that some of those who care enough would wanna stick around but for how long would they need to survive my turmoil before it gets the better of them… It’s not easy being on the other side, being the one having to show strength for a loved one who is in constant battles with their mind.

So for now, I think I’ve settled myself with the fact that love might not necessarily be in the picture for me in terms of having someone to share my burdens with. I just don’t have the capability to handle something as crucial as a relationship. At least not until I have a remote sense of stability that is constant & not wavering every so often. It sucks since I can’t help but wonder how it’d feel to have someone by my side. I do wish I was selfish enough to want to have the kind of love that expresses itself through thick & thin but I don’t trust myself not to hurt whoever it is who’s willing to take such a big risk as to date me. Maybe in another time in my life when I’ll have a better hold of my battles but as for now, I’m content with it being just me and my battles.
Uncharted territory.. ⏳🔚

July 17th, 2020

Suicide.. Does that draw your attention? I sure hope it has cause it sure has drawn mine.. Maybe not in the same exact sense for you as it has for me but our attention is drawn… Thinking about it brings along a very chilling feeling that’s eerie. Not the most talked about subject and its understandable why. It’s not gonna randomly pop up in a conversation. The world has chosen to turn a blind eye over this subject cause a lot of it is denial over the fact that it happens everyday & everywhere. In all honesty, nobody ever sees it coming, maybe apart from those who lives have felt that it was their only way out… that it was their end of the tunnel. We are all quick to believe that the light at the end of the said tunnel always has to be hope ;for some, it’s the light that shines in death.

I’m not here to justify suicide or why it happens. I don’t believe there’s a universal reason of sort that explains why people do it. Truthfully, I’m not sure what I wanna say concerning it…. I’d be lying if I said it’s not been a notion that’s crossed my mind of late. It’s hard to admit that… It’s sure as hell tough as nails to put it out there that such a heartbreaking thought has skimmed through my mind. This being said, I don’t believe I’m suicidal. I’ve fought so hard to never get there & I wanna keep finding reasons to never getting there… But despite the internal war waging inside my mind, it’s hard to not wonder whether maybe that’s the only way out. I can’t say I know what goes through the minds of any of the people who have lost their lives through suicide..the most I could guess is that they probably felt hopeless. The kind that doesn’t give you a way out… the kind that most likely ran them out of options to get rid of the heaviness that burdened them. I say this cause I’ve felt that. That hopeless ache that sometimes never seems to leave & drains you of the little energy you have to fight for life & to fight to keep your will to survive. I’ve felt it and it’s scary.

Just to make things clear, this isn’t my suicide note. At least I don’t think it is. I still wanna live, even despite the exhaustion I’m feeling from merely having to breathe. I’ve always thought of myself as too cowardly to do something as drastic & final as suicide. Ever since I was a child, I just knew I couldn’t bring myself to take my own life. The thought wasn’t farfetched for me, I just knew I didn’t have the balls in me to do it. I believe I still don’t have enough balls for it but now, now I don’t think it’s such a bleak thought. Earlier today, while taking breakfast, my family and I were listening to the radio & a story came up of a seven year old boy who committed suicide. It said that he had just come out from playing with his friends & seemed completely fine to his parents, and in a matter of minutes, they walked back in the house to find his lifeless body hanging of a rope on the ceiling. It was disheartening to listen to that, having to hear that that early in the morning when one is about to start their day. It was extremely sad & painful to think about it but out of all of that, what mainly stayed with me is how young he was. In the world that we live in, a seven year old is extremely young therefore it raises the question of what kind of chaos was that little boy going through to have concluded that his life wasn’t worth living for anymore…

I no longer find surprise when it comes to the subject of suicide. I believe we have been tuned as humans to never reveal our weaknesses to the world for they may see us as weak which in actual fact we are. I wish the world could share kindness to everyone & not just when one is in the blink of taking their own life but even when one is in the peak of their life. I hope that my demons remain cowardly enough to not bring me to the blink of me taking my own life. Even despite the painful, hollowing sorrow I’m going through, I hope to live through my dreams & aspirations till when it is my time to leave this earth. Suicide is not a matter of courage or balls, it’s a matter of hopelessness & despair… It’s everyone’s wish to never get to that point in their lives but never think ill of those who have. The toughest kind of pain is the kind that is masked behind a happy face or a prosperous life. People think that those who contemplate suicide are selfish for not taking into consideration the feelings of those they live behind. Take a minute to think of how much sorrow it brings for one to choose their own pain over the one that their loved ones are left to feel. It isn’t easy. I sure don’t think it is. I don’t advocate for suicide, not at all. I wish we could all see the beauty in life but we all know that’s not possible. If you ever feel like life isn’t worth living anymore, reach out to just one person who would rather listen to your pain than have to sit by your grave.
Lonely in & outta my mind…

July 11th, 2020

I keep racking my mind on what I wanna say or write about because I sincerely need to let out some not so deserved loneliness… But before I do, I just got a notification that my stats are booming which is amazing. I am extremely grateful for all who take their time to read my depressing once in a while nice post. It means a lot. I hope it brings awareness to mental health and the struggles that I among millions experience. Thank you again, I hope through this post that it gives people the motivation to reach out, especially for those who understand personally what I talk about when I tell y’all my mental struggles ,I need all the friends I can get it. Things have been tough and it would be amazing to have people reach out that understand on a personal basis what it means to battle with your mind on a daily basis. This doesn’t mean that for those who haven’t experienced mental struggles can’t reach out, no, on the contrary I appreciate all those who send encouraging messages and reply’s to my post, you are all amazing human beings and I appreciate all your support. You are all wonderful people.It feels good having put that out there. I think it’s probably the most positive train of thought I’ve had all day. I traveled home after a very long while of being trapped in Nairobi (capital city of Kenya). Due to covid -19, we were on lock down for nearly four months and it took a major toll on my mind cause I had every intention of traveling home which is in the suburbs but got locked in where I reside. I wanna say it was a major trigger for me for my depression over the last couple months. So I’m finally home but why do I still feel like shit? Before my mental health plummeted, I knew I’d have rather been at home anyways because home has always been a haven for me. I have never had a bad experience before, I’ve never had the bouts of depression that I get so I knew that coming home would be a good thing. Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned. I never traveled home ,I fell into depression & now I’m on antidepressants .It has been four days since I traveled home and I can say I’m still in the gutter. I can’t deny that I had hoped that travelling home would slightly lift my moods but honestly, I feel no different from what I felt in the last post I wrote. I’m miserable in this loneliness that I can’t seem to shake off. I guess I should have seen it coming since the difference with the prior times I have been home is that now I have meds in my system that weren’t exactly there before. I don’t know what to do with myself to be honest .I feel knocked down & just beaten to the point where I feel like I no longer have purpose. I wanna convince myself that it’s just the antidepressants causing the depressive moods but I feel like I don’t know who I was before the depression. No-one tells you about the lonely hollow feeling one gets while under ‘unconventional medicine ‘.When I talk of lonely I mean that you could be in a crowd of many but as long as none of them are feeling the same turmoil & mental instability that is racking your mind, none of them will come close to understanding what it’s like to no longer feel like living. I just want to feel peace again within myself without having the worry that it will be just a matter of time before I loose it again. I’m trying to find the will in me to continue living, even if it’s just for my loved ones. The inadequacy coursing through me is so overwhelming. I don’t even have enough words to express how exhausted I am. Therefore I’m gonna end it here, hoping that I find the will to live and find my spirit back. I hope to see some light in the midst of the dark. I don’t want to die, I just want my life as I know it to end.