I will never forgive my mother for giving birth to me

Pas de français aujourd’hui parce que je suis fatiguée

Hello girls and gays,

I’ve been wondering for a few days now whether I should publish this piece or not. At first I wanted to title it “ so you wanna die again uh?” which made me chuckled. I always I will find humor in the most dire situations. I guess that is one thing I have for me. As you have understood, this piece is about suicidal ideation and as i turns out, it makes normal people uncomfortable; understandbly so. So this is the trigger warning you might be looking for. Besides, many people who read my newsletter know me personally so I don’t want to be receiving alarmed texts.  You can relax, as I am writing this I am not even depressed, at least it doesn’t feel like the depression I had before (How many flavors are there of this thing ? Damn). I’m dreading next week though, it’s the week my premenstrual dysphoria disorder - courtesy of endometriosis - comes to knock on my door and I never know how the encounter will leave me.

This is not a call for help, because there is nothing anyone can do so who would I even call for help ?  It is simply one of the many truths of my human existence. This is the  little space of freedom I’m carving for myself and I intend to use as I wish. Plus, I was inspired by a few people here that dared putting their truth out. The world is a dumpster fire and unsurprisingly, the girlies are going through. So here we go. 

(Collage by moi, acrylic paint+paper)

Dear friend, 

As far as I remember, I have always been melancholic. I’ve never really loved life like that, you know? Sure, there was a time when I was a carefree black girl but even then if someone had given me the choice of being born, I would have said, “No thank you, you do it if it’s so great”. If I had been forced to be born, I would have negotiated a better deal. I would have negotiated to be born into a normie instead of neurodivergent I would have negotiated to be born into a wealthy and supportive family or maybe I would have negotiated to be born a princess in pre-colonial Africa ? Or rather a Prince. I don’t know, I would have negotiated for anything that makes an existence lived in a white supremacist-hetero-capitalist-patriarchy less shitty. 

Even before I got ill, when life was still okay, I couldn’t understand for the life of me, why people in movies were trying so hard to stay alive during zombie apocalypses and other types of dystopia. What is the point? The world as you know it is gone, and so are your loved ones, yet you’re fighting to stay alive. For what exactly? The feeling of the sun on your skin? Even that gets old.  I’ve always told myself in this type of scenario, I would like to be the first to die. Please abeg, I don’t have this will to live no matter what. It’s the reason why I’ve always had this view on suicide that not many people share. Sure, it is harrowing for the people who stay but if somebody decides to go, it’s their choice. Nobody but themselves knew what they had to deal with on a daily basis and if they want to call it quit, who are we to force them to stay? I don’t know much about life but I do know that not every life is worth living.

 The only boyfriend I’ve ever had was living with bipolar disorder. Almost ten years later, I’m still unsure if it counts as a real relationship or not but for the sake of this piece, let’s give him that title. He ended up dying and nobody told me the cause of death but I suspect his family, like a good African family, hid the fact that he died by suicide. It probably was the type of suicide that doesn’t happen when someone shoots or hangs themselves but the type of suicide that happen when people have such little regard for their own lives and zero will to will, they engage in destructive behaviors that end up killing them. By the way, he is the second Kenyan person I know who died like this and I don’t know enough Kenyan people to know two young Kenyan persons who died by suicide. Kenya should look into this public health issue, for real. I’m not one to talk though, I’m from a country that has one of the highest suicide rates of the subregion and if African culture didn’t make every single thing a taboo, maybe we’d hear more about it.  Iloti and I were not on speaking terms when a friend we had in common told me of his passing but I couldn’t find any sadness inside of me up learning of his death. Only relief for him. He was suffering a lot and despite being classed, he was not living in a society that made things easier for him at all. On that topic did you that many African countries criminalize people who attempt suicide ? I know it’s the case for Nigeria and Kenya. I don’t know who came up with that stupid idea but I just know that somehow, it must be institutionalized religions’ fault. I won’t expand on that.

After I got ill, obviously  I got real reasons not to want to be alive. Real reasons like pain in my body 100% of the time and no prospect of it going away. At the highest (or the lowest) of my depression, I was going to bed asking god every night to simply allow me to not wake up in the morning. I think my pleas sounded like : “ please God can you do this little thing for me? Please?  I never even ask you for anything.”  Which  I now find funny because it’s true, I never asked her for anything, I always forgot to pray about anything else. I didn’t even pray to get better. I don’t believe in miracles. Although in the years following that time, I experienced some. Maybe I should start believing in miracles ? All in all, I find the design of this life thing  frankly flawed. I never asked to be born, and now I have to do something myself if I wanted to be unborn ? Unfair. 27th of February 2017 is the date of the surgery that ruined my life and I will always believe I was not meant to wake up from that anesthesia. I would have preferred that. Nobody can convince me otherwise. Sure I would never have heard the toothless baby laughs of my nephews, and I wouldn’t have seen those beautiful Sao Joao fireworks on the hills of Porto, Portugal two years ago,  when that Trace Made In Africa festival scammed us but we ended up going anyways because everything was already paid for.  But I wouldn’t have had to suffer every single day, plus I’d be dead so I wouldn’t even have known what I was missing. That sounds amazing to me. 

