Here’s To Surviving The Bad Weeks!

 

Dear Reader,

Contrary to the popular saying Life is not a box of chocolates! Chocolates are always sweet and life isn’t. Life is more like a jar of some bitter sweet lemon juice. Some gulps of the lemon juice are sweeter and some gulps are bitter because of the lemon pulps that float about in the jar. You simply find yourself taking the gulps as they come.

In the month of July, I learnt and accepted that the things that happen to us 8 out of 10 times are never in our control. Our parents die, we get fired, our dogs fall ill and die, we get cheated on, we are lied to, we get robbed, our visas are denied, we experience miscarriages, we continue to face rejection and quite surprisingly we still have that desire and will to continue living just to see a better day!

This week I also learnt that bad things will happen to good people, people who are honest, honourable and righteous. But even when these things happen to us we now need to decide how we choose to mentally analyse, process and react to these bad things happening to you. My first initial reaction is always to cry, then the rest follows.

Quite frankly The last week of July was terrible to me. The things that happened to me this week made me feel small, alone and somewhat invisible to God. And yet me feeling this way doesn’t mean it is true because my feelings falter but the way God views us and loves us even in the bad weeks never falters.

So begun my week.

Monday

God woke me up.

And Immediately I just had a heavy and unsettling feeling. I wasn’t in tune with my body and mind. Something felt off, yet I couldn’t exactly Place my finger on what the problem. It was an eerie kind of feeling were you feel like something bad is pending. It was only the beginning of the week and my anxiety was off the chats! But I went on through out the day clinging onto anything that kept me from diving deeper into that dark web.

Suddenly At mid day, I received some disheartening news about something I was working towards and had been praying for. And just right then, that very moment is when the feeling stopped. Life served me the bitter pulps of the lemon juice.

Tuesday – we travelled out of the country and the atmosphere during the journey was sombre. It was saturated with frustration, anger and sadness because this news really broke me from the inside out.

Wednesday – Friday

We travel back into Zimbabwe. Nothing has changed. The same way we left the city is the same way we found it. It’s a dead dark and lifeless city, resembling just exactly how I was feeling the entire week. Still my heart continues bleeding, aching and trying to comphrehend how God seemingly and completely ignored our prayers.

To further add salt to the wounds, my amazing friend finally relocated back to his home city of Harare. Now the heaviness is doubled. We grew so close and shared almost everything together. I’m sad because his relocated so far away and I won’t see him as often as I did when he lived in Bulawayo. I’m sad because I have seen and witnessed what distance can do to even the tightest of friendships.

And so my week ends with 2 truths:

1.  God is still God even in the bad weeks.

2.  Bad things happen to good, honest and faithful people

 

Remember you are never alone….

Love Nat

Xxx

Do It For The gram- Unmasking the facade!

Façade – a deceptive outward appearance, pretentious, or fake.

It’s freezing. I mean almost about to snow freezing. Yet, fortunately, the chances of snow falling in Zimbabwe are close to zero. It never snows in hell. This brutal winter weather does no justice of deterring Gugu and her friends from partying all night. Its Gugu’s 25^th birthday and she’s made sure she has the best time of her life, and most importantly that her 2 485 followers on Instagram see her living it up, and silently wishing they could be her that night. Well, this version of Gugu thats on parade tonight.

Finally the night is roaring in action, and the girls are painting the city of Queens and Kings red. Gugu is drowning in alcohol, drinking as if she had decided this was her last night living in this hell hole. This decision was a secret between herself and her God. This kind of appaling drinking wasn’t anything out of the norm to her friends, and the onlookers are rather thoroughly entertained by Gugu’s seductive and alluring dancing. Lights! Camera! Instagram! Gugu is  snapping every single detail of her night out and her followers are loving every second of it. The night is nothing short of spectacular from the smiles and the laughs, lavish cake and food platters, designer shoes and handbags, foreign bottles of alcohol, expensive cars and handsome men.

