The Mortality Paradox

Every may, well since last year, I write a piece about mental awareness May being the mental health awareness month.

I’m not exactly sure what qualifies as not being okay mentally but I know I have been there before and its not fun. I could argue that no adult is ever really okay okay. Best you could do is fine but trying to deal with something.

Have you ever been so alone that you feel like no one hears you, so alone that you can’t even hear yourself, so alone that you’re afraid even God himself can’t hear you. I have been there and it honestly sucks all the light out of your life. Having no purpose and no will is one thing but add that to having no one to talk to and it’s a ticking time bomb waiting to go boom leaving your sanity in bits and pieces. Sometimes it breaks you so bad that even kitsugi can’t fix you. Let me tell you Maina, literally going for days without talking to a living soul will do a number on you. I suffer from acute Chandler complex where I constantly make jokes, involuntarily by the way – most of the time at least, so it’s nigh on impossible to tell how I’m really doing unless I’m honest with you. African culture doesn’t really embrace men opening up about their mental health but I think that is something we really need to change.

The worst thing about it is that life doesn’t wait for you to be okay. Having to go to work everyday with the cacophony of thoughts endlessly using your cranium as a battering ram drives you closer and closer to the edge – like walking the plank if you will. As if that isn’t enough to deal with, enter a hostile work environment and a very well-educated inferiority complex. I know how hard it is to actually open up and seek help but it’s the first step to regaining some light back in your life. Try and regain that genuine smile that someone probably lives off of.

In a previous post, I talked about how love is all we really have to offer each other and that sometimes all we need is a hug to get us through something. Ask how your friends are doing, in fact, How you doing? Okay sorry, wrong line (you can stop blushing now)… How are you really doing? Take a beat and really think about it. If something’s eating at you, talk to someone about it before it grows large enough to swallow you whole. If you feel like no one’s listening, just dial the big guy upstairs, He is always listening. If you are not a believer and have no one else, storyteller will listen – I’ve been told I can make an excellent shrink anyway. I’ll even get a couch and we’ll make a day of it.

If anyone tells you they aren’t okay, it takes lots of guts and brevity. Just take a minute and just listen, you don’t even have to advise them or anything. I could drone on and on about this but let’s leave it at that.

With love,

_storyteller.