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
