When Change Borrows the Lexicon of Grief

A Week of Lethargy

I would hate to admit to being lethargic, but there could be no other word to explain it. Last week, when returning from London, I bought a piece of rump steak and a salad, with the view to having it for supper.

That never happened. Each day as I returned home thinking I might cook, I was simply too tired to be bothered, so in most cases, I went to bed on an empty stomach and only got up quite late to take my pills.

When it comes to food, I enjoy cooking, and there are times when I do crave something different, but I never immediately act to fulfil that craving. It sits on my mind for a while until it is either dismissed as exhausting or I am compelled to act.

Steak, Finally

After more than a week, I took the steak out of the fridge, marinated it, and rather than tossing it in oil in a frying pan, I left the cooking to the air fryer. Soon it was done, wrapped in foil for five minutes, before I put it on a plate and served it with the salad.

I probably did not recover the sense of satisfaction that had greeted my initial intention and purchase, but I am glad it did not end up in the bin through disuse and spoilage.

Shifting Ground

Then, as I navigated the issues that needlessly occupy the mind in uncomfortable ways, I attended an all-hands meeting that dwelt on the future of work. It was the kind of situation where you feel the ground shifting under you as if you were experiencing an earthquake.

I was able to link this to another experience where, as a sitting tenant, my apartment was sold to a provincial carpetbagger who probably should not have been speculating in my city. Considering not much had changed in my apartment for a decade, I was receiving demands to meet rates relative to the area without any corresponding changes to the commodity.

Loving where I live and my neighbours, I have made adjustments and accommodations, but there are limits to acquiescing before it becomes untenable. A recent posting in my village would suggest I am paying over the odds.

A Contract in Flux

The shifting sands metaphor also applies to work. The services contract between my employer and the client is changing such that the functions I perform will transfer to another service provider, whilst my employer assumes an overarching responsibility between the client and all the engaged service providers.

I think my employer is somewhat conflicted, because they would lose personnel engagement but acquire a broader first line support profile, along with that control and interface between the service providers and the client. The question is whether I am transferred to a new service provider or retained to function with other clients.

Grief Is Not a Career Change

For me, that meeting was rather depressing, and it was not helped by someone in a top managerial role trying to be a psychologist, addressing issues of fundamental change to career trajectories.

For someone who has studied and traversed the Five Stages of Grief with respect to two life-threatening episodes of cancer, the last thing I expected was to recognise those words adapted into a philosophy of change at work.

The intent was commendable, but I do not think due consideration was given to the effect such associations would have on the attendees. Changing jobs or having employment contracts change whilst retaining the same role can never equate to any stage of grief of the kind I had experienced.

It was almost as if she were having a laugh whilst trying to be empathetic and serious.

In the end, I was unimpressed and totally nonchalant, even as the burden of other concerns, including health challenges, became a lexicon of daily struggles seeking ascendancy over better stories and good living.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Junk the funk

Gloom Over Bloom

The number of times I have written about the joy of living and the pursuit of happiness would suggest to some that I never experience periods of funk, where dark clouds loom as harbingers of the rains of depression.

Like a cloud, it creeps up on you from a height where things might not seem discernible until the cool of the shadow hits your skin, the direct impact of sunrays abruptly taken from sight. As you look up, you hope the cloud is moving and that soon the sunrays will return, but you can never predetermine how large a cloud might be.

Depending on the weather of life, the cloud might linger for longer than is comfortable for the soul and body; it begins to affect your spirit. This is where you need a lift.

Count My Blessings

It was in the shower this morning (and a lot of interesting contemplation happens under a showerhead) that I realised I seem to have lost that lovely feeling, a kind of lethargy where the desire to do anything is lost. Plans percolate in the mind but never reach an execution stage, with procrastination unwittingly taking the fore and control.

There are many things I have had the intent to do but cannot seem to be bothered with, apart from feeling swamped by the underachievement or the lack of it. The inability to produce is like an infirmity.

I began to think of how to get out of this rut: by cultivating a spirit of thankfulness, getting out to do something even though I do not feel that sociable, then reflecting on what things I have wanted done. Moreover, I should stop thinking in terms of the means but rather the opportunity to do.

Thought Picnic: Just trying to be human

Usually totally misread

The way it creeps upon you is strange and unsettling; I try to keep constant what I can control, while letting go of the things that seem expendable, as much as possible. I suppose people see in me a disposition that never suggests I could be as vulnerable, so when I do feel it, it is often read as something else.

I was shocked when I was asked if I had an idea to end it all; though I’ve faced overwhelming situations, I have opposed them firmly with positivity and hope. What I want to be remembered for is quite different from what that might suggest. Put that under the rubric of concern, I was advised.

I am aware that I always want to tell a better story. Those who think they know me rarely sense that sometimes I’m not feeling social or wanting to go out. Usually, when I am alone, I am more of a loner, an introvert, even if I express myself too candidly with words, generally well put together.

What I really feel

Yet, to the question about how I do feel in myself, I can never be negative, even if I do not feel the way I want to feel. It’s an intrusive but understandable question, yet even in my relationships, you’d hardly see past the surface; genuine closeness and physical intimacy are needed to see beneath.