The day the voice in my head told me to slit my wrist with the cutter I was using to do a paper collage, I knew I had progressed further in my suicidal ideation. My brain always remembers random stuff at random moments. At this moment,  I remembered that I had once seen in an episode of Criminal Minds that people that want to die usually slit their wrists horizontally when they should do it vertically for effective results. The next day, I made an appointment with a psychiatrist at the clinic below my apartment and when I got there, after questioning me, the doctor asked me why it took me so long to come. “ I don't know Miss Doctor” I told her, “I thought everything I was doing was enough”. And I did. At that point, I had been in therapy for 3 years, once a week. I was spending all my time and money in doctors’ appointments and trying different meds whose side effects clashed with each other. All the while trying to stay financially afloat because if there is one thing those past seven years have told me, it’s that it is expensive to be chronically ill, even when you live in a country with free healthcare. Next thing I knew, miss Doctor put me on antidepressants and yes it made me put on weight and get a sugar addiction I'm still trying to manage,  but at least I got a little kick, a little will to live life. It was new, it was nice. I completed administrative tasks in thirty minutes that I had postponed for a year, out of anxiety. I remember I even redownloaded a dating app. All I can say about that is that I shouldn’t have, but apparently, that’s what you do when you have a will to live. You want to meet new people, and possibly fall in love. Hope is lethal. Mistakes were made but life is made to be lived, that's what I say to comfort myself.

 I am reminded of this period of my life because once again I find myself going to bed at night, praying that I don’t wake up. I don’t have any kids or dependents so I can’t think of a better time to be gone. On that topic, I would like to have biological children but I’m not sure it is happening for me in this lifetime. Plus I hate that it would make me have to stay alive. No more suicidal ideation. I would have decided to bring people in this life who need me to stay alive. To have someone that never asked for it depend on you, when you obviously have trouble handling your own life, is utterly terrifying. 

 The novelty this time is that most of the angst comes in the early hours of the morning, when the sky is turning blue and the sun is slowing rising through my window. Anxiety wakes me up to the sound of the early morning rain, falling on the dark green leaves of this woody neighborhood. What a beautiful hour to have an existential crisis. It’s therefore surprising that during the day, I sometimes find myself praying I’m accepted into this South African program next year that could change my life. I daydream about my new life in Capetown. The new things I will see, the new people I will meet, the dates I will go to. This must mean I have hope for a future, right ? Even though I know being accepted would mean facing a new type of hardship. After a mountain there is what ? Another mountain, you know it. I tell myself I’ll cross this bridge when I get there though. In the past four years, I’ve done things I didn’t think I could do anymore after all. Despite this seemingly proof of hope I will tell you thereason why I would like not to wake up. I would like not to wake up because I honestly think everything good that was supposed to happen to me, happened in my past. And it was a good run, thank you. It was a really good run. 

Since then, every little thing has been a battle and I’m tired of battling life. The bitch got hands and I told you I’m not the battling type. Plus, I’ve always lived on the pessimistic side of life. Or the realistic one, depending on how you see things. This may come as a surprise for people who know me superficially because I have a joyful nature. You can regularly see me twerking on Instagram right before I go to bed begging god to give her precious gift of life to someone else that really wants it. I guess the universe decided to balance my playful nature by making me a deeply existential and nihilistic human being. Yesterday, I had a thought about the guy I’m into and that doesn’t give me the time of the day. I remember he once told me “ Nihilism is its own punishment ” and I laughed. I laughed because it meant it was really seeing me. Then I got angry at my brain because, wow, why would you even remind me of someone I’m trying to forget ? Why would you do that to me ? Mschewwwww.

I even feel shameful writing all this. Multiple genocides are going on, I have friends who lost multiple loved ones this year, I know people who lost their whole family in past genocides, people whose religious community are currently at risk of being wiped out, people whose homes were demolished out of the blue, everyone is going through way more difficulties than I am. I have a roof on top of my head, food on my table and most of my loved ones are okay. Shouldn’t that be a consolation? It is, to a certain extent, but if it was enough, rich acclaimed white men like Anthony Bourdain would never unalive themselves. As another ex of mine would say : “ but I am the only one who has to live my life.” Each of us will never know what it feels like walking in someone else’s shoes and I am the only one who knows in my literal bones how tired I am. And I’m not depressed, at least I don’t think so. Imagine if I was. 

