MY BATTLE WITH DEPRESSION (part 2)

I didn’t have a relationship with my baby when he was in my womb but I never did anything to harm him despite how tempted I was to harm myself.

 I developed bouts of insomnia and there are days I would go outside at wee hours of the night and cry for hours. I remember this one night I took a 20 ltr Jerri can of water and I went outside and sat on the balcony. It was around midnight. I texted a friend of mine and she was also going through a dark and difficult time. Somehow, when you are depressed you almost always find someone who is going through the same situation and you end up drugging each other deeper into the furnace.

So my friend and I reminisced about our good old days in school, how life was so good and the going was so smooth. She poured out her heart to me and I did the same. She told me that she had reached a point in life where she felt she just wanted to die and sadly enough, I told her that I felt the same way too. She promised to pray for me and I told her that I no longer pray because my relationship with God had completely been severed. I felt like God had abandoned me and that is why I was having some deep emotional and mental struggles. I adopted a sleeping pattern that kept me awake at night only to spend most time of my day asleep after all waking up in the morning for me always made me feel like I was waking up into a nightmare. Things were bad!!!

I remember this one time, I walked to a club and I sat down. I just wanted to feel high even just for a minute I was desperate for anything that would numb my pain. I ordered for a drink but I couldn’t even take a sip. I thought that I would never be able to forgive myself if something bad happened to my baby out of my own doing. So I walked out. I faulted God for so many things that were going wrong in my life and so I couldn’t even pray for calm and comfort. In all these, just one of my remaining two friends knew what I was really going through. I am good at hiding my problems. I smile, I laugh, I put up a face because I am the kind of person who feels weak and vulnerable when my stuff is out there. I still do feel this way but I have come to learn that by putting it out there, I am slowly taking control over the narrative of my life.

I punished myself and condemned myself every single minute of every day. Sometimes the noises in my head terrorizing my thoughts would be so loud that I would just switch off the tv and sit in total silence. I was in denial of my situation. I never wanted to get pregnant but most importantly, I never wanted to be ‘married’. I was constantly revisiting my past and just wishing I could go back to the way things were. I lost interest in many things I loved doing. Watching movies, hanging out with my friends, writing, reading…today, my best friend is the only person who genuinely makes me laugh. She probably has no idea but her impact in my life, now more than ever before in the 8 years I have known her, is very huge.

 All this time I was falling apart, my partner and I, we are also falling apart. He didn’t get me. He didn’t understand what I was going through. I tried to let him see my pain. I warned him that I was sinking into depression and I was afraid that I would also get post-partum depression. Today, he admits that he was wrong in many instances but sometimes I wish he really got me then before things became almost irreparable. I can’t tell you how many times I made up my mind to leave him but where would I go? I couldn’t go back to my mum because I knew she was disappointed in me. I knew that if I went back to her, our relationship would not survive the turbulence. I couldn’t bug my relatives with my burdens and so, my options were very limited.

I couldn’t understand why I was like this. But depression has a way of driving you to the edge. Depression has a way of putting up walls of pain, sadness, despair. This depression had turned my life upside down, flipped me over, twisted me round and round such that I couldn’t even recognize myself.  I became a shadow of who I was. I actually hate who I became.

In all of this what I regret the most is not giving myself a chance to just enjoy my pregnancy. There are just a few countable days I would wake up feeling enthusiastic about my baby. I felt ‘lucky’ because my pregnancy was not as visible and in fact some of my neighbors were surprised to see me with a baby.

I actually remember a time my partner’s sister tried to organize a surprise baby shower for me. Through my best friend, I found out about it. Now any person under normal circumstances, in that situation would have been extremely happy after all it was such an amazing gesture. But not me. I was irked by this information and I remember telling my best friend “I don’t care how you do it, just let them know I don’t want it!”. I vehemently and persistently told her to make sure that the event was canceled despite her trying to convince me otherwise. My partner too tried to convince me to change my mind about it and I remember telling him, “I am not proud of the fact that am pregnant. I have no intention of flaunting it or celebrating it in any way”.

I know none of them understood where I was coming from. I do not blame them. I was in a really dark place and I feel terrible about the people I might have intentionally or unintentionally hurt. The worst thing was, when I was in school and my friends and I would talk about life we would always talk about bridal parties and baby showers and how eager we were to experience such but yet here I was not even wanting to acknowledge the little bun that was in my oven. It is a terrible feeling I assure you.    

Today, I am on the path way to recovery because I decided to seek help. I decided to talk to someone because what is done is done. I am afraid that if I continue to let this depression consume me I will not be able to be the mom that my baby deserves and most importantly, I may not live up to my full potential. It is a constant struggle but at least unlike before, I can actually hope for brighter days. It is not easy trying to pull myself out of it. It may not happen in a day. Maybe not even in a week or a few months. My counsellor says it’s okay so I am okay. Like I said before depression is not something you can just wish away or sweep under the rug.

I can’t wait to let you in on my journey dealing with post-partum depression but for now, let me wipe away my tears and try to cheer myself up because opening my heart up about this is really taking a toll on me emotionally, mentally and psychologically. In the meantime, here is something I read and I would like you all to grasp;

“if you know someone who is depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness and loneliness they are going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest and best things you will ever do.”

Thank you for stopping by,

Yours truly.