By pressing on, I have avoided exposing my vulnerability, lack of desire, or disinterest. That feels like a luxury I can ill afford, given the demands placed on me to respond, engage, reach out, contribute, be present, and consider others' perspectives, often at the expense of myself.

There was a time I could shut myself away completely — curtains drawn, indoors for days, like Miss Havisham, who’s never stopped her clocks — but no one truly understands that need for occasional hibernation. Yes, I do value solitude and being alone.

I have lost my weakness

Much of this stems from repeated experiences of abandonment across different stages of life, including during illness, where my coping mechanism masks deeper suffering. Even my way of recovering downplays the seriousness of what I face; what people see and what is real are often different.

Heck, Akin, you had a malignant cancer diagnosis just over a year ago, and during those critical moments — from diagnosis, decisions, to treatment while working every day — you faced it largely alone.

I didn’t take a break until a month after radiotherapy, as I realised I had exhausted much resilience and needed someone to lean on, despite many challenges and the feeling that seeking help was somehow wrong.

We are never depressed

There’s so much I want to say, but I can’t put it into words. I have weaknesses easily overlooked because of the 'firstborn syndrome' and the idea that I am a pillar of strength. It’s a constant struggle to live up to that myth, as if I’m superhuman, when I am simply human.

We are never truly depressed — this would be an incomplete reflection, and I don’t want to be scrutinised or given poor advice based on assumptions. We don’t all fit preconceptions or boxes, but others rarely understand when someone’s difference doesn’t match their frame of reference.

How many allowances can be made for others? In the depths of the night, I hear a cry: “Please, don’t forget me.” Just as I want to reply, “Hold yourself together,” I realise I have to cater to these pleas — and it’s a pipe dream to think I’ll always be looked after.

I am tired, not of living, but of constantly meeting others’ expectations, which strains my mental resources, making me want to retreat into my own cocoon. Obligations, responsibilities, duties, commitments, demands — all of it. Yes, that sense of depression can creep in strange and unsettling ways.

Lest I forget, Africans are never depressed when you have the weight of expectations pressing down on you.

Sadly Sad Sadness

Uninterested in cooking

I put a brave face on a lot of things even as I wonder at the weaknesses and vulnerability that assails me, seeking to leave me in despair. The kind of despair I strive with every sinew not to succumb to.

Recently, I have been asked about my cooking; in forms that I have had to fill out and in other conversations that come up with people dear to me. I enjoy making meals, however, much of the motivation to contemplate, to decide, to prepare, to cook, and then eat, I have lost.

The result is I probably do not eat sufficiently, and my weighing scale is showing numbers I have not seen in decades. A thing of relief that bodily exercise usually fails to achieve and of concern as bodily functions need adequate sustenance. It is just not cooking that I have lost interest in, but that is the more obvious thing.

The shrouds of therapy

I find that I want to talk about certain things in therapy that for many reasons is challenging because on assessment, I rarely present the classic indicators that put me in the critical eligibility criteria, yet my circumstances would suggest I am a prime candidate for help.

Making my case for therapy when I had cancer, I was not depressed or suicidal, yet for the kind of catastrophe of Job, I was facing when the loss of health, home, status, and much else, I had to make the hard journey back to the UK to start over again, how could I not need therapy?

It was a singularly difficult journey that from the outside looked rather stoic, but I was crushed and deconstructed, almost defeated and ruined, yet, in the midst of all that, I rose, leaving all that represented the past behind and forging ahead to write different and better stories.

The pall of sadness

We of African heritage do not suffer depression, that is the first bad lesson of understanding mental health, a denial constructed in traditional, cultural and religious tenacity that presents struggle as spunk. The shibboleth is we cannot be depressed, but could a lack of motivation to do some essential things to one's well-being, health, and happiness be signs of depression?

Brian was kinder in finding a less challenging word, he said I am sad. I can fully relate to that. There is a lot of sadness about so many things that I am demotivated and disengaged.

Indeed, and sadly, there is sadness and much of it, sad that things are the way they are, sad that things I used to do quite easily seem beyond capability, sad that there are watches instead of stashes, sad that we all seem to have similar stories, sad that it is not even too obvious what one is sad about.

Sad that I am not inclined, and I don't want to do the things that make me happy or address the things that make me unhappy. I am looking for a cave like Elijah did, that offers no shelter.

Childhood: Remembering the times I had no one to talk to

If we could turn back time

I do not know how I would have been able to help my parents redo elements of my upbringing that might with hindsight has made me a better person. However, I do notice there are things that I picked up by example and other things that probably would have been better imparted by clear instruction and relatable lessons of life rather than relying on the osmosis of parenting.

Two specific things I think my parents left to osmosis, the hope that I turned out the way they expected without their active engagement, first, the management of money and secondly the real usefulness of school and academic achievement. I think I understood I was lacking in financial wisdom when I was sent away at 10 to take common entrance examinations.

I was given some money which I frittered away and spent on things I rarely had access to like comics and gave some away to the cousins who could take advantage of my naivety and generosity, I was no wiser. During that visit, I was also given money by relations, it is strange as I remember today that I was able to account for everything I was given by them, but not properly for what my parents gave me. The way the questioning went, about how I spent the money suggested they were quite displeased with me.