Gugu then decides to catch her breath and touch up her makeup. Finally she’s seated alone on the cold toilet floor, staring down into her Kors clutch bag where the little pink pills lay. She would swallow them and all the pain would cease. Her back is leaning against the cubicle door and the vomit is about to arrive. But it doesn’t, instead she attempts to muffle her screams by pressing her left palm over her beautifully pink stained lips. Within seconds following her screams, Gugu’s tears break free and flow down her coated face and her bedazzled neck. She is alone. The music too loud for anyone to rescue her, her Instagram followers already offline and her friends too drunk to notice she had been missing for an hour now.

This is what we don’t see.

We do not see Gugu’s sudden explosive emotional break down. We do not know that Gugu is severely depressed and suicidal, and wanted to end it all tonight because she was raped multiple times by her boyfriend and his friend. A man she loved, adored and trusted; yet his vile actions are the reasons why tonight she would live it up and finally end it. Don’t believe the hype around couples goals…

Quick disclaimer: This article is in no way meant to bash social media! Because I enjoy social media! Even on my loneliest nights I spend senseless hours glued to my phone, scrolling on my feed page and some of my ex boyfriends pages. I am as guilty and as addicted as everyone.

Its no secret that social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter are all enabling people in my generation to create alternative lives filled with lies. Big Fat Facades! Instagram, being the most popular, allows anyone to share their personal pictures and videos for different reasons, but mostly to brag! We brag about how “blessed” we are, what we ate for breakfast, where next we are vacationing and the juiciest brag of all – our newfound love interests. Then instagram allows you to share these moments with friends and enemies, who can then like your videos and pictures.

Presumably many of us have a love and hate relationship with Instagram. We love how much power we have to curate and narrate a picture perfect life, the kind of life we want to have but may not necessarily be living. We hate how easily addictive it is and how destructive Instagram can be on our self-esteem and mental health. The more hours you find yourself scrolling on the app, the more you will begin to compare yourself to these well curated and fake representations of people’s lives. The comparison drug will hastily get you into overdrive, thinking about how lame and uneventful your life may be when in reality what you see on Instagram is the furthest from the truth.

We wake up, log on and connect with strangers who only know us on a name basis, neglecting those people who really know and love us. We then post our glamorous and glossy pictures #Iwokeuplikethis , and impatiently wait for the likes to pour in. We mostly post the good and tidied up parts of our lives. The parts that make us more attractive, and better than the next person! Some people will even go to the extremes of hiring expensive luxurious items to show off on the gram! Most of us will go to any lengths necessary to create a false image of who we truly are and voila the façade is created. For most of us this is a slippery slope because we simply do not know when to stop comparing and competing with our peers. This immense pressure to look put together has left us drowning in a pot of misery.

Here are two examples to show you just how easy make believe can be!

1. As this year unfolded I abruptly decided to find the closest barber and cut my hair. Just having survived a brutal mental breakdown, this emotionally drove me to chop off my lush Afro. My self-esteem tank was on zero and I was running on empty!

But a few weeks later, I pounced onto Instagram and gloated my new buzz cut. I captioned how liberating this change was and how I was feeling invincible, when a few days earlier I was drowning in my own tears! And yet I posted it, without hesitation, because I needed the compliments and the dosage of public validation to boost to my self-esteem. In hindsight public validation is lethal, it’s as sweet as sugar, but we all know that stolen sugar gives you the worst of tummy aches.

Unmasking The Façade: I pretended my new haircut was all for change and growth when in truth I was at my lowest point.

2. An old friend consistently used to post his lavish nights out! He would not miss a heartbeat to show off his weekend on instagram. His stories were saturated with beautiful women, foreign cigars and enough alcohol to intoxicate a nation! His followers (i.e. strangers) would quickly assume and conclude that my friend was never in lack, and prescribed to an upper class lifestyle. This is because this is what we saw, this was what he showed us and made believe.

