Why am I Awake?

Hello there.

I am currently writing this after being awake since 6pm yesterday (please no comment) so forgive the delirious rambling that will proceed this:



I have encountered many bumps in the road that if my life. I have gained even more weight almost reaching the daunting 90 kg. I can feel my childhood insecurities roaring back to the surface and now I can barely look in the mirror without a deep feeling of contempt.

It doesn't really help matters that I have been on my period non-stop since April, this is the longest I've ever gone and that fact alone terrifies me. This issue with my ovaries has been a grave problem for the past 4 to almost 5 years, but the longest I've gone on my period was 2 months now its almost 5.  I keep trying to brush it off, to get on with my daily life: school, friends, hobbies etc but the sheer reality that I may not be able to have kids suffocates me. Growing up and having a large family is not only the norm it's mandatory in my culture - especially as a female- but when I was younger I only wanted 2 kids ( cause I wanted them to be very close to make up for the major age differences between my siblings and I) and I took everything for granted believing that when i was ready all will go well. It's safe to say my life took a different turn. Ever since my problem started I've started to notice how wonderful children are: their smile, their simple yet deeply ingrained innocence, how much of a joy they are and how much I wanted to positively impact a child's life. At first I thought of adoption, but there's the possibility that the children will reject me as their mother and seek out their biological one, there's also the issue that no man in my culture would marry me just to raise another man's baby ( I'm guessing it's a form of expressing manhood by displaying the number of sons raised - daughters don't count but I digress).

I've always had the image of a perfect woman ingrained in my conscience ever since I could remember, and despite the fact that I have grown mentally mature and have educated myself on a feminists' view of beauty the image still hasn't changed. I still have my dark skin that I love, still the same height and face it's just my weight that has drastically changed. I'm suddenly 4 dress sizes down, a clear face, big boobs and I simply ooze confidence. As I became more aware I tried to change my image to fit my current body type but as soon as I do the scenario loses its appeal and it feels forced compared to its glossy daze feeling. This image didn't really help as I sunk into denial about my weight.

I used to believe that I don't stray from a particular, narrow weight range, that I was somehow eternally stagnant and that no matter the matter of Chinese and fried chicken I devoured I would somehow never gain the weight. How stupid was I? I am extremely uncomfortable with my body and I did not take gaining weight well to say the least, so I hid in my little bubble of denial and pretended all was okay. That bubble popped as soon as I found out what I really weighed.

I was at the tailors in Nigeria cause I had to adjust my dresses for my step-sister's traditional wedding. My mother had earlier -not so subtly- commented that I've gained more weight than she thought so I just knew the trip wasn't going to be pleasant, and yet my bubble hadn't yet burst. It was when I wore attempted to wear my clothes and it was a struggle to get them past my knees. I was humiliated, ashamed and disgusted at how much weight I had gained. I  basically had to have the dress remade from scratch because the difference in my old and current size was astronomical. I felt so bad that the tailors had to so much work to do in a short amount of time, and my mother's not so quiet whispers about how much weight I had gained and 'what she had done to deserve this' 'she warned me about this' drove me to the brink of tears. I struggled to keep my tears at bay . Once locked in the dressing room for the umpteenth time I allowed myself a short moment of peace and let the few tears roll down. Unfortunately that was the time my mother summons me. Once  the tailor saw me and she apologise for no reason and that's how you my mother saw me and crudely asked'Why are you crying?

You need to understand that my mother was actually unusually understanding and calm about my situation despite on previous occasions she exploded with anger due to the numerous doctor's appointments I had been to. She didn't snap at me for crying, or comment on how it was my fault I had gained weight. She was silent and kept smiling as if nothing happened, and I deeply appreciated that.


I have now set out on losing weight through rigorous dieting- seeing as my period flow increases as I exercise. I have only been eating once a day ( I know its not healthy but whatever) ever since I got back from Nigeria. I hope I'll have enough self control to maintain this commitment.

Wish me luck.

Memories turn into Memoirs

Looking back at all I've written. All that I have gone through. All that I've overcome. I'm amazed but yet heartbroken. I was way too young to have to go through these things. I grew up in a society where problems like mine were mocked and ridiculed. I taught myself to bottle up all my feelings and continue with my life because that was the only way i knew how to survive. Looking back, I'm not quite sure that was for the best. 

