Mental health is gaining traction, more people are speaking up which is great. Getting therapy is becoming normalized (at least via Western media)- also great. But as with most things, “trending” comes along with distortion and confusion and a lot of ignorance. Between November 2020 and April 2022 I have struggled with recurring episodes of severe depression to the point that I can say my great achievement of the last 17 months has been surviving. I promised that if I survive it I’ll tell the tale because I think one of the hardest things is explaining to our family/friends what depression is. Especially when they expect/assume you to be okay. Because loving someone with a mental health problem is hard… yourself included. And because we cannot truly ‘normalize’ and properly address what we do not understand. But writing about experiencing mental health issues is hard. Mostly because writing it out means thinking about it and it is easier to escape. For instance, I have been wanting to write about my emotional eating forever. Hoping that writing would bring some sort of healing, that if I express it, it could be diagnosed understood, and I could be fixed. But I haven’t been able to; writing requires you to think/feel what you want to express and what I want to express is the fact that I eat to cope with hard emotions. Hence writing would be evoking the hard emotions making you want to eat more. I’ve regularly ended up self-soothing with food while writing/thinking of writing about self-soothing with food. So this has taken forever… That is why I’m trying this strategy: an interview with myself. Responding to questions directly, The interview format is kind of like using 2nd person. The topic is still hard, but the use of delimited question help so that feelings don’t flood all at once. You can think of it as a test you’re answering and not a baring of yourself So over a set of instalments which I’ll put on my blog under the category of #DemystifyingMentalHealth, I’ll share interviews on different aspects of mental health issues and wellness. Hopefully, it helps someone. Most of the questions I have responded to in this episode are from my friend Ettamba; if you have questions you’d like me to answer, drop them in the comment section and I’ll consider them for the next segment **** On Depression (Questions from Ettamba) When you say you have depression what do you mean and how was it different from being sad? It’s taken me a while to understand depression as a condition, specifically clinical depression as a disease which is different from sadness. And even longer for me to acknowledge it as a thing given that it’s not adequately acknowledged among Cameroonians… and sometimes I still falter over whether I’m ‘claiming negativity’ as some Christians and ‘toxic positivity’ people put it… In 2018 when I first decided to really seek help understanding what this is. I went to my university’s health centre and scheduled a session with a psychologist and asked them to test me so I can see/have an actual diagnosis. I wanted something like an x-ray to show a broken mind and explain why I was not okay… I needed something to explain that this was not a passing feeling of sadness but something much deeper rooted and that my helplessness in the face of it wasn’t made up. The psychologist explained depression in this way: everyone has hormones which affect how they feel and the balance or imbalance of those hormones means you are generally starting off from one of three points- She drew lines on a piece of paper to explain this… Very happy —————————————————————————————————– Neutral ———————————————————————————————————— Very sad ———————————————————————————————————– Non-clinically depressed people were those who mostly start off at the neutral line, so when they get sad, they can fall below the neutral line when things are bad, but not so much they are at nothing. Likewise, it’s easier for them to go up to happy zones because they’re starting off midway. But clinically depressed people, she explained start off below the neutral line. It is harder for them to go into the happy zone- it takes more effort… and it is easier for them to go down to the low point because they’re already below neutral… I like her explanation and it stayed with me. However, I must say the most accurate explanation of what depression is- for me- how it differs from just sadness was found in Harry Potter. Yes, I know how that sounds. But still, Harry Potter (book 3, in particular) has the best non-medical, for-the-average-person explanation of depression I’ve read. In it, Harry is having a horrible reaction to Dementors which one can see as vectors of depression. As he is more sensitive to Dementors he wonders if it’s because he’s weaker than his peers; the following is a conversation from that book that captures it: “… I suppose they [Dementors] were the reason you fell?” “Yes,” said Harry. He hesitated, and then the question he had to ask burst from him before he could stop himself. “Why? Why do they affect me like that? Am I just —?” “It has nothing to do with weakness,” said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry’s mind. “The Dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don’t have…” “…Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth… they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you…You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life. And the worst that happened to you, Harry, is enough to make anyone fall off their broom. You have nothing to feel ashamed of.” Replace Dementors with depression or triggers of depression and you’ll get it. People with clinical
Christmas Reflections for Those Who are not Merry…