No reason I knew

I attended primary school because that was what you did, I effortlessly passed my examinations usually coming second or third in the class, but I hated revision or homework. There were many times I was caught out in class, lying that I had submitted my homework when I had not. It was a shameful and embarrassing experience when Mrs Onyemenam would put me in front of the class and have my classmates call out in unison, Liar!

There was a time I was a bedwetter both at home and in the first year and a half at secondary school, yet, in the almost 5 months I spent with relations in Lagos and Sagamu before secondary school, I never once wet my bed until my father came to visit and I spent the night with him at his hotel when he was down for a business trip.

Blog - Childhood: Atòólé

In secondary boarding school, I probably had serious child psychology issues that were attended to with rituals, amulets, and crazy animist practices. I always lost my things, rarely took notes in class and by the third year, I played truant hating some of the classes because they were exhausting and boring. It ended up on my school report, my mother a school principal was completely exasperated that she had a truant for a son.

The cane was not my bane

Whilst I never face corporal punishment for my academic achievements or failures even when I had to withdraw because I failed a repeated year in polytechnic, there was no shortage of criticism and excoriation especially from my father, a brilliant and a high-achieving accountant who must have sometime wondered how I came to be his son.

I can say in polytechnic I was clinically depressed, I had instances when I attended classes and I could understand what was going on or why I was there. I was not abusing substances or anything, I just had a head that seemed to be completely unaware of what I was doing. It is strange that I seemed to keep my sanity by falling into religion. It did not make matters any easier at home.

It was in these areas of disagreement and misalignment with my parents’ philosophies that I suffered the most and received the severest corporal punishments, they together ganging up on me, it was also an opportunity to humiliate, as I was ejected from my room and made to sleep on the floor.

The home was not a school to success

Now, in the minds of my parents doing everything they knew how to bring up successful and well-adjusted children, they were doing their best with the tools they had. Too many times, the comparison was the weapon to refocus, an uncle there or an aunt there who somehow had some opportunity but apparently wasted it became the terror of what you did not want to be.

In the end, the greatest lessons in life that helped me out of the rut I was in was not the discipline, the disagreements, the fights that included a headbutting from my father, or that backhand swipe of my mother that so connected well with face momentarily blinding me, it was in the understanding of other uncles and aunts who had experienced failure and overcome those circumstances to be successful.

It is ironic that many of them had some guidance from my parents when they were at their lowest ebb, they repaid by giving their nephew allowances, opportunity and encouragement to turn my life around and believe I really could make something of my life. None of this is to spite my parents, but there are aspects of child development that have left scars even if they seem to be healed.

The journey to identity goes further than the many destinations you travel to

The journey to identity is personal

I have just watched the documentary Black Sheep that has been shortlisted for an Academy Award in the short film category, about the quest for identity of a young black man in England of mixed African parentage, the actions the parents took, and the journey travelled by one of the children who followed.

Guardian film Black Sheep shortlisted for Oscars

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The blog I have written is not a review of the film, rather it illustrates how journeys to destinations to live are different from journeys to a settled identity.

We as children embarked on many journeys with our parents to many places to live, to adapt, to school and by that been influenced by situations and circumstances in the home and our wider communities.

However, much as we have followed, it is unlikely that our parents have followed us in the journey of knowing who we really are. In my own case, my father has always had the presumption that we have the same identity and are would eventually be driven by the same passions, nothing could be further from the truth.

Marked as different

He never embarked on my own personal journey of discovery, for the idea that Nigeria is my home bears no reality to my circumstances. Despite the accident of fortune that had me born in England and spending much of my childhood into adulthood in Nigeria, I was never accepted as a Nigerian.

It was not in the way I looked, for in that, I was no different from any other Nigerian, but the moment I began to speak, my accent betrayed a foreignness that cast me as another, from somewhere else and that changed the way people interacted with me.

To those who knew me, they knew I was born abroad, not steeped in the customs and essentials of our tribal and societal strictures, so, I was excused, forgiven and may be excluded because I was not one of them. I was caught in a flux of identity between where I was born and defined by it and where my parents were born and alien to it. In that, my mother tongue was English and that was different from my mother’s tongue which is Yoruba.

Environments and influences

Parents have great determination, in terms of the provisions and opportunities they, if they have the means, put in the way of their children. Mine was of privilege in my primary education and the ease that was put into my life, but it did not spare me from other issues that attempted to cripple the joys of childhood, our once nuclear family infused with characters and characteristics that created negative experiences that leave a black spot in the childhood story.

For secondary school, they determined, I needed to be toughened up, whilst experiencing some cultural affinity with our clan. I was sent away for months to live with relations and then to boarding school. My first term was horrific and a terrible experience for my mates who were woken every night by my recitation of Psalm 23 because I thought and believed I was seeing ghosts.

As a bedwetter too, that was seen as weakness rather than what we now know as having psychological underpinnings that we eventually work through either by grace or good fortune.

Blog - Childhood: Atòólé

I got resilience

Then, rather than recognise some of the turmoil I was going through, I was considered too slow by my father and my mother thought I gave away my things to curry favour. Everything or situation had a pearl of wisdom they are conceived in their minds was the cause to which they made what they thought was adequate provision.

Yet, somewhere in our lives, we had gathered tools and coping mechanisms that have given us resilience and strength to overcome crises after crises.

