The Monster

Something has got a hold of me and it's coming back. I can feel It's cold, deprived hands wrapping around my thoughts and feelings.

No. you can't see, It, coming. You can't smell It coming, you can't hear It coming, you can't touch It but you can feel It. Night or day It's coming. I can feel It. There's no running, no hiding - It's coming. I can feel it. Like a wave it washes over me. It's here...

Something has got a hold of me and it's back. With an open claw it takes aim at my neck cutting off my voice. Its constrictive talons around my throat, speaking becomes an arduous task, my thoughts become negative, and my creativity runs dry.

I hate this feeling. 'You can't do it!' and 'isolate yourself!', It, chants quietly forcing me to withdraw. Like fresh bags of rice, Anxiety and Sadness, cue in their snickering and bickering like dead weights on my soul. My aching soul. I wish It would stop tormenting me. Why can't anyone see how It's got me?! But I must go on. As night comes "take solace in your dreams, Young King" I remind myself. And as the sun rises to signal a new day so to am I anew but for how long because, It, will come back. It always comes back.

Something has got a hold of me and it's come and gone.

Lord knows I need something to fill this void. Maybe I've been looking for the answers in the wrong places. I've checked the bottle. I've checked the trees. I've checked the box. A fools errand - The answers were never there but I kept looking, draining myself in the process. Some say pain is a just a lack of understanding and where I'm from we wear our trauma like badges of honour. I'm just trying to break the cycle.

Somethings got a hold of me but I can see the light - there is power in my name. The stars shine on me and next time It, comes I will be prepared. Next time It comes I will be ready.

Context:

A recent bout with sadness - is it depression?

Black men's mental health

Inspired by J. Cole 'BRACKETS' and 'Once an Addict (Interlude)'

I wrote this piece after experience a big change in my emotions earlier in the year - sometimes when life gets the best of me I retreat into my shell - I'm not the most emotional person but when I feel sadness it tends to linger (life of an over thinker right!) and I hold on to it. More so, I tend to feel as though everything is going wrong at the same time and a s a result I isolate myself and become a bad family member and an even worse friend, which in turn makes me feel a whole new wave of sadness. So, as a part of my personal therapy process, I have been using my art and now my writing to get all these feeling off my chest; not only for myself but for anyone who reads my blog posts. This is the first of my Window into The Soul Series where I will be looking introspectively on some matters that are dear to me.

Now, recently there has been a spike in interest in black mental health, and as necessary as it is, a lot of us are self-diagnosing so I am being careful to not do that in this post, I too suffer anxious moments, social awkwardness and extremely sad moments but until I have seen a therapist I'll keep the labels to a minimum. But nonetheless, I feel it is important especially as a young black man to be comfortable to express all faucets of my emotions and not just happiness or rage. We feel pain, loneliness, sadness, fear, isolation, desperation, inadequate and I will speak on these things even if my peers won't. There have been too many times I have been smiling all while nursing the pain of a broken heart. There have been too many instances of me smoking and drinking my pain away with friends instead of talking on it and being the support systems we need to be for each other. Too many times I have pushed the people I love away out of fear of rejection. We have to create an environment for young black boys to feel comfortable to express themselves with words and not through actions, actions that are getting us sent to jail, broken, addicted and emotionally under developed. We can no longer put too much pressure on our boys to become men too quickly. It is necessary to break the stigma behind male expressiveness and lead the next generation of men to be thoughtful and expressive so we can challenge a range of issues that plague our community from, abandonment to domestic violence to suicide.

For the longest time I hadn't been feeling like myself and it took me over three years to get back to a place where I was feeling confident again. The first time I felt this change was at university during my second year after feeling lost and extremely demotivated, I was trapped myself in my house barely leaving not for uni or for social events, I wasn't socialising outside of a few old school friends, my diet was poor and I was using weed as a coping mechanism to pass the time. At the time, it just felt like life was piling up on me and there was no worse feeling than feeling like I couldn't talk to anyone because they wouldn't understand - feeling trapped in yourself is a feeling I would not wish on anyone. Substance abuse and hyper sexuality is also a situation we need to challenge in our community, with Hip-Hop music becoming the popular genre it has also allowed the powers at be to enable the promotion of all types of deadly drugs and promiscuity. Unlike when I grew up, when it was frowned upon to be an addict, people now are relishing in it (which is one thing I love about the UK rap and hip-hop scene) and it is not sustainable. Sex and drugs are not a quick fix for our problems, nor is excess spending as Meek Mill details in his hit, These Scars, we are fighting too many battles on numerous fronts - we are finding it, 'hard to face reality' and as a result our dreams are 'dying behind bars'. Hearing J. Cole's refreshing take on our generations coping mechanisms in his latest album, K.O.D, I found inspiration from a dark place to write this piece. We have to take control of our emotions because too many of us are dying from the inside out and are crying for help!

#hiphop #black #mentalhealth #blackmen #emotions #expression