Season’s Greetings to you dear reader! I truly hope the holidays are a happy time for you. Yet, I am aware that this is not the case for everyone, and today I decided to share why this is not necessarily the case for me. I never thought of myself as someone who dislikes the holidays. Even now, I can’t say *dislike* is the word for it… I love the break from work which gives me time to rest and plan and do…other work lol! Still, when a friend replied to my Christmas card on the 24th and began a conversation it led me to do some overdue reflecting. See, this friend asked me what I was doing for Christmas and I replied saying: “nothing much, just going to try and avoid binge eating, crying, and hope for productivity”. I’m Christian so for Christmas I do believe in praying and praising in ode to the birth of Christ… but not any more than I do on any given day I pray and praise. Not only because of the debates on if this specific date is his accurate birthday but just because I rarely feel extraordinarily praise-y on the day. So, what is the problem? Why am I not merry? The easy answer would be depression. But nah, that’s not quite it. Many people detest the holidays – for what it has become due to capitalism, or because they are lonely, or because it reminds them of someone they lost (like a dear friend of mine who died in 2018 on Christmas Eve)… There are many reasons, and it is so accepted that the holidays can be a triggering period that I had never really thought about it why this period is not simply joyful for me any longer and what exactly about it may trigger depression. This is the first time someone asked me so pointedly that I was forced to find the words for it. And in finding the words, I discovered something about myself. It seems some years ago (I don’t know when exactly but I think it was 2016, perhaps earlier) holidays began losing their luster for me because I was no longer content with being a makeshift family member. Holidays are for family and home. I have family, lots of family, especially friends who have become family. I am not short of loved ones to spend the holidays with; at least 3 of my loved ones near me made it clear that I was to join their families to celebrate the day (and I eventually did spend a bit of time with each of them and their families on Christmas Day). But as I have come to do in recent years, I made sure I spent as little time as possible at each home. Playing either the role of helping in the kitchen, visiting aunty, or just plain guest. Because it’s still not the same. Because my family has their own family. So ‘going home’ often means going to a place where you’re reminded that you’re not exactly family. Or that your family is not like this family. Or that what you call family, is a collage of a variety of individuals belonging to other families. I wasn’t always aware of this, not in such clear terms at least. This realization is coming this year following the conversation on the 24th. It was fine at first, or rather, it was unnoticeable. I did not notice that with every holiday spent with another family, I was trying to create something. Either creating some family holiday tradition with those who had adopted me as theirs, or create my place in another family… In one house I tried to create the tradition of having Christmas gifts put under a Christmas tree to be opened on the day. I was an undergrad student and broke so I wonder how I did it, but I managed to get everyone in the family I was with at the time gifts. But, when the day came all the gifts under the tree were the ones I put there lol! They received in gratitude, but it wasn’t something they would think of, so not something that continued. In later years, I tried to join the traditions of the other families. And I loved it, for a while. One of my families has a beautiful tradition of gift exchange (Secret Santa) which is elaborately planned for a month before… it is so entertaining how well we hide whose name we picked and the coy ways we go about trying to find the gift they would like… I recall praying in 2016 that I would want to emulate that tradition in my own home in the future… That should have been a warning. I didn’t consider myself at home. But still, I have spent Christmas Eve with that family and enjoyed that tradition for over 5 years. And another of my families has the tradition of going to the beach on New Year’s day with colleagues… I have loved that tradition too. Let me tell you, everyone should ring in the New Year by having the waves wash over you as if carrying the dirt of the previous year away. It is unspeakably refreshing. Still, I did not recognize that these traditions were family heirlooms I was trying to inherit, nor that my participation was an attempt to make family memories for myself. So when I no longer wanted to spend holidays with others I also could not recognize that it was because a part of me had realized that I could not create what I needed in that way. Spending holidays in this way meant felt akin to living as someone else for a short while. Spending the day enjoying my nieces and cousins and sharing food and joy, but then going home to my space. And my own home sometimes feels lonelier when returning to it after that, with memories of the baby you carried, or thoughts
For Christian Girls Who Have Sought Reasons to Live When Faith is Not Enough
I know what it means sister, Know what it means to seek hope like children seek fireflies on too-warm evenings I know what it means sister, Know what it means when you finally catch one… and the light flickers. Off I know what it means sister, Know what it means to question and scold yourself for ingratitude For surely you must be ungrateful. Surely you haven’t appreciated enough if you feel this way I know what it means sister, Know what it means to be told to pray the darkness away. Know that on some days it works, and others it doesn’t I know. I know what most don’t That praying over it means thinking about it And thinking leads to overthinking. Overfeeling And possibly drowning in what you’d rather escape. I know how hard it is to tell, sister How hard it is to explain what you, yourself, can barely understand. How to describe the feeling you fight when some days it’s easy to beat… And at other times it needs weeks… I know sister, I know So don’t feel you’re not holy enough, Never feel you’re not faith-full enough “Enough” faith is for the martyrs… but we’re all just learners here Be consoled in that someone knows sister That someone understands you setting up a vision board with reasons to live That someone understands that even the scripture, that double-edged sword. Finds it hard to cut through the cloak that is depression. Seek all the help you can, sister. And if you need me, I’m here. I do not know it all, But this much I do.