The question, “What is the matter with you?” was rarely asked in genuine concern for welfare or wellbeing, rather it was spat out in disdain, criticism and condemnation because one was not measuring up to an expected standard. It is possible that my memory fails me, but if I can recall outright praise, it had little impact.

How do you talk about clinical depression?

It all came crashing down after I left secondary school. The first two schools I attended after for a total of 4 years yielded nothing, I was asked to withdraw twice, and it was not because I was a dunce, I just did not know why I was in a class on certain days. With hindsight, these were times of clinical depression, the signs my mother in her religiosity would have thought required more prayer and ritual and the patriarch just saw as a weakling in his firstborn.

No, parents can never embark on that journey of personal discovery of their children, they can only facilitate, provide opportunities and paths. Most importantly, have an ear to listen to a cry, because children still cry, cry for help, cry to be heard, cry to be lifted, cry to be accepted. I fear parents lose that listening ear sometimes much too early for the benefit of the child.

I had no one to talk to about what I was going through, I needed professional help, but I was failing son fit to be taught a lesson of life so that I would sit up and begin to take responsibility. I smile today because I have been given the good fortune to make stories of the dark times of my life.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Don't lose the honour of the opportunity to help

I love who I am

I was never on a quest to get an identity, that journey was always one of discovery, realisation and acceptance. Too many influences have interacted with my personality towards understanding and loving who I am. I embody many characteristics of my parents’ personalities and some that are uniquely mine.

I love who I am now, I accept who I am and live who I am for who I am, and all this would be radically different from who or what my parents would have expected me to be. I am a product of influences, circumstances and environments of fate, fortune and force, none of which I choose to repudiate.

When asked, I am an Englishman of Nigerian parentage, that is a settled matter. There is a long story to tell, because, in one conversation with my father, he said, “You have always thought like a westerner.” I am still deconstructing that platitude, for it is deep.

I recognise that this might read like an unfinished blog, this is because as I was writing I realised there are many strands to the story, too long for a blog and better put in the context of a book, whenever I get to write it. I have also written on this in other blogs from other perspectives.

Thought Picnic: I did not know I was clinically depressed

The foundations of woe

The so many ways I have been blessed and fortunate sometimes escapes my recollection and the constant need for expressing gratitude.

Having been brought up in an environment where everything was seen in terms of the supernatural, the spiritual, the paranormal and fates over which we had little control than to be in fearful supplication to deities that hardly be bothered with our pleadings because we had not flagellated ourselves enough to be worthy of a hearing. The psychological damage had the strongest foundations to build upon.

The result was fear, foreboding and premonitions, visions and apparitions of things that defy logical explanation, yet, were as real as they could be to one as the principal agent and victim of that circumstance.

Between critique and criticism

A constant questioning of one’s sanity not helped by the reasoning that was projected on my person as being slow, sometimes unsighted, probably dishonest and hardly reflective. None of this was helped by those who found opportunity and latitude to take sexual favours off me from childhood and the absence of someone in whom to confide in about my fears.

My fears as I would learn were signs of weakness, a feeblemindedness that needed a stricter and harder way of life from the simplicity of ease in my home. A boarding school beckoned and away I was from that presumed safety and left at the whim of tortuous cruelty to which I needed to adapt lest I be bullied more than I had the capacity to endure.

Beyond that, I was a bed-wetter, at a time when it was not considered a psychological issue, but one in which I lack self-control or discipline. The antidote it was to shame and to ridicule me, all of which I absorbed because I was the problem. For the first two years of boarding school, my mattress was given a daily airing in the sun, just as was the case for two other classmates.

The things I saw that none believed

It all came to a head, first at home when I thought the monstrous thing I saw twice in one night was the devil, having been primed earlier in the day with tales of horror. My experience was dismissed as excited exuberance and my life became the recitation of Psalms in a language I could hardly speak over cups of water to drink or buckets of water to take a bath.

From prophets to shamans, I found myself in hovels and grottoes, prognosticators, seers, mediums and sages, saw evils and perils ahead for which we needed to appease gods and God, none of which helped my psychological wellbeing.

I did not know I was depressed

It is only recently that I have been able to reflect on the fact that my late childhood into my teenage years' presented classic symptoms of untreated clinical depression. Irrational fears, sinking feelings and waves of terror that greeted my sighting our house from the beginning of the street that led to it. I could not explain it, but it was there, a burden, a weight, an unease and utter discomfort that I just pressed up against as other unhealthy habits and acts began to characterise my personality.

The times I attended lectures and could not for the life of me appreciate why or what I was in class for. The culmination of which was five wasted years of tertiary education, for what I had in mental capacity was nowhere near able to overcome the psychological stresses I was under, conveniently dismissed as lazy on the one hand and me not pulling my weight.

I just muddled through day after day until a sudden decision by my father to work the demons out of me at his flailing farm led to my running away from home. It probably was my saving grace, because the pressure in my chest lifted, but I could see no future yet.

A new lease of freedom

Then, in my darkest hour, my aunt invited me to stay with them, then, rather than press me into their way of life and belief systems, I was given the latitude to explore, to breathe, to grow, to assert and to thrive. That led to the rebuilding of everything that I had lost, the full force of facing my failures and having at the back of my mind that opportunities once lost can be regained, albeit after a temporary setback.

