If there's one thing this last week has taught me, it's that, "You have to put yourself first"!
You are your own life support!
Every other thing or person na jara!
If you are lucky to have a very strong support system that helps you feel like you are not an Island, Bless you!
I was battling serious mental fatigue the last few weeks and became passively suicidal. (I've had it worst, but this time I knew where it was heading)
My mental fatigue was that bad that I was having difficulties with cognition, getting headaches I knew even the panadol I chose to take the other day, wasn't the repeated solution for the kind of headache I was feeling.
My brain was just feeling.... in the best way I can describe it, hot and cold at the same time.
I was tired!
Exhausted!
I needed rest!
I mean I was sleeping but I was definitely not resting
I had been mentally battling booking my therapist for a while, and would push the thought off, and the feeling of being a financial burden to anyone, wasn't even additionally helping either.
All I know is my inner child who seems to love me so much, kept pushing that I HAD TO DO SOMETHING, and by the time I felt ready, my therapist was fully booked/unavailable.
She tried pushing to book me for the next week, but I wasn't sure I could wait, because my head was a mess.
Now, thanks to previous therapy sessions, my inner child now knows my triggers, my symptoms, my signs, but sometimes may struggle to keep it all together or be mentally "strong" to stick with the "solutions" I know and have been taught, and anyway, I was scared.
And I mean, fear is a good emotion to still have, when you look on the other side of it.
It's why so many "sane" people are still here btw.
Thank your moral compass daily!
Anyway, as I was saying, because I really just wanted or felt the need to do something, before that next week, I eventually decide that going to the hospital seemed like a good idea.
I mean I wasn't even sure what I was going to tell a Doctor, like what/how would I even explain to a regular Doctor what is wrong with me?
I mean I'm not having a fever, or I'm not physically sick so what would I say?
But as a Googler, I had googled the night before, and then conclusively felt I could do something called a "Cortisol stress level test" in a hospital at least, to at least validate even my own self that I was really suffering again, and that it wasn't just in my head.
Because I mean, as a mental illness sufferer (the word still even feels strange), you feel unserious as a sufferer, and actually doubt the seriousness of it too.
It also can take you a long while to fully come to terms with it, just like society is still struggling, and so you even feel occassionally ashamed and invalidate yourself that it's not that serious.
Now quite alright, I get to the hospital, it finally gets to my turn, and I tell the Doctor I am stressed, and she says but you don't look stressed, and I go all, ah shit here we go again.
I start to tell her my symptoms and my signs, she asks a few questions, and then I say I just want to do a test or something, or perhaps get drugs or something?
Anyway, Doc eventually says you drove here right?
Which means I can't give you injection that I have in mind, but I can give you drugs,
Or do you wanna be admitted? I say No (because in my mind me to me feels wow it's not that serious, this is probably a joke lol, imagine telling someone your mental health is suffering, and that you had to be admitted, it doesn't even sound that serious, sounds like a joke lmao)
Even when I give my therapist update later, she goes all I think you have to take that admission option, to rest yourself and mind.
But anyway, the point is, imagine the conversation in my own head about my own mental health. Smh!
I basically decline the offer anyway, and then as she's leaving the office to hand over my file to the drugs prescription people, since she's done with me, I break down in tears because I know the moment I leave that office, I'm going to uncontrollably cry in front of so many people 😂, I mean you can't even control these tears when your mental health is shitty. It just comes like a big lump in your throat that you have to forcefully let out.
She comes back into the office, sits down, and starts to try to inspire me (I get, I really do appreciate the intention), but she starts to speak from a place of understandable ignorance, just like society still is.
And I know that if my inner child wasn't as strong as I don't often credit it for being, it would have been an additional trigger.
So yeah, she starts to tell me how other people have it worst than I do, if I didn't tell her I was mentally ill, that she would never have known, as I look beautiful, strong, blabla. (I mean I get this, I really do)
Goes on to say the psychiatric ward is one of the cleanest wards, because unlike Diabetic patients/illnesses and co, that involve so much blood and all of that, and them going to die at anytime, depression is not as bad, as one can always get better from mental illness. (Again, I understand her intentions, she's speaking truth from her own reality)
She also says I mean you drove here, so it means you are better and lucky, you even know your triggers, so that makes it a good thing.
You just need to keep surrounding yourself with... and so on and so forth, I just know the only thing in my mind was "ah shit here we go again".
I mean I know these things!
I really do bruh!
And I thankfully understood her ignorance and could mentally block that.
But you see everyone's tolerance level is different, your genetics have a role to play in your mental health, your family has even a bigger role to play in how your mental health turns out, your experiences, your.... soooooo many things.
And it is not the Devil either, logically speaking (because the Devil really has a lot on his plate right now, to care that much about you), but religiously speaking, from the angle of those who believe in religion as their truth, then yes it is the Devil.
But you see, there are so much that a lot of people are healing from, that we don't know of, and in the process of healing, triggers can come along, a lot of stress triggers, that can push a person into becoming tired of being them, that whatever you even try to say at that point (which they clearly know), could help or break them!
