A brief dalliance with depression.
I just want this headache to go away.
“This girl hates me. I hate her too.”
I like to think I have grown past splitting my skin with razors. Self-induced pain has some sort of inexplicable pleasure. The kind of pleasure that you get from peeling wounds that are already healing, or deliberately applying pressure on a muscle that aches.
I have an allergy to cold. Too much exposure and my skin starts to itch, it reddens and welts break out. I don't know why I have to deal with this because I like cold weather. Sometimes, when it's windy or raining, I find an excuse to leave my room and wander aimlessly in the cold. Of course, my skin reacts, and I cry so much because I want the itching to stop, but it does not stop and it's all so painful.
Everytime this happens, I promise myself never to go out in the cold again. I never fulfill this promise because I always find myself doing it again. What is this urge to do things that hurt me?
I really don't know where I'm headed with this. It feels like I’m always writing about the same things, always circling around the same issues. Do you feel like this too?
Failure is hard on me. It leaves an acrid, bitter taste in my mouth. It's like an affirmation to my self-doubt. Of course, you are not all that. I really cannot deal, and so when I fail, my world keels over and I careen into this black hole. In this hole, there's bed rotting, migraine, overthinking, anxiety, heartache and other orishirishi¹.
My head is literally aching right now.
I wish I could shrug and say I will do better next time whenever I fail at an endeavor. Instead, I fixate on all my flaws, and pick them apart. I know it's still very early, but August has been a difficult month. It feels like my life is falling apart, and I can't get anything right. There's too much noise in my mind. My head feels too heavy for my neck. I lay in bed because I cannot carry the weight of this body anymore, and slowly I lose myself to the sheets.
God, I don't want to lose my mind.
I’ve procrastinated all the work I have to do because I cannot muster any enthusiasm to do them. Or is it because of this crippling fear of failure? I don't know.
“Even on difficult days, you still have to show up”
So on Monday afternoon, I opened a word document, and attempted to write something, anything. But I couldn't get past the throbbing in my head, I clenched and unclenched my teeth because my head was hurting so much.
Eventually, I wrote something. But it didn't make any sense to me. All the words seemed wrong. I wanted to cry, but the tears did not come.
For how long will I continue to grapple with my mental health, occasionally skidding off the path of sanity and plunging into this rut?
I feel like I sound very pathetic, and I know that I will read this newsletter in the nearest future, and cringe at the vulnerability. For now, I just want something good to happen to me.
Hopefully, the remaining weeks in this month are better so I have happier things to write about. Thank you for reading.❤️
Orishirishi - various things.
a time comes when art is no longer just art, and it's much realer than just words on Substack.
Bisi, your writings make me feel like I am beside you when you when you're writing, like I can hear your voice as the words are spoken, no, dictated from your head down to your keyboard. what I mean to say is that you write beautifully, but this was a difficult thing to read. it is not possible to see your friend suffering and think it beautiful, no matter how much makeup she's applying on the scars, especially when those scars are so very similar to the ones you wear.
I hope your headache leaves you, I'm having a horrible one too at the time of reading this. we should get some sleep, the two of us, those beautiful stories will not write themselves if we die of sleep deprivation, lol.
you write well, you write real. your work is the kind that grips a reader's attention and allows space for nothing else. this one was one of the copious examples. never stop, please, no matter how hard it may get, no matter how much your head lies to you that you're H.E.R, you are, you are!
Bisiiiii, sending lots of consensual hugs and kisses. Thank you so much for sharing and daring to be vulnerable. Your writing is so beautiful. Asides from the fact that I also cut myself on purpose, I felt like I could feel everything you were/are feeling. As Bankole said, you are HER. Never forget that.