Unmasking The Façade: However when we sat down to chat he opened up about how he was stuck in a dark hole for months. He found no escape from the depression, and over drinking and smoking allowed him to numb the pain for a brief moment. He was broken inside, crying out for help and what we saw was him supposedly enjoying the best years of his life!

What you don’t get to see in these edited and filtered pictures is the failure, the constant rejections, the loneliness, the depression and the yearning to belong. Our rock bottom seasons are never publicly shared, always with the fear that these seasons of our lives would make us less appealing and invincible to our peers. What you will quickly understand about social media is that vulnerability in these public spaces is a big No.

We double tap those pictures without any hesitation. Yet in real life we have lost that ability to double tap love, appreciation, and encouragement into our friends and family’s lives. This is the kind of generation we are. A lost generation.

So next time you find yourself giving into temptation to do it for the gram, ask yourself why? What are you trying to prove and to whom exactly? Which ex do you want to make jealous? Ask yourself why exactly why am I doing this? The honest answer would shock you.

Put the mask down. Disconnect for some time. I promise you wont die!

Remember you’re never alone.

Love Nat

xxxx

 

Are we going to survive our 20’s? : Friendships and Relationships

 

Dear Reader,

We are bravely marching on into the third month of 2019 and well my life has had a very low start! Basically I had proclaimed and spoken into existence that this is my year and great things were going to happen, some planned and some unplanned. Unfortunately, as we cruise into March, I have only had some disheartening and unplanned surprises.

To date I feel like I have lost more ground than gained any in terms of friendships and romantic relationships. Allow me to explain. Recently I had a heart-wrenching fall out with one of my closest friends, someone I truly love, respect and adore. I shared absolutely everything cool and gross about me with my friend. He took me as I was, sharpened me in my areas of weakness and constantly reminded me of my greatness. He constantly epitomised the phrase “a friend in need is a friend indeed”. We were inseparable up until a few weeks ago. Unfortunately a gruesome mistake was made on my end of the rope and as much as I tried to mend the broken trust and bond, I failed dismally. My old friend has terminated our friendship and for once in my life I had to respect his wishes and not fight it in anyway. To be frank, I haven’t slept in days, and between my fervent crying and binge eating, books and prayer keep me barely afloat.

Through losing so many friendships over the years, I’m beginning to digest the harsh reality that perhaps friendships in our twenties are temporary and seasonal. Life changes and events are constantly occurring at lightning rates, and anything struck by lightning rarely lives to see another sunrise. Seemingly no one in our age group is quite figured out yet, especially young Zimbabweans who are making migration plans seeking out stable and better futures for themselves. And because we aren’t quite settled and stable in our own lives, we find that this effect may also spill over into our friendships. With everyone going everywhere and with everyone doing everything, is it possible to build steady, reliable and fun friendships?

Am I insinuating that the geographical distance between friends is the only factor that determines the quality and longevity of friendships? Absolutely not ! But if we are honest, we cannot ignore the importance of spending quality time with a friend, which means you need to be in the same geographical location to spend weekends together doing activities you both enjoy. Friendships, as I am learning, require more than just whatsapp messages and face time video calls. There is always that unspoken longing to be in each other’s presence. To see each other, hug, laugh, smile and cry. Those are the moments where beautiful memories are created. Those are the memories that last well into our life-times.

Admittedly some old friendships in our twenties can also become unintentionally complex. I have experienced this in some of my old friendships. Sometimes, it can be really hard to let go of your childhood and high school friends. Yet the mere truth is that, as people we grow and evolve, this eventually leads us into out growing each other. When distance kicks in and out growing one another happens it sucks because the friendship is strained and suffers tremendously. Old friends are familiar, warm and above all comfortable and letting go of familiarity and comfort is terrifying. But it is necessary to love and let go especially when the run and season is over with that particular friend. My muddied twenties continually teach me that it’s good and necessary to let the dead friendships rest go in order to find new ones. You cannot grow new flowers where old dead ones still lay.