Which is why they say be kind?
Choose your words?
Mental health awareness is important?
Like being passively suicidal is literally feeling tired of being you, until by some sad fate, one becomes actively suicidal.
(Passive vs Active Suicidal Ideation, that's a topic for another day)
They say your brain is your powerhouse and engine, that translates what your mind is saying into your reality.
And you have to realize that anything can cause your "physical brain" to wear and tear and become weak; absolutely anything; (a bunch of anythings that sum up into a molehill of somethings), that can make you choose to believe the truths your mind is presenting to you.
Like it could be your truth at that point, but the fact is if your brain gets faulty at some point and you don't keep treating it, the rest of you can and will stop functioning for a while, or forever, unless you find how to maintain that engine.
So many things feed the brain, and when your brain isn't getting sufficient feeding, it gets faulty.
And when it gets faulty, you start experiencing all sorts.
E.g
You stop wanting to eat, or you start wanting to eat too much, you start losing cognition, you start battling constipation, you stop feeling or you start feeling too much.
You also perhaps start crying too much or perhaps stop crying altogether lol, or you start feeling numb, in whatever ways mahn, that your body chooses to express to you that you are unwell internally.
Like the engine that is powering your whole body is literally showing error error error from having too many tabs open like a computer.
And if it rocks anyone's boat, you literally get mad.
P.S we are all mad though, but your level of awareness/consciousness is what will help you understand this statement but anyway, there is no one way to diagnose mental illness or how to tell someone's brain is reaching out to them for help!
Your brain reaching out to you for help, is one way to even tell that "You" loves "You" (even though you wouldn't understand it when you are having an episode) but the fact mental illness is what only each person can uniquely feel!
Mental illness is a cry for help from you to you.
That's how I choose to look at it!
Asking you to seek help!
Because "you" wants "you" to live! (For some reason only you can eventually make sense out of🙄)
What mental illness is? Is literally the same as what being sick feels like, but sadly and frustratingly, it's never almost physical, as "it's literally all inside your head" which is why its frustrating people can't see it or easily diagnose it, except a professional or a really good listener pr people that are well aware!
Because I mean someone is always going to look at you ans wonder how come your skin still looks alright, or how come you still speak well or preach in a church, or how come you are mentally ill when you have so much money, or look like you have so much money, or how come you are funny, or how come you speak well or how come.......
There's going to be so many "how comes" and it is both exhausting, and understanding and also liberating when you understand that people are only speaking from a place of ignorance.
I also blame Nollywood for its programming of "mental illness" in our heads.
It's how we all grew up understanding mental illness, or why we additionally stigmatize it, and is also what makes it extra difficult to even believe or come to terms with it as a sufferer.
You rarely want to speak up about it because it's like I don't want to be defined by this, I don't want to be pitied, I don't want to be looked at weirdly when someone hears I'm to see the Psychiatrist, or the psych specialist, whew, I don't want every word I say to be dissected when it might be nothing serious, I don't want my every move scrutinized, because I am as normal as the averagely healthy person, only that in my case, my brain gets tired of working/thinking sometimes, because I'm struggling to do all the right things it requires for it to stay healthy, and so my thought process can decide to shut down my bodily/mind functions temporarily or completely.
Mental illness/fatigue is a battle and requires a lot of strength (and money), to have to keep working to bringing your brain back to life by consistently managing it well and steering clear of triggers (which can come from every and any angle) so that you can well be on your way to becoming completely okay, and that's what we all need to start to understand.
Because seeing as you are your own life's support first, it makes it easy to turn that button off, or makes it easy to give up, when the mind is exhausted,
Mental illness is such an expensive illness for anyone to choose to have and is certainly no joke either.
Therapy alone will cost you as low as I think 15 - 20k per 1 hour session, and as much as 25k/30k per session, so nobody in their "right mind" will choose to be ill or jump off a bridge, always remember that!
It is not an illness that is easy to grasp, or come to terms with, but it is something that can be managed and it requires A LOT of hardwork to get yourself from where you are, to where you deserve/need to be.
It is a journey.
A journey that I hope to achieve, a fight that I hope to conquer, and a battle that has to be won, if I'm choosing to use my voice to say something.
Life is easier on some, and harder on some, no dey compare your own reality to another person's because truth be say, you can only try to imagine, but you don't know the half of it!
Also, everyone needs therapy!
As a matter of fact, you are more sane that the person who committed suicide because you most likely get therapy everyday! But you won't see it as therapy!
The mother, father, brother, worker, that provides a safe space for you to share your thoughts everyday to, or that lover you have or that support system you have, that you talk to everyday, that's your therapy, that's unconscious food to your soul.
So yes, everyone needs therapy, and I promise you it's not that serious lol!
Also, we probably should start pushing for mental illness to be referred to as "mental fatigue", to reduce the stigma and help people understand it better.
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