He felt unbelievably hot, and for the first few minutes, he was completely unaware of where he was. At first he thought he was in his bed, but when he tried to move his hands and legs, he found out that he could not. He also realized that his breaths were abnormally heavy and uneven. He felt stuck in a box, but that was because he was actually stuck in a box.
“Where am I? What is this place? Am I dead?”
These questions ran through his mind as intense pain started to build in his chest. His head ached too, and his temperature was getting hotter. It was obvious his body wasn’t functioning normally. It felt as though someone had hit him with a brick, and his mind was only beginning to process the shock.
It was slow, but his eyes got accustomed to his small-spaced environment. He also realized that moving his head wasn’t easy either. He tried to raise his head, but a few inches upwards, his forehead got knocked against an obstruction, sending pain down his spine. There was a barrier up there. He couldn’t even sit up. The pain ran through his body, and he groaned. He could not even bring his hand up to rub his forehead. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he realized that the obstruction wasn’t just an ordinary barrier. It was a covering, a lid. It was sealed.
The beating rate of his heart doubled in speed, panic catching an instant hold of him, and for a brief moment, his brain flashed back vaguely to an event where a bus he was traveling in, collided with another thereby resulting to an accident.
Did that mean he was dead? Was this heaven or hell? But no! He couldn’t be dead. He was alive. He could feel it. But this wasn’t a space he was used to. He had never been to this kind of place before.
He decided to call for help.
“He..llppp.” What came out of his lips was a whimper. His body was weak and his voice was weak also.
His breaths became heavier. The time between each inhale and exhale became prolonged. The pain in his chest worsened, and his throat tightened. He was running out of air.
He tried again to call for help, but again, it was his whisper that echoed in his ears. He couldn’t struggle. He couldn’t do anything other than stay still. And that was what he did.
So he closed his eyes, realizing his moment had come, and there was nothing he could do about it. As the air became thinner, so did his will and strength.
Soon, he began to gasp, wanting more and more air. But there was no air.
One final gasp, and then he saw a white light.
What this man didn’t know was that his death had already been mourned before he died.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself I am large, I contain multitudes. – Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.
My name is Fortune Aganbi and because it’s my birth month…
***
Growing up, I realized I run away from pain a lot instead of processing it. If something bad happens to me, I develop ways to run from it immediately. Instead of crying and staying in bed, I bury myself in other things. I run from anything that reminds me of that pain until I’m sure I’m not reminded of it anymore. The consequence of this is that the pain doesn’t go away like I think. It hides. It buries itself in my flesh, in my blood, and recedes into a quiet corner of my mind. It piles up. One unprocessed pain after the other. I tell myself, “Yaaay I’m strong. I got over this like sharp sharp”. I sometimes even brag about it to my friends especially if it’s a collective tragedy and they are being really “petty” about it, crying, throwing tantrums and all. I’d usually be like what is this one? Abeg e don happen e don happen move on. Of course there are times when I genuinely feel nothing… indifferent. There have been deaths that happened that I was supposed to feel deeply about but didn’t. What running away from pain, grief, sorrow, worry has taught me is that it never goes away until it is processed. And when I run, it piles up in my mind and body until my mind and body gets tired. So.. months or years later, the piled up hurt unleashes itself with great force. And this time, I’m unable to run. The worse is that the piled up hurt becomes like 2000 times more severe.
This has been the pattern over the years. From time to time, I get weighed down by the burden of unprocessed pain. And when this happens, I try everything to escape but nothing works. I’m forced to feel, to take in and to process every bit of emotion running through my body and soul. Processing pain and trauma after letting it build for a long time is the hardest thing ever. Your mind doesn’t know where to start, nor does your body. So usually, I end up crying myself out as silently and quietly as I can.
I rarely cry. And I rarely cry in front of people.
One ocassion where I had an outburst of suppressed pain and trauma so severe I felt crippled, was around this time last year. I was at that point where I couldn’t run anymore and was feeling choked.
There was covid everywhere and I was home listening to bad news and forcing myself to continuously adapt to the space that was my home and every thing in it. I thought about packing my bags and running away but all the places that came to my mind were places where people I knew lived. I didn’t have the money to rent and pay for a hotel for one month straight, I would have.