My eyes sting with unshed tears. My soul protests in agony. My heart no longer wishes to beat and yet a smile is forever is forever etched on my face. I am cursed for no one will know my true pain.

20th April 2016

My heart aches.




I am nearing the end of my first year in A-LEVELS and so far it has been stressful. I am always tired. Tired of life. Tired of being happy. Tired of existing. I just wish for a swift and painless death, but at the same time plan ahead for the next day.

I'm so confused.

My 'will' to live has practically evaporated and all that I'm left with is the tiny puddle of a voice that's meekly cheering me on. I'm tired of my weight. I'm tired of my body. I'm tired of my life. I'm tired of the fact that no matter how much I have hope in a relationship I always end up being disappointed.

With Victor dealing with his own problems, I've never felt so alone in my life, and I don't know how to deal with it. Sometimes in my head I just wish a therapist would appear from nowhere, diagnose me with what i already know so that people around me can finally realize how dead I am inside.

Me, Myself and I (Cont)

In my previous post there was a little part about 'That's a story for another time'



When I was younger (9 - younger) I met some people whom didn't have the nest intentions for me. At the time i didnt care who they were as long as they made me feel wanted. I did stupid things that i regret. Things that i was way too young to be involved in, and these things all have one common denominator : boys.

As i said before when i was younger i was obese - still am- but i wasnt the average ball of happiness. I had rolls, stretch marks, a fat tummy; but i also had an ass and breasts. because of these features a typical man paid more attention to me. I was young and i was foolish. I was taken advantage of by so many people without realizing,k and at the time i didnt care cause i wanted to keep being their friend.

My shitty self esteem didnt help matters .To cut the story short, i somehow managed to save myself before i went too far down the rabbit hole.

long story short:


My ovaries are fucked. I'm either on my period for months at a time or I don't see my period for months at a time. I am sick and tired of trying to fix it and seeing no results. I am overweight. I know that. I have dealt with this truth all my life and I have survived. But knowing the fact that i may not be able to have kids in future is because I'm overweight is becoming too hard to handle.

I am tired. I've reached a point where I don't care anymore.

If they spoil, then they spoil. If they decide to work again, great!!! I will rejoice. I , however, refuse to wallow in self pity over my unfortunate condition. I will cry, wipe my tears, pick myself and continue with my life. I refuse to go back to how i once was.

Me, Myself and I

For the past couple of years( I have no idea how long) I have suffered from what I like to call ‘scenarios’. They are like mini episodes I have in my head of different situations - not necessarily including me- that randomly pop out of nowhere.

At first I think I used to control them, think up a character and have him play out his/her life according to my wish. This stretched on for a long time- it still goes on- before it morphed into something completely different.

I don’t know how old I was when it all began. I used to space out. One minute I’m talking to my brother, the next various images are flashing before my eyes. They went as quickly as they came, leaving me numb and confused as I had missed out on those few seconds of my life. Gradually the few seconds stretched on to minutes and even hours. I began to lose track of time and sense, not even realising when my sister was frantically waving her hand in front of my face.

Every since I was young, I’ve had a problem with my weight. To be frank, I was obese. My self esteem was non existent and one of my elder sisters loved to add salt to throbbing injury that was my self esteem by constantly reminding me how worthless I am. Soon, I began to imagine a world where I was happy. Naturally in this world I was skinny, sociable and -through my perspective, beautiful.

This stage of my scenarios only served to make me feel worse about my self because as they ended I was forced to face the reality that I was: the embodiment of hideousness. This carried on for a good number of years till I reached JSS3, when I fell -heart first- into depression.

In all honesty I can’t remember that year. All I can recall are snipers of me coming home from school, weeping, switching between not eating and over eating , hating my self, contemplating areas to cut etc. I think this moment in my life was what triggered my suicidal thoughts. Truthfully I’ve been suicidal since I was really young, but during that year I didn’t have scenarios. Instead I heard my own voice in my head screaming at me to kill myself. That I was a pathetic waste of space. That no one would notice if I was gone. - you get the gist of things.