I have not even touched on the compounding issue of addressing, understanding and accepting my sexuality. That, I have borne as a refrain and undercurrent of my life since as early as seven.

I just coped and not out of ability

Depression presented itself too many ways that maybe the Psalms, the prayers, the rituals and much else helped me survive, even if I doubt I was ever free from its effects. The coping mechanisms were a kind of stiff upper lip stoicism, reserves of resilience I never could account for, or a sense of independence or even inviolability or invulnerability left me exposed to situations where I had a false sense of security.

Schooled on the idea that only the weak needed therapy, it was not until a few months before I was struck down with cancer, I had just survived a bout of shingles that discussing all the feelings and apprehensions I had with a neighbour with a career in medical sciences posited that these were signs of depression.

Things I left undone

I gave it no further thought as I ended up in the hospital and traversed a course of five days from denial that my life was in grave danger to the acceptance that whatever danger was presented, there was a possibility of a future beyond this. It meant that when a prognosis was given that I probably only had five weeks to live if I did not tolerate the treatment, I was more in hope than despair that I would see it through.

The fact that I had left this existential threat almost too late to be attended to might have in another setting drawn excoriation and rebuke, I was fortunate to have sympathetic and determined medical personnel supporting me through the ordeal.

How my personality attacked me

As I began the course of treatment, the way I presented gave the false impression that all I needed for the medical intervention, it took demanding a psychological attention to my situation before I was recommended for therapy and psychiatric counselling. My case was, having suffered a catastrophic loss in health, wealth, well-being, status, comforts and on the verge of losing my house, there was no other indicator needed to describe my need for urgent psychiatric help.

My medication presented other issues and side effects, diarrhoea, insomnia and occasional claustrophobia acute in vivid dreams and once experience that had I not resisted stepping out of my apartment, I would never have returned to that safety and enclosure ever again.

I did not present the classic signs or the way the questions were asked of me suggested I needed no help, yet, I felt just the opportunity to talk to a professional was more than necessary before I lost my mind. The bills were mounting, creditors were threatening and there were no easy solutions in the midst of undergoing chemotherapy, the loss of two close friends and no clear future prospects beyond surviving cancer.

The terror of suicidal thoughts

Then I was terrorised with a crazy thought, I lived on the 7^th floor of an apartment block, my windows were tall and apart from a single bar at the lower end, I could step out. I had visions of stepping out and flying, then knowing I could not fly, a playback recurred of my body splayed out dead on the tarmac below. It haunted me many times, but something kept me from carrying it through.

I had a story and I did not want it to end in that way, there were enough tragedies and misfortunes swirling around than for my life to culminate in that, I never talked about it to anyone. I am just glad that the thoughts never got to the point that they overwhelmed my reasoning. I found times to cry, probably not to regret, I embraced my humanity and vulnerability and comforted myself with thoughts that things will eventually turn for the better.

I found the support that pulled me through

None of this would have been possible without help; medical, psychological, in friends, in neighbours, in lovers, in my faith, in hope, in God. I was not invincible, I never was, I just by fortune beyond what I probably deserve found peace with myself, an acceptance of who I am and an accommodation for the frailties and failures that have become part of the story of the successes and victories in life that I also celebrate.

As I think of life and also think of death; I hope that as long as I live, I continue to love life whilst not living in the fear of death.

In maternal discomfiture

In maternal dispute

Just about 6 months ago, I went for a neurological diagnostic test just to ensure that my concerns about memory and reaction were not a systemic degeneration of my capabilities, though for what I had noticed about my concerns I had designed elaborate compensations for.

Blog - My HAND on my head - Memory Screening Tests

It so happened that all my considered reflexes and powers of recall were fine even if order and precision were not exact, my consultant did not think there was a problem. However, he did recommend I do a barrage of blood tests just to determine if there were other treatable conditions to assess.

The results of the blood tests suggested a Folic Acid Anaemia Deficiency (FAAD) for which I was to take Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid supplements.

Blog - Folate, I must, lactate, I can't

Keeping the flu at bay

To deal with the FAAD, I got Folic Acid 400 µg from the pharmacy and was not particularly comfortable with the label that suggested it was for pregnant women as it contributes to maternal tissue growth during pregnancy. As it transpires, everyone needs Folic Acid for cell growth and development, and this should be obtained sufficiently from diet except when pregnancy demands more than is supplied in the diet.

This morning I called my General Practitioner to schedule my influenza vaccine which I took for the first-time last year and has on the recommendation of my consultant to be taken annually. I was given an immediate appointment from an hour hence and I walked up two streets to see the nurse.

When I was called in, after the basic formalities of my identity and a few questions about reactions and allergies, she brought the vaccine out of the fridge, pricked the upper shoulder muscle of my left arm and injected me. I am usually surprised at how they call the prick of a needle a scratch because it is not. However, the needle is quite thin that it rarely bleeds after the injection.

In maternal balance

Then I asked about a possible Vitamin B12 injection booster that my consultant told me of at our last meeting in September, but the nurse needed to see recent blood tests to be sure of whether that was necessary. Going through me online file, she found a recent letter from my consultant which indicated my FAAD issue had gone and my readings had returned to normal.

