Wait For The Sun
Wait for the sun. It’s my personal version of “what a difference a day makes” or “the sun will come out tomorrow”. These words have brought me through my darkest nights and back from the edge of the cliff for many years as I navigate my mental wellness journey. They remind me that the sun is promised to rise in the morning…we just have to be here to see it. Some nights, that was my only job and my only hope. It meant that I was still alive.
At seventeen, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I also had an occasional urge to hurt myself when faced with overwhelming emotions. A dark secret that I rarely ever mention. At that point, I had missed out on all of my high school activities. No proms, dances, sports, etc. and I barely graduated with my diploma. I remember becoming so withdrawn from everything that previously brought me so much joy. I was overwhelmed with suicidal ideation and carried the heaviest cloud that nothing that I did mattered or was ever good enough. I really believed that the world would be a better place without me in it. But I was so wrong!
I didn’t begin to take my mental health serious until I turned thirty. After spending countless days in and out of emergency rooms, inpatient psych wards, and outpatient therapy throughout my early twenties, I finally accepted that I was living with a real mental illness. I remember late-night calls to crisis lines that I would resolve to call when my fear of dying became too big for me. I knew that I did not want to die, I just wanted to stop hurting. There is such a thin line between the two. My heart goes out to all of the families who have loved ones who have crossed it, including my own. Do you know how hopeless one must feel to follow through at that moment? I only have an idea after riding the line for far too many years of my life. It’s the scariest and loneliest place between earth and the world that you can only hope that exists on the other side of pain.
Throughout my professional career, I learned how to master the art of illusion. Lights! Cameras! Action! The smile on my face was a mask that I put on from 9 am to 5 pm and took off when the cameras stopped rolling. Cut! Sometimes it’s like being two completely different people in one. Put simply, there is a healthy and unhealthy version of myself. Healthy me is vibrant, full of love, life, and free! At times when I’m sick, I can barely recognize my own eyes in the mirror. Emptiness and despair stare back at me wondering where the “real” Rakia went.
Living with depression is like tripping into a dark hole and looking up. There is a way out but no ladder. You can see people walking across the hole and continuing about their daily lives but you’re unable to find the volume in your own voice to call out to them. Everything quite literally feels like it’s temporarily disabled with the occasional person crossing the hole yelling, “Get out of there!” But never throwing you a ladder. Sometimes they don’t know that you need one. Some days I am metaphorically treading water in the deep of the ocean and growing more tired by the hour. I appear to be swimming but am only treading with the weight of my illness around my ankles. Temporarily forgetting how to swim but knowing how to at least stay alive.
Speaking of staying alive! Aren’t you glad that I waited for the sun? I learned that some days were the worst of my life but choosing to live gave me some of my best. When I chose to make my mental health a priority, when I learned how to love every facet of the rough diamond that I am, it was then that I began to thrive. Thriving for me is acknowledging the illness but not allowing it to define me. Thriving for me is daily self-care with no exceptions. Thriving is acknowledging when I’m not ok. Thriving is asking for help when I need it. Thriving is having a support system that I trust with my vulnerabilities. Thriving is working with NAMI Metro Baltimore helping people like me and their families thrive too. Thriving is wearing my green heart to spread mental health awareness to end stigmas associated with mental illness in our communities. Thriving is sharing my story. It is not without struggles. Nor without pain. It’s choosing to be here every single day. Rising. Waiting for the sun that I know will come out tomorrow. I promise. I’m here!