I reckon I could deal with this better. If I was someone else, yes maybe. I’m sure there is someone else somewhere who is dealing with the same things, way better than me. They’re doing everything it takes, at the right moment. They’re doing meditation and breathwork instead of taking meds. Despite the pain, they work out. They don’t abuse any substance. They eat well. They didn’t leave the hospital because they were tired and impatient the day the sleep unit was late with their appointment, after a big machine they commuted 2 hours to get to, tapped their brain for fifteen minutes straight, for no results. They were patient. They never cry or get angry at the doctor. They don’t alienate anyone. They remained gracious and positive and lovable. They never give up on dating every other day and get obsessed with people after two and a half dates. They might even be partnered. Happily so. They don’t give up on any projects. They don’t even pause, they continue no matter what. They go to church and talk to white Jesus -or even the black one- instead of paying to talk to a therapist about the same thing again and again. They don’t complain to anyone, not even to strangers on the internet. They keep their issues to themselves. They might get a little eczema due to keeping all their problems inside, but all in all, their “healing journey” is a straight line. I know they exist. I also know we are not equal in that aspect. Some people are better equipped to deal with life hardships than others. It’s just the way it is. Everybody is wired differently. Everybody has a different background.

I used to have a place where I could have my mental breakdowns alone and in peace. I chose isolation for many years because everything was triggering and being my usual mess of a person in front of people adds a level of shame and pity and eventual rejection I don’t want to deal with. but I don’t even have this place anymore. I am about to turn thirty-four-whole-years old and I have nothing, except a draft of a book, and maybe a painting I bought from a talented friend, that might see its value increase in the future. I told a close friend where I keep the draft of my manuscript. It’s a nice and unique book, It would be a shame it never gets published. As for the painting, I’m letting my family figure it out themselves.

 Lately, everything has concurred to make me feel like a failure and a burden despite my best efforts.  I get humiliated at the pharmacy once again, I lose my safe space, I lose other opportunities I was counting on, I get scammed out of money I don’t have, I get scolded because I am too tired all the time (go figure), I lose jobs (could not care less about a job or career but I’m not an heir and I need the money). All this increases my chronic pains, worsens my insomnia and my brain decides to wake me up at four in the morning to remind me of all the negative stuff that ever happened to me. Like the time I was sexually assaulted by a doctor after a very painful procedure and I had to brush it off and move on because I frankly had bigger problems to deal with. Or the time my dad called me to say his goodbyes and I could hear French bombs dropping in the background. Or the time that Senegalese guy I was so into tried to rape me in my own bed while I was under the influence.  

The feeling like a failure or a false promise, I could say that I’m used to it by now. I mostly accepted that I will always look back at myself and wonder why things went South and what I could have done differently.  It’s the feeling like a burden that is the most painful novelty. I think it hurts more because coming from a conflictive family, I used to be very independent and self-reliant and now I’m forced to rely on other people. I hate it here. I hate hearing my parents whispering to each other on the phone about my problems and how they are worried about me because for the most part of my life, I was the kid you didn’t have to worry about.  I guess being a parent is for life and all the worrying they didn’t do before, well, they’re doing it now. When I feel like a failure and a burden I remember that I have been thrown in a race I’ve never asked for in the first place and on top of this, I was given handicaps. I’m doing my best, and my best never seems to be enough and if it does, it’s only temporary. So no, I will never forgive my mother for throwing me into this race, I will never forgive her for giving birth to me. My only consolation is the fact that at the end of the race, for all of us there will be the final big embrace by the warm belly of the earth. Hopefully, that will finally mean peace for me.  

Recommendations

This week I recommend that you watch The Rain, a Danish series released on Netflix in 2018. The plot is simple : there is a rain that came at one point and killed everyone and one scientist who knew it would happen put his two kids, a boy and his big sister,  in a bunker in a forest for many years. At one point they are forced to come out because well, you can’t stay in a bunker forever and then they join a group of young survivors that keeps trying to survive while avoiding the rain because they believe every rain is now a killer rain. It’s one of those post apocalyptic/dystopian series I watched dumbfounded thinking I wouldn’t make all this effort to stay alive in a post-apocalyptic world . Anyways, I only watched season 1, I tried to watch season 2 but by then my depression was worse, everything was triggering and I carefully avoided anything that could make me feel worse because even the wind slapping my cheeks the wrong way had the potential to send me spiraling. That being said,  I enjoyed that first season because I am interested in northern European (and South American) films and series. It’s a nice change from the usual US/UK axis of media content and English language domination.  I hope you enjoy it too if you’re into this type of series. If you watch, let me know what you think. 

My second recommendation is a book I haven’t read yet but I intend to read even though there’s always something I never quite grasp in East Asian books. It has really good reviews and I find the title funny and apt, regarding the topic this week’s newsletter. Here is the summary of I want to die but I want to eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-Hee, a South Korean writer :

“Baek Se-Hee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her--what to call it?--depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting and overwhelming and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal. But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like? Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse.”