So one day around this time last year, my heart was heavy again and I was choking again. I had really bad thoughts because I didn’t even know where to start processing my feelings from. I was scared of sitting and letting myself feel every inch of it. Feelings of unprocessed regrets, unprocessed guilt, unprocessed hatred, unprocessed bitterness, unprocessed trauma, unprocessed pain, unprocessed failures, that I thought I was long done with because I ran from them so as not to appear weak, were triggered by one devastating event. I was on fire. I don’t know if it was depression but I was in a very bad place.
So there was this day that I couldn’t take it anymore and I logged into WhatsApp which I had disabled a week before (got some of my friends very worried about me ), and went directly to two persons dms: Solomon’s and Fidel’s.
Solomon is and has always been an amazing friend to me. And before that time, he was an incredible support system. He sent me beautiful emails. So it made sense to talk to him. He understood me. I was in Solomon’s dm and started recording a vn. The intention was just to talk about what I was feeling, but I ended up crying severely and asking him questions I knew he couldn’t answer like, “Why am I like this?” and so on.
Omor after recording, that was when I realized that I had fucked up, especially to Solomon, someone who I had always appeared strong to. But I didn’t delete the vn. Instead, I went on to Fidel’s dm and did the same thing. I had no idea what was making me do it sef. The vn to Fidel was longer. I was crying most of the time lol. Then I went offline and switched off my phones briefly. I had never felt so exposed my goodness! And it wasn’t like I gave real details of what I was feeling o.
Before that time, I was always secretive about things that affected my mental health.
There were times when I brought up issues I was facing and the responses were usually the other person telling me about their own experiences and how they had had it worse and then making the conversation totally about them (if you do this, please stop it. It’s unhealthy!) Or it could be the other person asking, “Do you even know what depression is? Have you ever felt like this? Abeg you never see anything you dey talk. What about me bla bla.” as though it was a competition. Not that I ever mentioned I was depressed o.
At this point, I would like to say because you have had it worse doesn’t in any way invalidate the other person’s feelings AT ALL. Yes you suffered 30 years of trauma and hard circumstances and there is a 19 year old telling you something is weighing him down, but you are saying his own doesn’t matter.
So back to the story. I switched on my phones again and as though she had been trying to call, Fidel’s call came in. It was a long call. Her words were kind. Fidel can easily relate with other people’s pain and emotions which is something I can’t do. After the long therapeutic call, she went on WhatsApp to type some of the most beautiful words anyone ever wrote to me ❤️. Then Solomon. I can’t remember if it was on call or on vn, but Solomon understood more than I even expected. He was so reassuring, so sure about me.
After that incident, I opted for therapy which I never completed, for the same reason of not wanting to appear vulnerable.
But then I started to slowly have a mental shift and began to consciously nurture a new perspective towards myself and the world. I decided to even alter my body in some ways only some close friends know about. Weird to say I enjoyed the pain lol. I began to consciously metamorphose into someone who I had spent years running away from.
After tha incident, I realized it was okay to be a bit vulnerable and be open once in a while. I learnt showing vulnerability doesn’t mean you are weak. It just means you are human. The world doesn’t have to know everything, there are people who should know a bit. I knew this before but didn’t believe it because I thought I was so strong and self-dependent that I didn’t need any external help to get better.
I felt a tad relieved after speaking to my two friends, like a stone was lifted from my chest. Everything didn’t go away but it got much better.
And that’s why I’ve decided to give a theme to my birthday this year. EXPOSURE.
Fast forward to now, I still struggle with appearing vulnerable. I’m still very unexpressive about many of my feelings in a vulnerable way. But being with some of my friends has taught me to learn. As a matter of fact, I still don’t usually sit to talk about what’s really going on with me. But it’s getting better.
I want to give myself the chance to be openly vulnerable because a lot of people have this idea of me in their heads that I’m very strong and emotion-less. Yes I am that – strong and stern. But I also have a vulnerable side. I am strong, weak, perfect, flawed, beautiful, ugly. I’m many things.
I might likely regret or delete this later, but what do we say to the gods in control of these things?
UsEveryday 