Your Depression Has No Expiration Date
I was in my early twenties when the pain began inside me. An unseen wound began to fester. It started as a slight itch but grew into a fistful of pain spreading throughout my body. It was an indescribable sore I could not quite place my finger on. I called it “darkness” in my poems. I wrote, “tell the darkness I did not die.” Darkness. I was afraid of calling this thing that tore me apart, had me kneeling on the bathroom floor kind of pain by its name. This thing, this unseen wound, had me fighting every minute for myself. I was afraid to call it by its name. Calling it depression gives it a real name.
The darkness visited uninvited. In cities, jobs, and across continents to the most beautiful places where I held sadness and fought the pain until exhausted. I remember the first day I walked into the office of my therapist. Privileged, my job gave me access to a therapist — even one month off to figure things out. On the first day of therapy, I sat across from my therapist in her warm office overlooking a beautiful golf course. It was summer, the sunlight made the city look even more magical as cars sped by, and I wondered what it was like to be free of this wound inside me. I chose Thursdays for therapy because it reminded me of my favorite day in my primary school back in Lagos. I was ten years old, and Thursdays were the days we walked to the library to borrow or renew a book — the beginning of my love for words.
I sat on the couch. I tried explaining what brought me there, but I got emotional. I was shaking and crying. The more I tried explaining the root of my pain, the more I cried. My therapist handed me a Kleenex; she asked me questions I could not remember, memories I had erased. She explained why I did not remember, “your brain erased these memories to protect you. It is your coping mechanism.” I relaxed my muscles, let the tight knots on my shoulders loosen up, and stopped trying to remember. I kept apologizing for revealing too much too soon. She told me this was how I needed to move through life. My brain was doing what it needed to do for me to live. Memories haunt me. Memories hunt me like a predator to prey.
In the middle of writing Questions for Ada, I was in pain. What I did not realize at that time was the journey through the years — how this thing I could not contain will always seem to be a part of my life. The years have armed me with enough grit to make even my God stare at herself and bow. Sometimes, it washes me clean to the bone; sometimes, it leaves me unable to figure out my next move. I have tried to run away from myself, but I come back. I always come back. I am hurting and healing and healing in waves. Healing does come in waves for me.
This pain and anger within that inspired me to publish Questions for Ada. I wanted the pain to mean something. I realize my power cannot be contained when I sit to write. It is easy to erase me, forget I exist in human form, and pretend I am not trying my best. It is impossible to tell me to stop when I am engaged with my work. You have to remember that our creative minds urge us on. The passion within us for more pushes us forward through the noise. But depression will try to take even that away.
We carry the child we were into the light, and we tell her everything will be okay; for now, it is a little rocky. It is a different struggle for everyone. This is why I carry myself into rooms the way I do. I know how powerful it is to live when your mind tells you the world will be better without you. I tell myself to look at all I can become and how many lives I can fit into this lifetime. I am great at rebirth, standing up with my bloody mouth, spitting blood, and telling all that had come to upset me, ‘this life is mine. This one is mine. It is all mine.’ My Uncle, who was instrumental in breathing life into my gift, told me my ability to keep going is my gift and curse. I do not understand no when the world tells me something is impossible. I know how powerful it is to fight, fight, and win. To go to war with yourself and come back soft again.
I remember telling myself something terrible may happen during my happiest times last year. I was convinced my joy would be fleeting. After all, everything turns to ash in the end. How could I be this cruel to myself? In my early twenties, I learned to scrape off expectations from the table; life was better lived without hoping for everlasting joy. Close relationships went sour. I have learned no living being is good enough to make a graveyard out of me. Last year, I tried telling my therapist how I formed into this being when he asked how I lived through the darkness.
I wish I had been kinder to myself when I felt the wound form inside me. I wish I had not listened to people in my culture who made me feel as though I had failed in life for feeling and expressing my emotions with passion. We are born in a culture where silence is a virtue, and dismantling the culture of silence cost me, it cost me too much. There will never be any literature to express how devastating it is to live in this world with a skin, a being, a mind that seems to want to protect me at each turn. I fight for myself more and care for my heart. I soften it when the world wants to make it hard. I did beg my God for a better life; I wished my talent, passion, and the gift away at some point. Forgive me. I cursed my God in four languages. I punched the air until I was breathless. I screamed until the voice of my Chi grew hoarse from the pain in her throat as she watched me begging to live into the morning, parts inside me I did not bury properly revealed. Somedays, I am both blooming and struggling for air.
I remember asking when I knelt in a depressive state years ago, curved like a crescent moon as I experienced another wave of depression. I tried. I begged my God to make me a normal immigrant daughter. A normal Igbo daughter. A normal Nigerian daughter. It would have made life easier because I feel too much. My spirit cannot be described in human form. This spirit keeps me warm and makes me humane. This spirit connects me to my land and my people. What kind of a spirit banters with mortals about her greatness? This Mmuo does not banter with mortals.
These days I have my definition of success, one I redefine as I experience the world. What I considered success before has changed. Life has taught many of us so much. Some of us are still recovering from the pandemic. What is essential evolves. I call it a ‘divine ease’ where there is a flow, returning to the center. People I love and who love me in return are important to me. I am opening my heart to new friendships. I take a machete to reshape my life repeatedly into something my ten-year-old would be proud of, especially something my early twenties Ijeoma would love.
I am nurturing but I carry a machete,
I am reclusive, burning everything down.
Yet, I am revolutionary enough to seek joy.
The depression still visits. Somedays, I bring a chair and tell it to sit while I make eggs with butter and brew my stovetop coffee; sometimes, it sits next to me as I write. When the thing feels bored, the depression sneaks out. Somedays, I am on the phone with a friend. It looks at me, laughing, then it storms out of my house. On days when I am sprawled out on my bed with no fight left in me, it finds me weeping for myself.
Recently, I spent months in Mexico, where I engaged in deep tranquility. Years ago, that would have seemed impossible. Instead, I am grateful for how life seems to come together. I am establishing a creative venture. I am excited to work with my longtime friend, who accepted the role as a creative director. I love writing without the pressure of feeling there is some invisible race I have been invited to without my consent. I love my new writings. I have a nephew now, a beautiful child who makes the funniest faces. I have a four-year-old godson who adores me and says, “auntie IJ, I love you.” On days my heart is wailing; I remember how he kisses me on both cheeks and giggles. How we walk to the nearby store to buy donuts for him, and I buy my iced coffee. I remember how he stretches his hands for me to hold and carry him. He reminds me of the purest form of love. Love that demands nothing from you.
I am proud of how I can begin again with enough enthusiasm to light up a star; in a world that seems bleak. So you go, go forth and tell the depression I will not die. It can visit, but it has to leave because I have very precious things to do with this life.