To be honest, I was not keen on the Folic Acid supplements and I only took fortified cereals for breakfast for a few weeks. I am not a breakfast person, but I was glad to learn of the development, though surprised that I had not yet received a letter from my consultant about my latest blood tests from September.

A slight discomfort from the injection and I will be fine.

My HAND on my head - Memory Screening Tests

Now I Remember

‘It loves the brain.’ He said. In fact, there are many things that go after brain for all sorts of reasons my lack of medical expertise cannot explain.

Quite particularly, sexually transmitted diseases, everything appears to happen down there and once contracted they want to travel to the very top and take control. Nature seems to have beings in the ascendancy.

I had an appointment at the hospital on Thursday, if I can remember clearly, I thought it was in relation to the abdominal scan I had just two Saturdays ago since the letters literally arrived at the same time.

I took an Uber cab for the 9:50 AM appointment which was on a surge pricing and we made it on time without any of the stress of the appointment before the last. Ushered in by the staff, rather than stand on weighing scales I sat on one and it appears with clothes on, I am dropping kilogrammes.

Correct in my assessment

My blood pressure also read within the limits of acceptable for the first time in 4 visits which was really good news for me. I was called in to see the consultant where I was told it was my appointment for the HAND clinic or the Memory Screening Clinic.

Now, for a person above 50, I needed to be sure that certain elements of my activities in forgetfulness, responsiveness and anxiety which I somewhat have found compensatory mechanisms for were either age degenerative or as a result of my long-term condition.

The session which lasted almost 90 minutes started with filling in a Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale form that pointed towards elements of anxiety that needed a bit more analysis. However, since this was our first clinical assessment, much was dependent on what I subjectively thought were issues bothering me.

Suffice it to say, I completed that form and even annotated a grammatical correction to give a sentence a finality in context rather than the open-ended inquiry. Then I was passed the 'Questionnaire for HAND clinic' that required long form writing and I probably gave a detailed treatise to about 20 or so questions.

Convention is indistinct

After that, a number of cognitive tests were performed on transcription, memory, recall, acuity, reflexes, alertness and so on.

One such activity required drawing a clock with time 10 minutes past eleven, I went for a square face with 4 cardinal point numbers and then the minute and hour hands. A majority, I was told, draw a round clock face with all the numbers in before putting in the hands. Minimalist and functional works for me and that was some reflection on the kind of personality that I am.

I was good with the numbers tests, but I was never able to recall the words in the right order, even though every time I got all the words right and then after ten minutes of other activities. The reflexes seem to be fine and it would appear I have good cognitive skills that fall well within the standard deviation of normal.

Remember to smile

It would take a couple of tests over years to determine if there is any degeneration and whether through the results of the blood tests there are other noticeable indicators that can be controlled with reference to my thyroid, my liver, blood counts or folate functions. I might be in for a computed tomography scan of my brain – awesome, but will not be keen on a lumbar puncture for the drawing of cerebral spinal fluids.

By process of assessment, analysis and elimination, it is good to have this kind of activity in professional hands than leave it to my personal perception and watch some deterioration as a matter of course. It would appear there is not much to be concerned about, but I can in future request clinical psychiatric assistance if needed.

The ‘It’ at the beginning of the blog is HIV and the HAND is HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder which in my 15^th year since diagnosis, though on my 8^th year of treatment seems to be well managed with an improving CD4 count and an undetectable viral load. All other indicators from my blood tests of two months ago seem fine too. I guess I remembered most of what happened and kept some back for privacy.

Everyone with HIV should consider attending a HAND clinic and at least every 12 to 24 months thereafter.

Thought Picnic: When suicide was guest at mine

All space gone

I woke in the witching hour and suddenly felt my room was too small for me, so I moved into my living room which leads into my kitchen, a total of over 50 square metres and the walls appeared to close in on me.

As I began to lose my options and my choices, the thought crossed my mind that I should leave my home, but another voice cautioned that if I did step out of my apartment, I would never return, I was being overwhelmed by a sense of claustrophobia that it was stifling.

At that point, I did the only thing I knew to do, to call on my faith to rescue me from this situation as I had called on my faith a few months before, when my doctor gave me the choice of 5 weeks to live or recovery, depending on how I tolerated the treatment.

Alone in my home, I began to say, “Jesus you’re my space, in you I am free.” I did not believe it at first, but I kept at it until I calmed down and with exhaustion I collapsed and rested sleeping on the carpet in my living room that night. My home was my sanctuary, it was my stronghold, I had lived in it for just over 8 years and it was where I yearned to return to when I left hospital after being suddenly hospitalised for 18 days.

Stripped of all

Yet, my home presented other dangers, some that crossed my mind not as suicidal thoughts but as possibilities I could explore to a conclusion and to an end.

Yes, cancer stripped me of everything, from my health to my wealth, from my status to my standing, from my home and my security, it played with my sanity and my confidence, I could not pretend something about life was not happening to me.

To my consultant, I appeared a lucid, eloquent and well-adjusted man, seemingly taking the knocks without appearing knocked about, but I had mastered the stiff upper lip that the quavering lower lip was literally invisible.

The therapy of talking

People who had come through catastrophic loss due to ill-health were usually referred for psychiatric support, counselling and therapy to deal with what I eventually termed the long tail of cancer. I did not appear a typical candidate because I did not present the symptoms of depression, discouragement, despair, despondency or looming death, I had come to acceptance of the fact that life after cancer was going to be difficult and I had to live through it.