Relationships can also be a very complex issue for some twenty something’s such as myself. In trying to figure yourself out, trying to figure out what you want next in life and trying so hard to get over that one ex, the space to love and share yourself with someone else becomes limited. Its not that we don’t want to share our time and ourselves with potential partners, sometimes we just don’t know how to go about this, even if we tried. Another grating reality we face is that sometimes the person you are so interested in knowing does not even like you or have any intentions of pursuing you. *CHOKE* And this is such a vicious cycle because the person you are not interested in would be willing to move the ocean and sky to make you happy. I just recently pulled myself out of this cycle, barely alive, because all the energy I was using to get him to notice and like me I have decided to dedicate towards improving myself in all areas.

Fortunately and unfortunately I have been single for two years and counting. The first year of my singleness was very interesting because it was a dangerous and near fatal rollercoaster ride. I found myself desperately trying to convince my ex boyfriend we could still try one more time! The second year was when I had to face the rejection, take a step back and allow the healing to happen. And well now I wouldn’t say having companionship is major priority for me, but I do want to share myself with someone one good day.

My twenties so far have been filled with so many highs and lows. And sometimes my lows have really kept me down and under. And guess what that’s okay! Sometimes its necessary to take that time to wallow in the pits life dragged you into. It’s after the wallowing and mourning that you become ready to get out again, feel the sun on your face and keep trying. We all deserve to share ourselves and accept other people’s invitations to share their full lives with us.

 

Life is not making much sense at the moment.

It’s like a house on fire for most of us.

But even the fire cannot destroy the foundation.

You are the foundation and you will stand again.

 

Remember you are never alone
Love Nat
xxx

Open Letter To My Bully

You confidently sit across the wooden table

Directly opposite me

Chest out, eyes judging and mind scheming

Intently watching my every move in the hope to see my heart

But today I wore my armour because you are unpredictable in your vileness

It seems over the years

Your ways became as foul as your father’s – devil

 

We all laugh nervously at your jokes

Of course at my expense

In that moment I want to choke on my own saliva

To save the remaining scraps of my dignity

But it’s too late because I have become too numb to stop the madness

 

I maintain a stone cold demeanour

A coping mechanism I have mastered over the years

So that you wouldn’t’ sense my transparent fear

But you know me well and can sense that

I am a few minutes away from a breakdown

And yet you bravely continue poking into healed wounds to see just how much control you still had over me

 

My silence to your jabs is an attempt to save myself

To save the little flames of fire that I have inside of me, for you

But your mockery is too violent a wind for the sparks inside of me

So darkness consumes me

 

It took me a while to write this letter to you

Because for weeks I was unable to articulate the stabbing pain

Of having my fire for you replaced by a midnight darkness

 

Finally I say

You are a coward

Now I think back and I see the fear glistening in your eyes behind those square framed glasses

You enjoyed watching me shrivel down to size just to give the disillusionment that you are larger anymore powerful

You are weak because you chose to use your power to humiliate and embarrass me

You spit words filled with spite and fire to break me

I hope and pray one day those very sharp slicing words choke you when you are deep in your sleep dreaming of me.

An awful taste of your own medicine

 

Its only today that I realised how broken you are

You are more broken than me

The world denied you your healing

But the world isn’t God

ON: Why Africans refuse to openly discuss mental health.

Mental Health issues have always been such taboo and undiscussed dinner table topics. It’s universally agreeable that there are really numerous reasons that these topics are so taboo in our conservative and non-progressive “African Culture”. Its never been easy to pinpoint only one main reason why our communities hesitate discussing and acknowledging their existence. This “sweeping under the carpet” syndrome has lead to millions of people in Zimbabwe and Africa, being emotionally and mentally distressed.

