There’s this girl in the mirror, I wonder who she is…sometimes
I think I know her and sometimes I wish I did. There is a story in her eyes,
lullabies and goodbye. When she’s looking back at me I can tell… she’s hurting
inside.
But what might be the problem? She seems to be a pale shadow
of herself – she is not her old bubbly self, getting through the day is a
struggle… can she be suffering from depression or is it that she is sad? This
is her story:
I have been through feelings of hopelessness and helplessness,
I have been through a period when I lost interest in my daily activities, lost the
ability to feel joy and pleasure, I have become skinny - having lost weight
more than 5% of my normal weight. I have been through a period where I was
angry with everything and everyone. I walked like a tortoise and when I did my
house-hold chores I became very exhausted…like I had been in the shamba digging the whole day. A series
of events have changed my life completely…and this is my story:
Working with a multinational organization I was successful, I
never knew that one day my life would completely change. A mother of four,
married to a humble man, one day I woke up as usual prepared the children for
school and drove to work as usual… little did I know that into each life some
days must be dark and dreary and for me this was to be one such day.
On entering the office, I immediately saw a letter on my
desk addressed to me: I pulled my chair, sat down and opened the letter. The
next thing I remember is that when I opened my eyes I was in a hospital. When I
asked what I was doing in a hospital, I was told that I had come into the
hospital unconscious…brought by office colleagues. That’s when I remembered
about the letter and wept. My husband tried calming me but I was so worked up
that I sent him out of the room. I could not accept the reality of things.
The entire time I was murmuring to myself, “what will my
friends say, how will they react, what will they think of me…” I recalled the
fancy restaurants I used to go to, the stylish hair do, the funky clothes all
these kept ringing in my mind...
My life was to change completely since there was now no
money to sustain the standard of living I was used to and we had to move to a
middle class residential area, the children had to transfer to a cheaper
school, I had to sell my car in order to pay up the outstanding loan in the
bank and had to change friends too since I no longer had the luxuries to
maintain the ones I had ‘from my class’.
It was indeed a dark moment that I tried to wish away but in
vain, I had no choice but to conform to the new life. This to me seemed to be
too much and no matter how much my husband, friends and relatives tried to
comfort me, it seemed to me as though the whole world was against me - no one
understood me and no one cared to listen to my feelings and what I was going
through...
I only thought of myself and my duties as a wife and mother
were not important to me anymore, to me life was not worth living... Thinking
of how I would fit into my husband’s income was like inflicting pain on me….
It was late in the evening and the sun had set. With my
children, I alighted from a bus and was crossing the road when suddenly I heard
a voice cry out “Oh No!”. That was the last thing I heard before I found my
self in a hospital bed covered with bandages… I could not feel nor move my
legs, so I shouted out with fury and pain. The door slammed open and in came a
man dressed in a white overall, “Excuse me doctor”, ‘yes,’ he responded. “Why
is it that I can’t move my legs?”Just relax everything will be ok. That was all
that the doctor told me. Then in came my husband and when I asked him what had
happened to me, he explained that a matatu
had hit me a day earlier and a good samaritan
brought me together with my children who had been with me to the hospital. “How
are the children?” in pain I inquired. My husband told me they were all fine
and that none of them had been injured. I was informed that I was set for an
operation and it was not long before I was taken to theatre. This was the
beginning of a series of tests and operations… but unfortunately, despite all
this, it became clear that I could no longer use my legs… I cried and wished I
had died instead of having to be on a wheelchair for the rest of my life….
A month later I was released from the hospital on a
wheel-chair and prescribed anti depressants among a series of medication I had
to take. For the next days, my life was not the same - I pitied myself, felt
hopeless and helpless… Then one morning when my husband had left for work and
the children had gone to school I struggled and got onto my wheelchair and went
where my medication was kept and swallowed what I believed then was the whole
dose of one of the medicines. A funny feeling came over me as I fell from the
chair and tried to crawl towards the door…The next thing I remember is once
more waking up in a hospital bed. I later learnt that my husband had come back home
to pick something he had forgotten in the house and was in good time to rescue me
from imminent death.
Many of those who visited me advised us to seek help and I
acknowledged that I needed this help as I could not continue the way I was
going. I am currently still attending counseling sessions and beginning to
accept my situation. I am also realizing that though I tried to end my life, I
did not actually want to die…all I needed was someone to listen to me. I am
starting to face my new life in a positive way. I now have the strength to
exercise, I am able to sleep better, am starting to acknowledge the care and
support of my family and friends and I am also learning how to challenge
negative thoughts that keep coming up. Life is starting to come to normal - not because things have changed
for the better but because I am starting to accept myself and my situation. I
am sad, but I am getting better.
