Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

Have you ever lived through days marred with so much sadness that you can’t imagine yourself going beyond that point? Days when getting out of bed and breathing are actual sports. Days when hope is lost and you just want it to stop-. You want everything to stop- school, life, living, the pain, the darkness, the sadness.
I, for one, have lived through many of those days and that’s not to say I never received adequate affection or attention. It’s to say that there’s a certain point I reached where I believed nobody needed me and that I had no purpose. My mind made me believe everybody would be better off without me, but as they say “the mind is a terrible master but a wonderful servant”.
If you can relate (even remotely) to what I’ve shared so far, you’re not alone. There are so many people who feel what I felt and who feel like they can’t carry on. If you’re one of those people, this is for you.
I count myself lucky because I recognised my feelings early on and was able to come up with some coping mechanisms, but outside of those mechanisms, I was spiralling. The funny thing is that if you’ve interacted with me you’ll find it hard to believe that those are my feelings because, come on, what haven’t I done? Top of my classes; law major; multiple scholarships; leadership positions and opportunities; activism; acceptance to one of the best international business schools in the world; building a robot; featured on both BBC and CNN; travelling overseas to represent my country not once but twice. So of course, if I’ve managed to accomplish all those things, then I must be lying about my feelings because “How could I feel hopeless after so many tangible successes?”.
See the thing is that I’ve actually been told I’m attention-seeking amongst other things and I began to believe that I must be crazy to actually feel those things. Lo and behold, I was diagnosed with dysthymia. My own diagnosis was high-functioning depression, but don’t self diagnose please.
So, what is dysthymia?
In simple terms it is sadness- long-term sadness. It can persist for years on end. Contrary to my own belief, I am not clinically depressed.
How did I find out?
I actually can’t say for sure when I started experiencing those bouts of sadness – I must have been 14 at the most, but the worst period I can recall was straight out of High school. If you know me, you know that eating is my hobby, but at that point I had unknowingly stopped eating- I was persistently sad and almost never hungry. It’s something that actually had to be pointed out to me. After that initial encounter, I started to eat more but the sadness persisted for the most parts. It rarely impaired me aside from the times I just couldn’t get myself to do anything because I was so overwhelmed. It later got to a point where eating became more of a mechanical issue- I had to be reminded that at this time I had to eat. It got to a point where I just couldn’t manage it by myself anymore- I needed help urgently.
Luckily, my mother understood that and she had me see a health care professional. I’m so happy that I could get the help that I needed. Your mental health matters! And if you’re a millennial or gen Z, you’re more susceptible to having issues with your mental health mainly because you’re in the age of social media, competition, and instant gratification.
I don’t have to be this open, but I will be because we all need to take care of our mental and physical health and if me sharing this gets others to open up or at least opens up conversations around this topic then my work is done.
My advice to anybody feeling like I did and occasionally do?
• Acknowledge and accept your feelings.
• Reach out for help-:Talk to somebody and don’t suffer in silence.
• For parents and people in older generations, please be there for your kids- listen to them, help them, get them help and raise them to be more helpful and aware.
• Stop the stigma that comes with mental health management and do better by the younger generation. My generation has seen a rise in substance abuse and promiscuity, I believe those are cries for help.
• Have open discussions about mental health and let’s make things better for everybody.
• Seek professional help like I did. Counselling won’t make your symptoms disappear overnight, but it will help you to cope better.
-Lengwe Bobo♡

Below is a link to one other blog I did on mental health.