DEAR BEAUTIFUL GIRL

My friend sent me a recording from a friend of his that explained in detail, about a girl going through PTSD because of an abuse. My friend said he was going to write something about it and my heart kept making me uncomfortable until I got on my own computer. Dear beautiful girl, I hope that you read this and when you do, it’ll make you feel much better and a little closer to crawling out of the emotional mess you’re in right now. Depression is real, a lot of us have felt it, a lot of us know how it feels to be buried down below. A lot of us know what it means to exist rather than live.

I’m not conventionally attractive and until a few months ago, I was largely underweight and skinny. My  BMI was a mess or did I even have one? I’m not all those things you’d fine in a societal definition of a young man. My clothes never fit properly and if I did wear clothes my size, I’d look so thin and feel so insecure about leaving my house. My hair has always been too coarse that it only looked presentable when water met my scalp and I might soon heed to my mother’s suggestion of a texturiser.

I never liked football or any other physical activity that defines your conventional male child. I liked reading books, listening to my father’s stash of music, drawing the maps of world cities, studied weather patterns, followed the unmanned space mission to Pluto for nine years and watching The Powerpuff Girls, no matter how embarrassing that sounds. I was always made fun of growing up, especially in school. My classmates called me weak, boring and a sissy. My ideologies, genre of music and even manner of speaking were and are still termed “overly modern”. Not everyone could stomach being made fun of as a child. It really ruined the shit out of my self esteem and brought me to the lowest point of the ground.

My ruined self-esteem kept me from forming meaningful friendships in secondary school and even in university. I mean, there were days in university when I’d sleep through afternoons after class because I had nothing to do and nowhere to go. I had a few friends no doubt but they too had their own lives and places to be and I really respected that and enjoyed being “lonely boy”. Lonely boy once got out of hand when I’d lie to people that I wasn’t home just because my company had become a little too comfortable.

I had trouble and still have a little trouble forming romantic or even sexual relationships with women because of how “not enough” and “unattractive” I felt and still feel sometimes. Women almost never notice me and when I am with a friend, they notice them before me or totally ignore me because I don’t fit the norm. Thankfully, I never had the conversation about women or sex with my parents but each time I’m home for the holidays, the mums of my friends ask me about my “iyawo” and each time I’ve said “ko si”, I’ve wanted to tell them I had trouble with my self esteem and they should pray for me. They’ve always asked from a place of love and concern since at this age, I should’ve paired off with at least once person if all my friends have and are doing so. My social life was also pretty non-existent until 2017.

I never knew how to take compliments and I still don’t. 

You know what my sweetheart?  there comes a day when you say “Fuck this shit” and realize that you’re going to die like this if you don’t take charge of your life and happiness. It’s a beautiful moment when you rise up from the mud, shake yourself off and go ahead to take a hot shower to wash off the memories of your depression.  That is what I did.

For you sweet pea, I found out that no one could heal me except myself. I discerned that there is so much more to life than feeling unattractive even if I was unattractive. I found the many parts of me that I’m currently grooming to make the most of. Writing is one of them and I have absolutely fallen in love with it. Instead of feeling unloved and unattractive, I tapped into the love of my family and the few friends around me.  Love is there beautiful. It’s around you and inside you. I see it in the meals I make for myself, in the sunsets and in my almost two year cousins that I waited eighteen years of my life for.

I started doubling my meal portions, going to the gym and focused on solving the problem of my self esteem rather than disregarding it. I’ve grown to love my slim body and all the complexities of it that makes me look at least two years younger than my actual age. Really, anyone who has a problem with the way my body is set up has beef with a higher power because I didn’t get a choice of the body I’d love to come to earth in. I started leaving my house most evenings to take walks that’ll lead me to meeting new people. I’ve met girls who find me attractive physically and ones who are intrigued by how much I know about almost everything. It took me a while you know. I didn’t automatically start talking to people. It took weeks. It took days of me seeing girls and being disappointed at my brain for deforming my speech ability. I also found out that most people are threatened by the opinions I hold, because of how realistic and dripping of truth they are. I started sieving my contact list, only keeping the ones that love me unconditionally. They read my posts all the time. They spin my head.

For you darling, you are beautiful in all the ugly that the world or your life has labeled you as. You need to consider seeing a therapist or talking to more people about your depression and tendencies of self harm. You need to surround yourself with people who will love you unconditionally and draw strength from the love around you as well. I might not know how liberating cutting yourself might feel but I do know that there are bigger ways to feel free. You need to come to the terms with your abuse by accepting it, forgiving yourself and perhaps, forgiving the gut wrenching beast who did this to you. If you can report him to any authorities or at least speak to your parents (only if they won’t shush you), do it. It’s a long hard road but you have everything within you to be happy again.

Many women in the world go through this shit, some of them finding a way out of it and many allowing it to envelope them. You honey, should make your abuse into something that’ll make you stronger and resilient as you can ever be. I can already tell how strong you are and I can strangely feel it as I type this letter to you.

For you, the others who are reading this, be kinder and more intentional with the love you show to others. Check up on each other every now and then no matter how busy you are. It’ll be so fucking cancelled to call a friend one day and find out that they had died from their PTSD or committed suicide. Try not to judge people and their situations because they are bigger than most things you have and will ever experience in your lifetime.

A guy reached out to me in November saying he was about to commit suicide because he was gay and his family had ostracized him months earlier. I mean, I couldn’t relate to any of it because I am sure that if I ever came out to my parents as gay or bisexual, my father will call NASA, put me on the first ever manned spacecraft to the sun and then, turn the ship around back to earth when I’m approaching Mercury because I’m still his son regardless of where I choose to stick my dick in. All I could do was give advice and emotional support online to someone I’ve never met in my life. He didn’t commit suicide. He’s alive and a little happier because I didn’t shove him away or deal him the homophobic card that a lot of us have stuck in our sleeves.

My dear sweet pea, I hope that you get over this and step into the beautiful life that’s ahead of you. I hope that you eliminate every negative energy in your life by simply telling whoever to “please proceed to the dustbin and may God help you as you do so”. I hope that you fully come to terms with your abuse and forgive yourself for what has happened and let it catapult you into the beautiful life I know is waiting for you. 

If you do feel like harming yourself or taking your own life, wait till tomorrow morning. Wait another morning and mornings until you realize that you have survived and you will survive more mornings.

                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                            With Sincere Love,
                                                                                                                            Ifeanyichukwu.