Living on extra time: Three years and counting

When I was 13 and in SS1, I had an Economics teacher who insisted on being addressed as ‘Mr.’ as opposed to ‘Uncle’ like the other male teachers. If you called him Uncle Wilson, he’d say, "Your uncle is in the beer parlor with two ashawos. My name is Mr. Wilson!"

His inappropriateness endeared me to Economics. It became my favorite subject.

In the back pages of my Economics note, I penned down my destiny. Before the end of the term, I was going to kiss a boy. By 16, I'd be in the university. At 18, I would have sex, then die.

You’re reading this on the day I turn 21 so, things didn’t go exactly as planned. I did kiss a boy. Underneath my table one Wednesday in class during break time. The experience helped coin my favorite threat, "I will spit inside your mouth."

As for attending university, that happened a year earlier than planned. My brother dared me to write and pass GCE during my SS1 holiday and I did. JAMB came after, then UNIBEN.

The part about being 18: What I failed to mention at the beginning was that when I turned 13, I started to remember my childhood. It came after a harrowing episode that involved Facebook. And the memories brought with them my first of many, many, many, symptoms. I remembered in scratches whose pain were so vivid they could be nothing but true. These memories were always clouded in pungent whiffs of are-you-making-all-of-this-up? So that when I opened up a scissors and cut my arms, or my hair, when I tried to drown myself, or drowned inside myself, the pushing thing was always the pain from Ebo’s jean buckle, his Bic Biro, and the question of whether all of it had happened or if I was filthy enough to make the shit up.

I was having my first glances at mania and depression. Looking back, the word most apt at describing that period was shame. Of my childhood rememberings, of my sprouting breasts, of my acne, blood stained vulva. Shame. And a clarity of the future that can only be so confidently present in the pubescent fog of ignorance.

My goal in life was to possess the power to say no. Or yes. Choice. Which was why, 18 marked the age of sex. Of being able to pick a person and say, you, I will have sex with you. And because this was so alien to me, this right over my body I would magically have at 18, I assumed that the joy would be too much to be contained in an alive body.

Well, that and the fact that most days after I started to remember were like being an unhooded clitoris. Every touch and breath was painful. And I needed for it to stop. Adulthood would give me the balls to turn the scissors vertically and cut straight down. Get into the tub and not get back up.

So why did I live?

Because at 17, I was raped. Childhood abuse prepares you for a lifetime of abuse. I used to say, when bad things start happening to you, they don't stop. And for the longest time this held true. But then, one day, I fell in love. His friendship was there at 2 am when I would be on the floor, willing myself to not pick up a razor, headache from my crying, frantic that someone was abusing my sister. Or my brother. And he was in my BBM when I was in class, one minute thinking how cute Mr Solomon was and the next fighting to push back tears and a sadness that was coming for no fucking reason.

So that, some days after my 18th birthday, I did have consensual sex for the first time. And for several minutes, while the foreplay was advancing, I would still suddenly and say no. Sweet like melting caramel. This right over one's body. To be asked before you're touched. To have your ‘no’ respected. I cannot explain it. So that even though the actual act, much like any other person's first time, was absolute shit, it was the best.

I forgot to mention, I found my words. Start a blog. Turn the words into a thing. Writing about my depression and my childhood and my life is my therapy. It is going into that room with the squeaky four poster iron bed again. My pointing finger rolling the numbers in the old telephone and calling my head. It is remembering and reliving and the period at the end, the closing of the Gmail draft or publishing, is a sigh. It is a hiccup, a warm hug. Quiet voice behind my ear. A you are still here.

So that I turned 19. And Osato came along. And I turned 20. And left home. Because, Keside says, sometimes you have to leave so that you can live.

I came to Lagos and went through several jobs. I find that I am unable to keep jobs because when everyday is a fight to not end your life, a deadline is the farthest thing from your mind. Plus, the stress is a trigger. And when I come out of an episode, the resulting shame after I have let down yet another amazing editor just plunges me right back. *Takes a deep breath amidst a recession and says quietly*, keep your dollars, I'd like to keep my sanity.

At the end of the year, I broke up with Osato. Sometimes, you have to leave so that others can live.

And now we are six days into the new year. And I am 21. I no longer have a boyfriend waiting to worry about me. I am still depressed but I don't cut myself. No alcohol. No drugs. No cigarettes. They don't help. All I have at the moment - and this is cliché as fuck - is my new found focus on joy.

I know this isn't how mental illness works. One doesn't just will errant brain chemicals away with cheerful thinking, but I find it makes for a great buffer. The mania and depression will still come, but I will be here smile and book and flower petal in hand, ready to ride the wave. And what a lovely feeling this is. Going into a new year, three years in extra time, with such honest optimism.

Every year after my 18th birthday has been a gift. And this is no different. I am alive, happy and devoting my 21st year on earth, to answering this question; what happens when I focus on joy?