Features
Aunty Bella: Miss. I NEED Help
Aunty Bella is our agony aunt column on BellaNaija. We launched this column in the early days of BN and periodically feature issues sent in by BN readers.
We hope the BN family can offer insightful advice.
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I don’t know where this will go, as an Aunty Bella or an opinion post but I need to talk to a crowd. I need to talk before silence leads to terrible things. I need to talk!
I was born the wrong way. I feel certain of that with new breath and new air, everyday. Something went wrong because I can’t understand the overwhelming sadness that has swallowed me and is causing me such deep uncertainty
in life.
Suicide has been a regular thought recently but I stay because I fear disappointing my parents. They had a girl that feeds on anxiety instead of joy. They had a girl who should make them smile but she can’t find a reason to smile herself. They had a little girl who was bubbly at first but as soon as the teenage years came, total sadness
swallowed her.
Insomnia has dug deep and has settled with me. It has settled real deep and keeps my soul wandering and anxious at night. I abused tablets to help but the thing that worries me is greater than chemicals. It is here to fight my efforts. Sleep is not for me anymore, anxiety is there as a replacement for sleep, it keeps me busy, it reminds me to worry on.
My hands shake without a reason, it is the only physical thing that shows something is wrong deep down. I am always deep in thoughts, without concentration for anything. Recently I think a few cars might have made it easier by taking me off, but people with the gift of stable minds were driving and they were not willing to let it end for
me.
I feel a raging anger at life, it is consuming and has kept me hooked in one place. I’ve lived some years to know that this life has no mercy for people like me. I’ve been patient enough to know this got critical at 15 and 7 years later, it has refused to go. Life has been unfair over and over again. In my face, it has told me some of us were not born to make merry, we were not born to smile but to be unstable. Born to endure anxiety and born to struggle for peace.
Peace! How does it feel to have that in life? To smile even when there is nothing to smile for? Here, in this mind, even when things are stable, anxiety is still there. A thousand voices in my head tell me, it is time to take a long break from the world and maybe return in another generation-happier- full of life- with promise and with peace.
I am tired.
I am tired that I try to laugh and it does not come through. I only try. I grew up to this thing it refuses to go away. I’ve tried. I have. It is because of this demon that haunts me that I am unable to live my
full potential. I fear when it is time to try. I let myself go. I’ve disappointed the girl that was supposed to reign in this body too many times. The girl that was supposed to take charge of this mind and make a world full of stars is gone. I am exhausted searching for her. I allowed this thing – called depression ruin what was supposed to be and now, it is getting stronger. It is eager to get me to silence.
If I ever go silent it is because I lived in this world and felt only Pain. Heartache. Severe Anguish. This is a cry for help. I am no longer ashamed to ask. I am no longer ashamed to say something is wrong. I’ve been awake for the past 48 hours, eyes fully open and mind, the heaviest it has ever been, head is strategising for the worst. I am scared!
And I admit my fear. This is me needing communication. Someone to reach out to. This is me
screaming ‘I NEED HELP’ and very soon,
Photo Credit: Atholpady | Dreamstime.com