Eventually, I had to speak up, in fact, I was close to breaking down when I told my consultant, I needed therapy. The psychologist did an assessment and thought I was fine, but I wasn’t, I needed to talk, talk to someone who could help me unravel the turmoil, the conflicts, the self-doubts and other things I did not understand.

We adopted a freeform discussion format as the risk of losing my home came closer by the month.

I had used the crude catharsis of writing to vent my spleen, speak my thoughts, expiate the hurt and much else, but it was not enough.

Windows to flight

My living room and kitchen had much light, the windows were big and went from one side to the other with very little walls between the panes.

I could open the windows of my 7^th floor apartment and breathe in the air that came from the harbours of IJHaven and ErstHaven in Amsterdam East, sometimes I entertained a thought, a crazy thought, one of possibility in the impossibilities that define us as men. I began to believe I could fly, yet another voice would tell me, it would be my last flight and the end of it would be unsightly.

Yet, I had many reasons to think this way if I dwelt on where I have been, what I have done and things I have experienced. I was saved from the crushing blow of “Why me?” more times than I could care to mention.

Looking for a better story

Deep within me was a story I wanted to tell and each time I wrote a story, many of which make up my blog of over 10 and half years I have desired so earnestly that wherever my story ends, I hope it ends well.

I have never understood suicide, but it crossed my mind as a means to an end, much as I never understood pain until I felt the pain of cancer through 4 strong painkilling drugs that all I could do was laugh myself into delirium to ease the pain.

What it taught me was there is pain there no one can understand, that can never be described, but it is real to the individual and it can drive that person so compellingly that nothing else matters but that moment.

That becomes my daily prayer, never to ever get to a point where I have no other choice but the one to end it all. That is the reality of mental illness and God help us find the help to see beyond the now to a brighter day.

Opinion: Thank you Ian Thorpe for coming out

He came out

Yesterday evening, I got to my hostess’ place and heard the news that Ian Thorpe, the amazing Australian, athlete and swimmer had come out as gay on a Michael Parkinson interview in Australia.

That we still have to greet this news as brave and courageous is indicative of the global community we live in, even so in Western liberal societies where being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual or intersexual is generally accepted.

The struggle

Yet, the bigger struggle is with the individual, the idea of self, the acceptance of self, the conflicts and inner turmoil of the mind, the fear of rejection, ostracism, persecution, abuse and excoriation, the guilt, the shame, the self-loathing, the tendency to conform as if what you are can be done away with by the use of willpower, the list of emotions and battles is endless.

Then, many are blessed with the situation that they can care less of what others think because they have become whom they want to be and have begun to thrive and excel with the full expression of self, we are almost envious and jealous of them because they are in the process of completing their lives in the pursuit of happiness.

The society

Certain societies cannot countenance sexuality that deviates from heterosexuality predicated from religion and what they call their culture or traditions to the extent that they have not only criminalised homosexuality, but created criminal justice systems to punish severe what in more ‘civilised’ societies is regarded as normal as for any other person.

The individual then has to decide which battles to take on or live a kind of double life, satisfying the public needs of heterosexual expression whilst finding private fulfilment of their somewhat suppressed sexuality, living on the down-low.

Ian Thorpe ran the gauntlet of media interest in his sexual preferences all through his active swimming career as if it is anybody’s business what a person’s sexuality was or who they decide to have sex with.

Depression taking hold

Within the miasma of this personal struggle of conflict, concealment, fear and adjustment, Ian Thorpe fell into deep depression maintaining an identity that was not his that he drank heavily and contemplated suicide.

Thankfully, he went into rehab and has come to the point as he said in his interview, “I’m comfortable saying I’m a gay man. And I don’t want people to feel the same way I did. You can grow up, you can be comfortable and you can be gay.”

This is the point where a person has in an adaptation of the Kübler-Ross model, for every encounter of adversity, be it grief, disease, struggles with sexuality, failure or any similar circumstance, we traverse with varying degrees of impact and periods of time of introspection and expression, the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Acceptance leads to freedom

Until we reach the point of acceptance, it is nigh impossible to get on with life and move on to the next stage beyond what ails us.

Yet, we have scored victories with the model in terms of grief, maybe disease in my case and also failure in many cases of my life story, but are stuck in the rut of sexuality, usually not on the acceptance of who we are, but on the bold acceptance of who we are to others.

That freedom eludes many and the freedom is a great release, for he is now looking towards finding a partner and starting his own family.

The reality

This is the world we inhabit, one that freely expresses homophobia that takes licence to abuse, malign, harangue and persecute for who we choose to love and how we express our love.

It is however heart-warming to read of the deluge of support from around the world to Ian Thorpe’s coming out, more so, the real human story of the pain he lived through before being confident enough to accept his own identity and the expression of it would be one to witness to many that we do not need to suffer for the fact that we are not heterosexual.

Focus on the person

If those who have known us for so long and have respected us for who we were then decide on learning of our sexuality that we are no more worthy of their love, fellowship, understand, acceptance and respect, it should be a reflection on them rather than ourselves.

