Blooming in the Dark
TW: Suicide
Very early on, I knew mental illnesses and therapy were shrouded in shame, in my culture at least. In fact, a pervasive and demeaning joke would be to tell people with oddities that they would go to the “36”, the name for a psychiatric institution in my country, Morocco. I always felt that something was amiss, wrong, or different for me. My earliest memory of suggesting therapy for myself to my parents was when I was about 6 or 7. I brought it up quite innocently thinking that because my mother was highly educated, she wouldn’t mirror the stigma society imposed on it. I was wrong… I remember being outside the park and casually telling her “Mom, I don’t feel right, could you take me to a psychologist?” She immediately shushed me, admonishing me for talking about such things in public, in case “somebody” heard us. It would bring shame. The look in her eyes was so ashamed then, it was never spoken of again.
At that time in my life, I was quite shy. I spent most of my free time reading books — escapism was one word I would define that period as. A few months after that talk with my mom, if you may call it that, I had a violent angry outburst over the smallest of things, an eraser, for instance. That outburst pushed me further into isolation; I didn’t socialize at all, which marked the beginning of my bullying. Those angry outbursts kept happening and I noticed I couldn’t control my emotions at all, so to get a grip on that, I started hurting myself. It was like a pill I could take to make myself like everybody else. Pain was my companion and savior. She would make me numb or stop my extreme mood swings and put me in a neutral state. It was a very dark period of my life, I would go to sleep crying, praying to every being out there to just kill me.
I shared those thoughts with my grandmother (on my father’s side), the only person I trusted, and in her eyes, I saw a glimpse of understanding. Suddenly, all my free time was spent with her, with us meditating or me just embracing her. She was also retired from the world, so she didn’t talk to anybody or interact. She was a presence you almost forgot existed. I seldom heard her talk or pray. She was mostly in her room, and with her limited Arabic vocabulary showed me her safe place, spirituality. The worship of old gods, one in particular, the mother goddess Tannit. Almost in a trance, she would talk about Tannit adoringly. I started doing research, wanting to know more about my heritage, the ancient worship of my people. I could only get so much from my grandmother since I didn’t speak her language, Tamazight.
Every moment was known spent with this woman of experience and knowledge, trying to piece together the information she was trying to pass on to me. Later on, after she died, my father told me that she was suspected to be bipolar. He used such crude and hurtful language to explain it, her “craziness” he called it. He described the times where she was inspiring, a light shining into an otherwise bleak world, then like a switch had been flipped, she was gone — and the cycle continued. I finally understood where my instant connection with her came from, and I felt saddened that all her life she had to bear such a burden alone. Even her child that adored her talked in such a cruel manner about something that most likely weighed on her. It will not come as a surprise that he has still not acknowledged the role he played in my own traumas or that I’m seeking therapy.
“…if you seek help, at some point, you will find yourself at a place where a light starts to appear at the end of the tunnel.”
I tried to kill myself several times and it wasn’t until my condition worsened significantly and impacted the honor of my family that my mother took it seriously. I was in my last year of high school, severely depressed, failing most of my grades that she took me to my first psychiatrist. If I didn’t get my high school diploma, in her mind it would be more shameful than if I was “crazy”. The mistake that the psychiatrist made was that he thought scheduling family therapy would be a good idea, which resulted in my father finding out. My father lashed out at the mere idea that he was responsible for the failed daughter he created. He cussed so much that day and I couldn’t go to therapy for at least a couple of months and never to that particular psychiatrist again. My savior, now, was the psychiatrist I saw next — she put me on an antidepressant and understood my situation. Perhaps that came from her being Moroccan also. I felt like I could finally breathe; the tagline for that year with her was: “survive and get your diploma so you can get out of the country.”
I did get my diploma and went abroad for a year; unfortunately, my traumas weren’t resolved or really worked through. I failed that year and have since been forced back to my country. I’ve worked on my issues and I’m slowly getting better, although I wish I would have stayed abroad, since my country and my culture are the origins of many of my traumas. I still haven’t found the treatment that’s right for me, but it got better. Now I don’t have to hide, this part of me at least. I’ve met amazing people that have helped my journey towards healing and understanding myself. I have a supportive long-distance boyfriend that has taught me that I’m, after all, worthy of love and consideration, so I’m hoping to join him as soon as possible to continue this long road near my support system.
And to the people like me who are ashamed of their abuse, the status of their mental health, or their painful past, just know it gets better, not now, not for a little while, but if you seek help, at some point, you will find yourself at a place where a light starts to appear at the end of the tunnel.
