"The Personal Hurricane"

On November 4th, 2022, I sat on the bedside of a hotel room. I made a very peaceful, yet heavy decision. When I was ready, I opened the notes app, and I left a letter for one person: my sister. I knew she would be the only one to convey my last message to the world…or choose not to. But she would, at the very least, do my story some justice…

…

Rock bottom has a basement, and depression is a personal hurricane you cannot evacuate from.

It visits in ranges from a slight wind to a destroying, raging darkness. You may survive the wind, but the real tragedy is the debris…The people you can’t reconnect with because you isolated. The ones who didn’t know and can’t relate to your sudden change. The people you want to talk to, but where do you even begin to explain the damage that has been caused?

Where do you trace the path of the hurricane to convey what this thing did to you? Why you are silent. Why you have the thousand-yard stare. Why you can’t eat, or eat too much. Why you can’t sleep, or sleep too much. Why you can barely say more than three words: “It is well.”

Depression will have you bringing a bulldozer to the debris of the personal hurricane of your life, because what other tool does one use to begin to clear this load?

Anda’s (Lazy Writa’s”) death was a ghost some people understand, some have completed, some think about, and some, luckily, may never get to meet. Whichever side you are on, know this: You don’t have to relate. But understand that if one is in a very dark hole, the only thing they care about is a light…no matter how small.

…mine came when I saw no need for the world to have the version of me that was.

I felt the world was a tad bit unfair. Everything I had learned to survive were the very weapons fashioned against me. I saw no way out but that. I felt I had run my race, and it was time to go. My nervous system was beyond reproach, and I could only repeat, “I need sleep, I need peace.”

Everyone thought I was just saying I was tired. Some even thought it was my usual dark humour. I didn’t argue. I was just planning.

I am writing this to the ones who are currently surviving a private war while giving a public performance. The ones who are managing a nervous system bankruptcy while trying to balance a ledger.

Depression is a dark hole of nothingness…a place so empty your soul cannot find a way out. It’s your soul searching desperately for a crack of light and finding none. My depression almost killed me. I thought everything around me was all there ever was and would be. And if that was the case, there was no point in living one more day in this never-ending cycle.

So… Let me sleep.

I repeated that word “sleep” so many times it became my obsession. It became the means by which I wanted to leave this world. I believed there was an eternal rest, a place of joy that I could reach if I could just sleep, escape the dark and empty cycle, and not wake up to this life again.

I tried three times to end my life, but that Man Upstairs kept cutting me off. I was pissed.But as Jim Carrey said,

“Depression is your body saying, ‘I don’t want to be this avatar anymore. I don’t want to hold up this character you’ve created in the world.’”

YUP.

My soul was tired of playing that small, weak, beaten-down character. And I had to shed it. In navigating my life struggles, I could not find the strength in me to crack the darkness and find light. To find that power to claw your way out of despair and into the light was not easy… in any way. I was already caged and disconnected from my inner strength.

Like the ‘caged bird’ It yearned for light. And so did I. And for that, I am endlessly grateful. Embracing this inner strength became my path to healing and self-discovery.

I had to learn to bless the days of depression and pain.

• To bless the days God gave me tears of sadness to cry.
• To also bless the days He gave me tears of joy to cry.
• To bless the beauty of time and realizations.
• To bless the divine interruptions that kept me here.
• To bless the story of my life, the journey it took to get me here.
• To bless every single thing that occurred to make me the person who stands here today.

If you’re in that dark hole, I want you to know this: All it takes is one crack of light.

Hold onto it. Claw your way toward it. Fight for it. You are not alone.

One day, you will look at the world with joy in your heart, tears in your eyes, and know that the journey was worth it. Your journey is worth it! I promise you. You will look back one day, my friend. You will see the birds, the clouds, and the quiet morning… And you will find your light.

What would have happened if I had succeeded in those dark moments?

I would have missed out on the life I currently have. All the people I have now met… Everything I am currently experiencing…Would I even have found the joy I thought awaited me on the other side? Would I have missed the beauty that’s all around me here?

I clawed out of that dark hole, and it started with a crack. The tiny cracks of hope I had left. This little light of mine I held on to for dear life. The world couldn’t have been all dark…Right? YES…It isn’t all that dark. I felt it, I knew it, I believed it. I needed to find, fight, and punch my way out. All it took was a crack of light, and I held onto it for dear life. Over time, I realized you could peel back more layers of light in your life.

I healed.

I admitted I was in a dark space. I found God. I didn’t go looking for Him; He found me on that last day I tried. I was angry. But I knew He was there. Someone was there with me, alone in that room, watching me angrily shout at life to leave me the fuck alone.

The weight of depression had to drop. Depression makes every step heavy. So I took one heavy step a day. I got out of bed and got back in. My to-do list would have one task: send a text… Just one.

One heavy step. Every day…

I didn’t speak to people. I was scared they wouldn’t hold my fragile heart with care. I watched videos about what I was going through. I sang worship songs, fervently. I watched sermons on repeat. Thank you, Nathaniel Bassey, Sarah Jakes Roberts, and Apostle Joshua Selman. I let the universe conspire in my favor to bring the right people, things, and opportunities into my life. I made space for them.

I made space, that was all I could do, and it made all the difference.

In attempting to end my life, I found it. And though the story will never be completed, the journey continues. We can’t stop halfway and decide to end it there. If I go, I want to go climbing up the mountain, not sliding down.

And to the ones still holding on… to the ones looking for their spark…”Strength” has become the alibi the world uses to neglect you.

You haven’t lost the spark; you have just entered Winter. We live in a machine that demands a harvest every single day, but the earth does not bloom all year. It rests. It goes dormant. It looks dead on the surface, but underneath, it is re-gathering its nutrients.

You are in your Winter. You are not lazy, or late, or losing, or failing… you are not unambitious or lost; you are fallow.

Your soul is currently refusing to produce fruit because it needs to repair the root. Stop trying to glue plastic flowers onto your branches to convince the world you are blooming. Let the leaves fall. Let the branches be bare. There is a dignity in the barren season if you respect it.

And to the drowning person who is trying to save themself: Do not apologize for the panic.

When a drowning person flails, they are not trying to hurt the lifeguard; they are trying to find oxygen.

• If you have to block the number to find oxygen, do it.
• If you have to cancel the project to find oxygen, do it.
• If you have to disappoint the mentor, the mother, or the friend to find oxygen**…do it.**

Your first responsibility is not to your reputation, nor to your potential, nor to the comfort of others. Your first responsibility is to keep your lungs moving.

The spark will return. The wonder will return. The ambition will return. But they will only come back to a house that is safe. And right now, your job is not to host a party. Your job is to lock the door, turn off the lights, and rest in the safety of your own silence.

You are a survivor who needs to decide to stop apologizing for living.

Signed, A Survivor 🧡