The following year is also a blur as I try to crawl my way back out of the abyss I found myself in. I began my journey - properly- to self love with numerous relapse on the way. There were the frequent times where you could find me in the floor, eyes swollen and red with a knife pressed to my stomach as I cursed myself for not having the courage to press any harder; and there were times where I could finally look in the mirror again and not loathe what I see, but to accept who I am for what I was.

My Journey to self love began to yield some wonderful results. I had to have some serious conversations with myself but I was on a path where I accepted my faults for what they were : faults. I didn’t delude myself that I was beautiful regardless of them but I was on the way to truly believing that I was beautiful because of them. Unfortunately my scenarios weren’t happy about my progress.

My scenarios sort of switched to me dying. Heroically. Either I would die cause I saved someone or I would die of cancer or I would rescue people from a burning building and die of smoke inhalation. In all of them I was cast as the martyr with numerous people weeping over me - people who in real life didn’t give a rat’s ass about me. I now know that those scenarios were only there as a way to feed my addiction for attention. Due to my sister’s bullying I craved attention in any form that I came. This of course lead to some bad people taking advantage of me.

Buts that’s a story for another time.

My scenarios slowly died down to the occasional ‘what ifs’ with less gore and tears. They became more like an outlet for the things I couldn’t say or decided it was probably best that I didn’t. For a while this went on and I occasionally thought of killing myself but at this point a few tears were shed and I was back to falling on the floor laughing at something my mum said.

That was until last year summer. My scenarios took a turn for the worse. Gone were the days where I was thrust into a dramatic spotlight that was a martyr. In its place was something more…. Sinister.

It was like it was in the beginning. They went as quickly as they came, but now they stretched on for as long as I would like them to. They were longer of angry confrontations with my mother or me wanting people to pay attention to me. They were solely about me dying. To be precise, me killing myself.

I was either calmly sinking in a nth in full of water or I was jumping off a building or slitting my throat. They all came whenever I was in a place of actually doing these things - eg a kitchen, rooftop or bathroom. They stretch on for different amounts of time and they all have one thing in common: At the end of them, when it came to the point where I take my last breath a feeling of peace washes over me. All the worries I have disappear and I feeling nothing but comfort. I always snap out of them but there are times when I regret doing so.

It’s like my mind is trying to remind me that I’m not truly happy. That there will always be demons in my head ready to remind me that I will always be theirs. I’ve tried prayer. I’ve tried talking about it, but my siblings don’t want to these about it. My mother doesn’t believe I have the right to have a mental illness as I don’t pay bills or have to worry about 'grown up’ things ( I come from a extremely religious African home)

And now?

Well the scenarios have stopped for a while but I’m just tired. Tired of being happy. Tired of caring too much. Tired of school. Tired of being angry one minutes and numb the next. Tired of the wave of emotions that I’ve been drowning in my entire life. I’m tired of being alive.

I sometimes find myself thinking of painless ways to die, for I know the pain will remind me that I want to live and that I lack the courage to go through with it.

In all honesty the only keeping me alive is Victor, my daddy. I love him with my soul and he is my sole anchor to this world. Without him I would happily leave this world that to even face he hell that would await me.

Keep in mind I’m turning 17 this year. This has been going on for more than half of my life and for the majority of it I was too young to understand what was happening to me. The point of this extremely long message ( though I left out quite a bit) is to appeal to my followers and anyone who may see this.

I have been told that I have no reason to cry. To be upset. To be angry. To be numb and worst of all to be depressed. I’m not sure what is happening to me can be labelled as a 'mental illness’ but I know that something is wrong with me For my fellow brothers and sisters who have been told by people who should care about them that they’re just 'overreacting’ or 'it’s just a phase’ or 'you have nothing to be worried about! You’re a child!’ Don’t give up hope. Get help if you need it. Scream if you want to. But don’t close yourself off to the world because if you do it’s the hardest thing to open back up.

And a word of advice to everyone, if your child trusts you enough to come to about a problem, don’t trivialise it. Don’t make them feel like their bothering you. Don’t make them feel stupid or like they don’t know what they’re talking about. Because if you, you may as well be letting that 'little problem’ fester in their minds and ruin their soul.

-Jadesola Atanda