by Abigail Radebe
I’m a very complicated child I’ve always stood my ground I’ve always said what I wanted to say when I wanted to and how I wanted to say it. Most people labelled me disrespectful even my own mother said I was a naughty child and for that she had wished my heavenly father would discipline me in some way.
I’ve always blamed God for every bad thing that happens in my life I’ve always felt like he didn’t care and didn’t even want the best for me and for that I lacked trust and faith in him. I actually labelled him what I labelled my earthly father selfish! I ran around in circles trying to make God live up to my expectations because my earthly father failed me. I figured if I did this he would take attention to what I had to say and maybe me and him would finally have a relationship.
The discipline wasn’t something so obvious, I thought maybe God was going to take away someone from my family member but not at all. I lived each day trying to figure out what discipline I had got from my heavenly father not realising that I had to stop connecting with God, my mentor and those around me. I was so ready mentally for the discipline so much that I didn’t realise emotionally I was breaking down.
Surely I was going to be aware that my emotions are breaking each day and that I had lost focus on what’s truly important. Well not at all, I lost track of everything, I started living each day on regret so to say. I had done so much in life to a point where when things didn’t go so well I had to find someone and something to blame. I blamed my mother for her carelessness surely she was supposed to find out more information about my father before she could take the relationship to the next level.
Surely my father is to be blamed for his absence and for naming me yet he knew he wasn’t going to be present in my life. I started blaming culture, why did my grandfather allow his daughter to start dating at an early age? Why wasn’t my father fined for some sort of damage? Why did they allow him to name me yet he paid no cent?
All of these question that had no answer and they made me even angrier and bitter, for everyone in the family kept telling me he will eventually come to his senses and God will deal with him. Deal with him? When? How? Spiritually I
went back to that depressing state of mine where I saw God the same way I saw my earthly father “selfish”.
I was so angry and bitter inside that I grew into a mental illness we call depression but wait how an 18-year-old knows she has depression. Well that’s the thing I didn’t know I had depression all I knew was I was angry and everything wrong that took place in my life, someone, was responsible for it, and God did nothing positive in my life all he did was discipline me all the time because I lacked trust in Him.
I ignored my mental illness for 2 years until I couldn’t bear it anymore. I knew at this point I had to do something but what would I do? Culturally everyone would think I’m just a selfish bitter child that needs attention from her father whereas spiritually my pastor told me I had to find someone to talk to. Well I’m a black child I don’t believe in talking to a stranger in order to solve my problems so I started writing down what I felt and yes I would cry and ask God why me? Why did He take away the one true man that cared for me?
Look at me now I’m so miserable but because I’m good at hiding things I hid my feelings to a point where it crossed my mind that maybe death was the solution. I felt the urge to hurting myself-maybe that will help me (well hurting yourself is one of the symptoms of having depression).
I wanted to die a slow death which I had wish upon my father whenever I would think of his absences in my life so I was on a mission to kill myself 20-year-old is going around asking her friends where to find some sort of poison that would kill her, came across something on the internet that an overdose of pills will do the trick. Here I was 19:00 pm 14th of April 2017 drinking an overdose of pills thinking I’m going to be dead the next morning.
Well, 02:00 am on the 15th of April I’m woken up by pains that led me to vomit. I knew instantly that the pills hadn’t worked to kill me but to bring me pain, so I was bleeding internally and I was rushed to the hospital. Well, I wasn’t dying nor was I dead I was just merely going through pains that I had caused for myself.
Spiritually I had pictured myself on the hospital bed with all these tubes connected to me and my mother on the side bed praying that I don’t die well it all happened just like I had pictured it, the only difference is I didn’t think the pains would be so unbearable.
I felt like I could take away the pains for they were getting stronger and stronger by the second. So I’m not dead and I’m going to be okay. What did this mean since I had depression, did this mean I had to find a psychologist I was going to talk to? Am I supposed to tell my family that I suffer from depression? Well, I didn’t know how to answer these questions all I knew was my family was going to link this to insanity or witchcraft.