Sexuality should never be a function of respect, rather it should be the personality, the character, the integrity and the virtues of the person, in goodness, compassion, thoughtfulness, empathy and developing relationships.

Maybe in our lifetime, all across the world, it would not matter to anyone who we love and when we touch, kiss, celebrate and talk of our lovers, it would just be as normal as it is to be human and part of humankind.

Thank you, Ian Thorpe for making it easier to be who we really are, thank you.

Thought Picnic: My world, their world

Read this first - Blog - Thought Picnic: My long dance with failure

All drama and histrionics

Now for the real reason behind this blog, it was inspired by a video I watched on Pa Ikhide’s Facebook page.

A boy decided to play a prank on his father clearly identifying the idiosyncrasies of people of that generation. Typically, a Nigerian parent reacting to some failings of their heretofore precious brood.

In this event, the boy of 16 announces to his father that he has impregnated his 14-year old Caucasian girlfriend and a flare up ensues.

Now, this video was the boy playing a prank on his father, as we laugh we must realise that there is a majority of cases where this is no laughing matter but the reality of an unfortunate set of choices that presage dire consequences for that child.

I failed woefully

I have a story much similar to this, and I hope this with other interesting narratives that the video represents about parents, their children, their expectations, their disappointments, our mistakes, their reactions and the usually contemporaneous bleak prospects.

The background to this story has been written in this other blog.

Blog - Thought Picnic: My long dance with failure

Having learnt that I failed again, and there was no option for re-doing the course after repeating the class, there was just no way I could return home to face my parents; I had betrayed their trust, squandered their investment and rubbished their expectations of me.

A typical Nigerian household

That is the kind of atmosphere we are brought up in, we are to excel and do our parents proud, we are constantly challenged to improve beyond ourselves, under serious scrutiny of incessant comparison with our betters at everything and in fearful juxtaposition with uncles, aunties, relations, friends and examples of those who have failed.

The trepidation is palpable and yet, I was never under pressure to excel academically from my parents, I was a problem child of a different sort, secretive and defiled through the sexual exploitation of those who were trusted to care for me, there were things I never discussed with my parents and even today have still not brought up, but have shaped many aspects of my life.

Begging and pleading

After a week of going missing, mother in desperation had sent people out to various haunts until word got to me and the friends sheltering me. I had to face the music and deal with the consequences of my situation.

My friend took me back home, my father who had begun a second career as a farmer had returned to Lagos that week too. At first, he would not let me in the house, but after much begging and pleading, prostrating and much else; a kind of grovelling subservience I had never really grown accustomed to, he relented.

Not like my father

Upstairs, he began with his own success stories, and indeed, my father was a brilliant accountant, a successful professional, in the upper tier of adulation of his peers, and he could begin to question whether I was his son having not taken after him.

I was useless, stupid, an idiot, a failure and to make the point more strongly, I was only good for the farm and we were to leave in the morning for the farm, I had no other prospect after that.

The more forgiving aspect of this encounter was no corporal punishment, no threats of sleeping in a police cell or the order that I sleep on the floor rather than in my room in my own bed, but the future looked bleak, very bleak indeed.

You’re off to the farm

That night, I prayed so hard, I probably prayed all night because I was at my wit’s end, and though I have been once suicidal at 13, I have had the grace of hope in the storm since then to know that whatever situation I find myself in, was just a matter of course.

When the morning dawned, I had not even spoken to my mother since I returned, but she left a message, with my sister. “If your father attempts to carry out the threat to take you to the farm, leave the house and come to my school.”

It was close to 10:00AM when my father said, “Akin, pack your things and get ready to go the farm.” I got 30 kobo from my sister, snuck out of the house and went to see my mother. She sequestered me with a teacher from her school for 4 months.

Rebuilding from scratch

In that time, I began to think of what I needed to do with my life, it was good fortune that at times I visited an aunt – aunts and uncles can be extended relations in Nigeria. I was related to her husband, I think 4^th cousins.

She invited me to stay with them, my uncle who had seen failure in trying to pass his secondary school finals for years reminded me of a meeting he had with my dad when we returned from the UK.

My dad had promised him £10 if he passed his examinations, and though the promise is still owing, my uncle passed, qualified as a chartered insurer in the UK, became a fellow of the professional bodies both in Nigeria and the UK, was an examiner for the institute and reached the pinnacle of one of the longest established insurance companies in Nigeria.

Mentored by one who once failed

However, it took one man understanding failure to take my failure in the eyes of my parents and whoever else had a stake in who I was to put me on the path to rebuilding my life. I returned to school after, excelled, started a career in computing and did many significant things within 4 years of that personal catastrophe.

Sometimes I wonder if part of the estrangement from my family is related to this, I have forgiven as much as I can, but forgetting what is significantly part of my life and my story is a much harder job. And much as the reaction of my father might have given place to what my life eventually became, this kind of reaction of Nigerian parents to their failed or failing kids is all too common.

The many disappointments we’ve been

Failing at school, getting pregnant, taking religion, getting involved in gangs, engaging in vice, acting outside unwritten but societally constituted norms like not getting married, not having children being homosexual; these are all drivers for apoplectic rage, repudiation, overreaction, histrionics, rash decisions and regrettable outcomes.

In my next blog, I would deal with the many narratives that the video above signifies of parental reaction to children with problems.