paradox of perseverance

for coloured girls who have considered suicide...

if you know, you know (IYKYK)

I don’t like to gamble, but if there’s one thing I’m willing to bet on, it’s myself.

—Beyoncé

content note: mentions of depression and suicide 

I do not recall if it was as sunny as today.

Last year, February 14, I boarded a plane and then another, returning to my motherland. This was a last-minute trip filled with more anxiety and uncertainty than I can detail. The “Karibu Nyumbani” cheers (Welcome Home) at the airport passed through one ear and out the other. I was mentally and emotionally disoriented, my body was moving on autopilot, and I had not comprehended the inner chaos that had led me to hop on a plane almost spontaneously for a 24-hour+ trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Either way, here I was. With my heavy luggage (metaphorically and literally), ready to be carried and supported. Because, for the life of me, I was so tired, drained, fatigued, exhausted. I had persevered and endured, but after a lot of convincing, I waved the white flag and admitted that this fight was no longer just mine. 

Today marks one year since my trip home in the depths of depression and suicidal ideation. Only a handful of people knew what was happening in my inner world. I knew that I could not fill everyone in on my sudden “disappearance” because sometimes, even when people are trying to help, their intentions might not match the impact of their actions. So I had to be discerning with who knew and how much they knew. I was already having a hard time being honest with myself about the pain inside, so I knew that being truthful with my loved ones would take so much effort. 

Learning to ask for help and believing that people will show up to care for me in a good way has been one of the most profound evolutions I have gone through. This “tough girl” energy I used to give off only served me for so long. Indeed, I managed to endure some significant hardships and navigate through troubling waters on many occasions. However, each time I made it out “unscathed”, I also knew that I had decided to pretend that whatever I just went through was “not as bad” as it looked like.

In reality, every triumph came with a cost—I hardened up and became callous, cold, and numb. These days, I sometimes joke about how I can turn on disassociation mode like a light switch. I had become so accustomed to having ‘tough skin’ that I had inhabited and embodied that as my personality. I allowed many to see me smiling, laughing, dancing and playing about but I rarely allowed anyone to see me in my heartbroken, lonely, and shattered state. 

Then like a pile of books on top of an old wooden shelf, the unspoken and unacknowledged pain piled up so much that it began to spill over.

At first, it was short-lived but highly spontaneous outbursts of rage and anger directed at the people I loved the most. I had this subconscious belief that the people who already loved me could handle my sharp remarks and brutal behaviour because… love, right? In my mind, love was a permanent state that could withstand anything thrown at it. And yes, love is powerful and protective, but human beings have hearts that hurt regardless of the depth of care and love they have for you. Since my default state had been to “harden up” through difficult emotions, I assumed that others would similarly recover from my jabs and blows.

To this day, as I look back on the fractures in some of my past relationships/friendships caused primarily by my callousness, I take a moment to meet with feelings of remorse. This is not about wallowing in regret, but it is important for my heart memory—to remember that people are not insentient machines.

What began as small outbursts directed at my closest connections slowly but surely built up to more frequent “irritations” and then, over time, these turned into inward-directed anger—prolonged depression.

I had not experienced depression before then, but I had some limited knowledge about it through schooling, wellness training, and (trying to) support some of my friends who were experiencing depression. Hearing the word “depression” from both my doctor and therapist for the first time threw me off like a train missing its track lines. Sometimes, when I tried to say it out loud, my tongue caught in my mouth and the syllables dragged on and on. I did not want to believe it. So, as my default would have it, I hid it from most, except a few. 

I did not know that I could hate the sun so much, or be so cynical about the beauty of flowers and the moon. I barely ate. Unfortunately, as our standards of beauty would have it, this period of significant weight loss was also accompanied by compliments from people about how good I looked. If you asked me today how it is I managed to shower, buy groceries and go on walks, I am not sure I can articulate what gave me the strength to do that. I did not know how to ask for what I needed because, quite honestly, I did not know what it was I needed. The few times that I did ask, I was sometimes held. Other times, I was left on the floor in tears crouching in a fetal position. This is why, months later, I learned to be discerning with whom I asked for help. 

These mountains you are carrying, you were only meant to climb.

—Najwa Zebian 

Getting to where I am today, emotionally, mentally and physically, has been one of the wildest and most difficult journeys I have undertaken. There were many pit stops in between where I was ready to completely give up. At first, it sounded like whispers saying “Why keep trying?” “You must be so tired” or “No one cares”. Then the whispers became incessant and loud until they convinced me, on more than one occasion, that my life was not worth living.

There were nights when I went to bed drenching my pillows in tears and somehow managed to give a presentation before audiences of all sizes. There were other days on my walks when I envisioned the possibility of not stopping at a traffic light and “accidentally slipping” into fast-moving cars. Those were the days where, with all the little strength left in me, I called in reinforcements. Sometimes, I just called and cried. Other times, I managed to say a few words like “I am not OK”. My friends, family, and therapist have shown up for me consistently, generously and with so much discernment. 

To be alive today is a testament to the power of my community, and I am forever grateful. 

Now that I am here, alive and breathing, I am (trying to) learn what it means to live again. The version of me before all of this began feels like someone else. I have sometimes found myself attempting to “become her” so I can remember what it feels like to not feel so deeply. I easily forget how much it had cost me to move through life “unbothered” or, at least, pretending to be strong and resilient. This was the superficial version of strength and resilience that did not involve truth-telling. Indeed, this version served its purpose, but it had also become maladaptive.

Coming to terms with how significantly I have changed over the past few years is taking longer than I anticipated. I feel different, I look different, I think differently, I desire different. Impatience sometimes leads me to want to revert to the familiar version of me because, at least with that, I knew what to expect. Choosing myself every day—this new self—is labour. But, as reminded by my beloveds: Would I rather invest in the pain of what is familiar or the possibility of the new?

Nothing is guaranteed about what these “new possibilities” will look/feel like. I do not know what other evolutions are waiting to happen within and around me. I do not even know where exactly I will be a year, let alone a month, from now. What I do know is that I have the choice, every day, to say yes to life.

Before I started writing this piece today, I battled with thoughts of anxiety and narratives of worthlessness. I, quite literally, clutched at a straw (as the proverb goes) to make it to today and share this piece with you. I love dreaming about the multiple possibilities of my life ahead, and in the same breath, I do my best to affirm that I am worthy of more breaths. And until the sun sets, I will choose to turn toward what is calling me to evolve and carry the lessons along the way. Perseverance, strength and resilience do not come naturally to me. Yet, somehow, here I still am—alive, loving and free.

Stay alive.

let her be born / let her be born / & handled warmly.

—Ntozake Shange