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naked, AGAIN

Sanmi Olabintan

Friday 20 March

"The emptiness that urges me to lie down on my bed all day long, doing nothing, is the same emptiness that makes me want to hurt myself when I realize that the day has been wasted doing nothing"

   Somedays, it is as irrelevant as 'waking up on the wrong side of the bed'. Other days, a result of a more concrete explanation: a bad dream or a nightmarish. It could be as fickle as me waking up to feel a zit on my forehead or something more disturbing, like trying to get the right words for this post. All I know is that I wake up every morning feeling down, moody and annoyed, which sets the tone for how majority of my days pan out. And that's just putting mildly. 

I feel this melancholy that surpasses the realm of 'sadness'. There is a certain emptiness that comes with this, much more than whatever incident that evokes sadness in the first place. It is me staring into the blank space ahead from across my bed in my small room, seeing nothing. No hope. No cause for excitement. No need for joy. It often bothers me a great lot how other people could wake up and start their days laughing and being generally happy. I'm not a sadist by any definition the word goes by, but this only added to my confusion. "Why this sudden feeling?" Where did it all go fundamentally wrong with me?" Why don't I want to see people laugh and be joyous all of a sudden?" These questions keep buzzing through my head and they bother me to no end. 

I would initially think it's just a momentary feeling that was going to pass just like other fleeting ones but it didn't stop. The strange aura. The hollow emptiness. The blank space. The emptiness that urges me to lie down on my bed all day long, doing nothing, is the same emptiness that makes me want to hurt myself when I realize that the day has been wasted doing nothing. The emptiness that makes me want to sleep and try and forget about what I'm feeling is the same emptiness that makes me a chronic insomniac. The emptiness that makes me stiff and unable to move around makes me rue the chances to meet new people. It's really a tragic paradox of feelings. 

In no time, I become paranoid. It's quick but expected. I can hear people directing unvocal questions at me. "What's wrong with him?" "Why is he always looking moody?" "I don't know if we are fighting, but he isn't talking to me", I hear them murmur and chatter away in small talks. It doesn't help that I'm an introvert either. I keep the feelings inside of me, trying alone to fight my demons. I have the type of parents that would be willing to sit down and listen to what was going on and offer likely solutions. I have those type of friends too. I am surrounded by people that love me. But this was no ordinary feeling. No ordinary emptiness, or so it makes me think and tell myself. I become insecure and trust no one which makes me feel a huge pang of guilt. It haunts me daily to look at the ones I love and not tell the truth about what is going on with me. I keep my number of 'friends' to the barest minimum. This is disturbing because I'm naturally the one that tries to explore the possibilities of seeing the world from the eyes of different people. There's particularly something normally aesthetically pleasing about that to me. Conversely, trying to make new ones don't excite me either. I see little reason in the companionship of fellow humans. The few relationships I start, I don't follow through with. I lose interest rather easily. It's like a kid who wants ice-cream: he craves it a lot but when he finally has a bowl to himself, he licks it to a point where he gets tired and starts to make a mess of it. The whole process of trying to get to know someone new becomes a herculean task. I don't have a lot of friends, but I took regal pride in the fact that the few ones I have, I know them like my left palm. Not now. They are more distant than before. I treat them with suspicion and I hate myself for it. It is painful and tortuous. It's like I don't want to meet anyone new ever. I don't feel like advancing any relationship I have either. I just want to be alone, curled up in my shell, absorbed by my thoughts. I hate people and literally want to punch some in the face. All these despite the fact that I'm in an environment where social interaction is tantamount to success on all levels. I don't care and for this, my grades suffered and my social skills crash to an all time low.  

On my own, I search for alternatives. Solutions. Anything to put me out of this misery I still don't have a name for. I try God.  

   

                                                                             I have very religious parents. They are Christians. Both hold highly exalted positions in the church and while this might be highly inconsequential in deciding a person's personal spiritual devotion, their church roles and obligations are no facade. Both from Yoruba traditional upbringing in Nigeria, they are always so eager with glee, to narrate tales of how they individually encountered Christ. It is a trait they keep preaching and advising we the children since our childhood to imbibe because of it's importance in 'conquering life': a personal walk with God. I am not like them, at least not yet. While I try my best to go through the fundamentals of reading the bible and praying daily, my level of devotion doesn't compare to theirs. One thing I however have in common with them is the believe that God is all powerful and can solve any situation, no matter how knotty. And so I take this emptiness to God only to get a rude awakening. In trying to pray to him about my problems, I realize that God and one's mindset/feelings are mutually exclusive. Much like how God won't come down from heaven to take a decision for you despite praying to him about it, God can't change what your mind is fixated on. Basically, you are what you think you are. And at this point, I think I'm sick and psychologically imbalanced. He isn't going to fix that and so I moved on and try music.          

                                                                                                       Music is highly therapeutic and maybe if I can just come across the right compilation of ambient sounds, I will at least be able to sleep at night, I thought. While this works initially and I will often doze off after listening to a few songs off a particular type of playlist, it soon becomes the reason I stay awake at night and it reminds me of my emptiness. I am shattered once again but I keep on looking for solutions. I tried the social media.            

