She said:
You never want to be the chick who threatens suicide so much that eventually, people stop picking up your calls. In fact, you have the friend who said, ‘Don’t, Jesus won’t let you’ which made you wonder which Jesus she could possibly be referring to, and why he is so unsympathetic. Then there’s the one who says, ‘People who want to jump just jump. They don’t announce it.’ Because obviously there is a formula to how one kills themselves and if you don’t fit into the formula then I guess it isn’t truthful. Cries for help can’t sometimes just be cries for help.
When you grow up in certain homes, in certain cultures (because biologically, all of us are human, there is no such separation as depression is a white man’s problem, and FGM a black one. Humans all do crazy shit to each other that isn’t fair and isn’t right and all our blood is still red) you are taught to be not seen. You are taught to only be heard until the society decided that you have something useful to say.
And so even if you have miles and miles of words to say you don’t say them because you aren’t supposed to. Even when you try, you get brushed off. You aren’t allowed to be said, acknowledged. You aren’t allowed to be sad. Every random guy on the fucking street is always asking you why you aren’t smiling. Why you are unhappy. How you should get over it, as if the way you feel is a visible obstacle to surmount as opposed to a bone deep, wearying dragon on your shoulder that is so much bigger and so much fatter than you that you can’t shake the damn Smaug off.
Smaug whispers to you. He tells you that no one cares – and that even if you spoke, you, are too much for anyone to handle. You can’t be that friend. The one who cries over everything. The one who goes to the club and you know something unnecessary is always going to pop. The dramatic one.
You can’t be the dramatic one, so you become the silent one who pretends not to care, think, see, hear or feel because no other course of action is open to you.
Except Smaug. Smaug is always open to you.