Mental health illnesses are wide and varied and their forms and extremities vary largely from person to person. The list I have complied is not exhaustive, but covers most of the types: depression, anxiety and panic disorders, substance abuse and addictions, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, ADHD, Dysthymia, Schizophrenia, Anger, Body Dysmorphic disorder (BDD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Dissociative disorders, Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Paranoia and finally Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Its more common than not, that people suffer from a certain type of mental health issue and may not even be aware of it. Sometimes we are aware of it but are afraid to seek help. The stigma and shame associated with mental health issues is far too heavy to be carried by most of us, so we choose to be silent and try deal with these burdens alone. Sometimes we really know what we are suffering from but have no one to even help us treat it or deal with it.

These are some of the very scarce research statistics I managed to gather about mental health in Africa:

• 75% of the people who suffer from mental illness do not have any access to the mental health care they need.
• Low-income countries allocate 5%of their health expenditures to mental health, compared to more than 5% for high-income countries.
• One in three Zimbabweans suffers from some form of mental illness, but there are only approximately 15 psychiatrists in a country ofabout 16 million people.

The last statistic hit me to my very core because I am part of that statistic. Admittedly I don’t think I would be able to cover ALL the reasons why these illnesses are not acknowledged, openly discussed and treated. But from what I managed to conclude from generally talking to friends and family, there are mainly 5 reasons why as Africans we hesitate openly discussing the state of our mental health.

1. “It’s a white mans disease” syndrome – This is one of the most harmful ideologies in our communities, that has hindered years of any progress on addressing mental health. This detrimental ideology is often referenced by the much older generations to the younger generations when they discuss how they are truly feeling and the stressful things that encounter on a daily basis. Its actually a form of ridicule that someone who may be suffering from depression has to endure, all because the community is so misinformed on how mental issues do not discriminate based on the colour of your skin. Mental Health issues can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, race, social class and religion.
2. The shame and stigma surrounding mental health – the shame and stigma around mental health in Zimbabwe can be likened to constantly having a dark heavy cloud over your shoulders. When you open up to people and tell them you are depressed or suffer from anxiety you are already looked down upon because you are deemed weak. Everyone starts seeing you as broken and sometimes simply attention seeking. So all these negative vibes you get from people end up making you supress what you are actually dealing with. You become ashamed of what you are suffering from, and often times, this shame leads to isolation because the support you need is non-existent.
3. The lack of education within the medical community, religious sects and households – this one is one of the most important reasons as to why very few people are openly discussing the mental health epidemic in Zimbabwe. There is very scare information and even resources that are available to the general public about dealing with mental health. Mental Health has never been a government priority in Africa. What we then see is a trickle down effect to the medical community and religious sects. They too do not make prioritise mental health as much as they do to more contagious illnesses. Even the very few available facilities are often too expensive and out of reach for the average citizen in Zimbabwe. Mental Health Care then becomes a luxury for the wealthy.
4. “It’s the devil and his demons” syndrome – Another very harmful ideology that has indoctrinated us to believe that suffering from things such as depression, contemplating suicide or simply being constantly anxious is all the Devils doings. It’s heart breaking because more times than not people struggling with mental health are only prayed for without any other help being given to them. Indeed I do believe that there is nothing impossible or too great for God to do, BUT, when someone is in need for medication to help him or her cope, this medication should be made available to them. In reality this is rarely ever the case. Patients keep returning for prayer and even seek out more extreme measures of using traditional healers that often request heavy prices and foul sacrifices in exchange for healings.
5. They may not know why they feel or act or think the way they do. – This is actually more common than we may realise. Some illnesses are perhaps more mainstream and easier to self diagnose through the internet, but often times you don’t know why you have such severe anger outbursts and why your moods are always forever changing. You know that you have trouble sleeping or something is terribly wrong with you but are unable to fully articulate this to someone who can help you.

On a positive note, The Friendship Bench Initiative in Zimbabwe has been slowly making progress on reducing the mental health treatment gap. These benches have become a safe place for so many young and old Zimbabweans suffering from depression.  You go to the nearest available bench and casually chat about what has been troubling you and how best you can cope or deal with it. The lay health workers at the benches are not health care professionals, but they are very well trained members of the community who give up their time to counsel anyone who is suffering from depression and anxiety.