What I Wish I Could Tell my Younger Self About Depression & the Things I Still Need to learn.
In Cameroon, you can be depressed for months without your roommate or neighbor being aware. Most likely this is not something limited to Cameroon, depression- emotional and mental health or the lack thereof is often overlooked in many countries around the world. But I can only speak for mine.The truth is you can suffer from depression without knowing it yourself, you may know something is different, something is wrong, you feel off, but you do not know what it is unless you have been made aware of such a thing being ‘a thing’. It is life, you’d say. There are phases like that, you’ll be told. As I considered depression of recent, my own experiences with it and those of my friends I thought to do a post on what I wish I had known, what I am still to learn. I hope it helps someone, in some way.I wish I could tell my teenage self that: 1- When they say ‘this too shall pass’ they mean it. It may not feel like it but time does dull the pain. This is not to say you easily forget it, no, you shall remember and it will return again and again if you do not properly heal. Healing means facing it, dissecting it, not binge eating and sleeping to forget. This too shall pass, but this too may return/will return till you confront it.2- The fact that you feel hatred for yourself and feel others hate you does not mean you deserve it. Your self-hatred is taught, and you will need to unlearn it. You will need to question its root, why and where it stems from, you will need to examine the legitimacy of the source. You should not hate yourself because of the message you have imbibed from lofty sources. Your love for self is necessary for anything and everything else.3- Having suicidal thoughts does not make you a coward. Contrary to what those around you think, thoughts of taking your own life are rooted in an uncommon amount of pain. That few people have the strength to bear or the valor to address. Be proud of every time you overcome.4- Talk to your friends, write yes, read books yes, listen to music yes, pray definitely. But talk to other people. Expressing your feelings is not enough, you will need to learn empathy, gain wider perception to overcome. Your diary cannot talk you off the ledge, you will need other people to show you why you shouldn’t be there at all. The right people. You will find them when you search without prejudice.5- Do not blame your people for not understanding you. For not understanding depression. Emotional pain is often felt only after the most basic needs of subsistence have been addressed. Not all can see the hunger of your heart and mind, most are too busy trying to address the primary hunger of the stomach, basic needs of shelter, security, clothing, schooling. Things you often take for granted because they are overshadowed by the other pain you know.6- Knowing your purpose will ground you. You will know you are needed, you are valued and you are meant to be alive. The sooner you find it the better.7- You have baggage and it makes you a pretty complex person. Your complexity is as beautiful as it is difficult. Your baggage will give you an edge over others in some ways, you will be able to empathize where some cannot, you will be able to perceive in ways some cannot. Your baggage, the pain of past experiences may eventually help you do what you are destined to do better. I still need to learn: 1- You do not ‘get over’ depression. Like cancer, it likely returns, the tumor in a different place altogether. Also like cancer, it is not a death sentence, there will be good days and bad. It is not merely a matter of feelings. It is very scientific, hormone imbalance. While you play a role in his (understand your depression but do not wallow in it) it is not merely you.2- You do not need to prove your worth. You are enough as is. You do not need to pretend you can do it all on your own. Seek help. Read. Pray.3- As Mariah sang, love takes time. Same applies for loving yourself. To love yourself does not mean liking every bit of cellulite and stutter in your speech. To love is to see the flaws, weaknesses appreciate honestly, embrace and engage. Because you are more than the flaws no matter how glaring on the bad days4- Do not be shamed by your pain, do not let others project their misconceptions on you. Your sensitivity is not a fatal flaw, it takes more strength to show your weaknesses than it does to hide them. In the words of Brenne Brown, vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage. 5- Not everyone will get it, mental health isn’t given as much regard as it should be. Try to explain if you can, but if you can’t that is just fine, you are not obligated to. Seek those that do understand how debilitating an anxiety attack might be, or how certain incidents may trigger binge-eating.6- Knowing your purpose may have grounded you, but life will still knock you off your feet. The senseless death, the hate, the injustice will have you remembering why you once thought suicide made sense. Being knocked off your feet does not mean you remain there. Cry, pray, do something positive for you, do something positive for someone else. Practice self-care, be intentional about your emotional health, just as someone with allergies would be intentional about what they eat.Invest in your happiness, read, listen to music, talk with a friend, rest. Repeat till you feel better. Repeat again the next time you get sucker-punched by life. Again, this too shall pass.7- You have baggage. This baggage makes you a complex being. Your complexity is