                                                                              By social media, I mean Twitter. It's such an interesting 'place' what I thought is maybe if I can see people which such similar traits and they tweeted about it, maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about mine. Surprisingly, I meet people exactly like that. While I let on the least about what is going on in my life, these people gladly tweet about these symptoms and seemed overjoyed about it. I am happy partially because I meet people like me. What I don't understand is the cause for the glorification. "How could they be sad and be happy at the same time?", I keep on thinking. Maybe I should be happy I'm not as fucked up as these people. I mean that is the whole point of coming here wasn't it? Or maybe, just maybe I should be sad. Be sad because this is what I will eventually become. I should smile now because the worst is yet to come. Maybe this is just a phase I'm passing through and every single one of my 'online sad family' went through this. I would finally transform into someone that's sad and elated about it. These are the kind of thoughts rummaging through my head. I am confused and angry at the same time. 

I finally accept I need professional help when one of my online friends randomly forwards an article Chimamanda Adichie wrote about her struggle with depression. I'm not willing to accept I have depression yet but what I couldn't deny was that my predicament is uncannily similar. However, what surprises me more is my online friend deeming it fit to send such an article to me. I would never ask him why even to this day but I know there and then I wasn't deceiving anyone anymore. I need help quickly. 

"His gaze was firm and his words confident and assured when he said, “also importantly though is that you are suffering underlying depression"

  I remember the face of the doctor who diagnosed me with Obsessive-compulsive disorder. I was in his office, a place I'm all too familiar with, being that he's been treating me since I was a child. It feels like a different place this time though; like I was in the office for the first time ever, not least because of the presence of my mum who I confided in about my problem and the tension created by the doctor's stare fixated at the two people sitting across him from his table. It was one of utter confusion. He was probably in his early 60's given the strands of grey hair on his head and his generally calm and mature demeanour. You could tell he had been in practice for over 30 years but had never encountered something like this. He was confused but genuinely concerned. "It's a very rare anxiety disorder that happens mostly to autistic children and about 57% of children with severe traumatized childhood", he said. It was definitive and assertive. He knew what he was talking about. My mom was probably thinking about how a Nigerian could have such a dysfunction. Or how it was remotely possible for my toddler days to be considered 'traumatized'. I grew up in a healthy environment where love radiated brightly and beautifully amongst the family. We were maltreated in anyway, neither were we malnourished. We weren't rich but as far as the average Nigerian family goes, we were comfortable so she just couldn't understand. She’s not ‘new school’ and tends to dismiss things like this. However, being the great woman she is, I saw the concern in her eyes. But me, I was happy. Not because I had OCD. Not because I had a rare dysfunction associated with white 'fucked up' people. I was happy because I had a name for this strangeness. This emptiness. Finally. These people don’t even understand. But just as I was getting soaking in the news of the discovery of the cause of my feelings, the doctor breaks to me the news I didn’t want to hear all day. His gaze was firm and his words confident and assured when he said, “also importantly though is that you are suffering underlying depression”.

"My head is a jungle and the animals come out to play whenever they want to"

  Depression is bad. It might sound like the ‘in thing’ in my generation, but it is actually a waster of talent, time and ultimately a killer. It is the reason I lie in bed all night wasting my young years and generally procrastinating. It is the same reason I hate myself for doing that. It is the reason I treat loved ones with suspicion and strangers with incredible bile and vitriol. It is the same reason I hate myself for doing that. It is the reason on somedays I switch off my phone and don't want to receive any call or talk to anyone. I drape myself and hate daylight. If possible, I want my world to be black and grunge. I bask in the euphoria of darkness and conflicting thoughts run through my head. I'm mad. My head is a jungle and the animals come out to play whenever they want to. It is their playground, their happy place. Their haven. Their happiness, my constant bitterness. I'm proper sad. My life is undressing right before my eyes and I can't convince it to follow me to the party anymore. I'm convinced there is no one to talk to, so I struggle to fight. To battle. A fight I obviously can't come close to winning. It is a suicidal mission and it might be the end of me. I indulge and indulge and indulge. Nights were dark, days were darker. Some days I want to scream on tops of my lungs till I pass out. Other days, I want to cry and sob into my bed. Tears don't come and it becomes another worry. I'm confused, sad, angry and confused again all at the same time…

  

  The doctor telling me I had depression wasn’t surprising at all. I was living in denial all this while and didn’t want to confirm it. I looked at my mother’s face and the tears finally came. This woman, a strong, traditional African woman now being quizzed if there was any history of depression in our family by this ‘modern’ man made me feel ashamed. I hated myself and I cried more.

“Seeing that no one has ever had it in your family, it should be a phase you are just passing through”, jerked me back to reality. 

“I’ll also prescribe some drugs and a personal therapist for you to see…” he continued. 

I wasn’t listening anymore. I didn’t care again. I made a promise to my mom that I was going to figure my life out on my own without drugs or any therapist. She trusted me, but I lied. Well, not lying technically but conveniently leaving out details of the truth because in that moment where I drifted in the doctor’s office, I found a respite. A peace. It had to be written this way because it was beautiful but measurable. Life, as we know it was likable for some minutes. Peaceful. I decided in that moment that “what if depression was a huge part of me just as any other part people love?” I admittedly often get my best inspirations from this ‘dark moments’ ironically, so what if it is an important but ephemeral part of me? 

I still try to suppress it though. It’s still frustrating at times, but I have learnt to live with it. Just yesterday, a friend offered me a drug called Rohypnol when I complained about stress. He said it would ‘knock’ me out but ‘calm’ me down at the same time. Sounded like the perfect drug but I didn’t use it. I would live for fight another day with this gloom if means I’ll complete this post and have a go at celebrating my birthday today.