This topic has been very close to my heart since going to university. I was fortunate enough to receive so much information on the different forms and extremities of depression and anxiety. I did suffer from some heavy loaded depression during my university years, and I can safely say I am on the road to recovery.

Remember you are never alone

Love Nat

Xxx

 

god

The problem is your made her your god

You had hoped that she would heal your bleeding wounds

Believed that she would protect you with her life

Hoped that she would bear your sins and burdens on her cross of motherhood

You had silently hoped her to be your I AM

You had hoped that this god would fill the dark bottomless voids of your soul

Prayed she would stop the dark thoughts that consumed and drowned you into the devils abyss

Hoped she would chase and kill the monsters that drove you mad

Then you realised

She’s only human

As frail as the breath you breathe

She’s only human

As irrational and selfish as you are

She’s only but human

As much of a sinner as you are

She’s only but Human

And her love is as conditional as yours

Human: the monsters too frighten her

 

But she couldn’t serve two masters

Herself and her god

So she chose her god

And every other sin she committed

She prayed to her god to set her free so she could be able to set others free

 

And yet you’re still her prisoner

Its unspoken but known.

 

Cheers to Valentines

Yo! We actually all made it through this dreaded month of January. We all deserve an award of some sort because honestly this month was slow and uneventful. As I write this we are getting closer and closer to Valentines Day. Yes, I said it Valentines Day where lovers are pressured to outperform each other in gift giving. This is a period when marketers and companies cash in on the idea that love can be bought or sold. This however is not to say that gifts cannot be a form of expression that you truly love and appreciate your lover. Public forms of appreciation such as spoiling your lover are great, since I also love gifts, but honestly when its done with the intention to brag it looses its value and purpose.

I’m very far from cynical, but I do believe that Valentines Day should not be one of the only few days where you should spoil your lover or show them off to the world. It seems in our digitally connected world, social media has rapidly given us unlimited access to portray our lives in a certain manner that may not necessarily be true. I have been guilty of this in the past. Due to this accessibility and freedom, Valentines Day is one of the best days to truly show off how “in love” and “truly happy” you are in the relationship.

So, to most people it may come as a surprise, but I have never ever had a Valentines in my whole life. Once in high school, I did come close to having a valentines but it never ended so well. Ladies and gents if you happen to not have a valentines date this year, such as myself, that’s okay. Don’t let your friends or family trap you into feeling less than deserving. Your time too will come. Yes, it sucks being alone but its worse being with someone and yet still feel alone and disconnected.

Here is how I hope to survive the week, but mostly that very day on the 14^th :

1. Limit my use on all my social media platforms. I’m planning on really limiting my login usage, especially on instagram. Why you may ask? It’s to protect my peace and heart from seeing couples openly express their love and appreciation for one another. Nothing bad at all in that form of expression, but seeing too much of this on instagram may trigger my emotions to make me feel lonelier than I truly am. Do whatever it is you need to do to protect your peace and heart guys.
2. Yes, you got that right! I will wake up and say a little prayer for Gods help to get me through this day. Pray that I don’t get so overwhelmed by jealousy that I become desperate to experience what others are also experiencing and thank God that my time too will come. Our time to be loved and to love will come. Together let us grow our patience.
3. Keep busy. My form of keeping busy would involve watching some series and writing and maybe meeting up with some of my single friends to do something cheap! Living in Zimbabwe is an extreme sport and being unemployed doesn’t make it any easier because a lot of activities as simple as eating out are expensive. In simple words, do something to keep yourself occupied and this will sort of divert your attention from how the world would be trying to make you feel sad about not having a valentines date.

These are just the few ways I plan on surviving the week and the day in particular. How do you guys all plan on going about your valentines day?

Confession: I enjoy listening to couples share their love story because it gives me hope that one good day I will have one to share too. Hang in there guys!

Remember you are never alone

Love Nat

Xxx