Healing While Performing: The Girl Who Glows & Crashes
image creds: pinterest (@aerdnea) Being tired isn’t the problem — it’s pretending I’m not. I curled myself into a ball on the cold bathroom floor and sobbed. My phone lay forgotten on the toilet seat, while silent tears cascaded down my cheeks. My voice was trapped in my throat. The anguish echoed in my mind, but never broke free physically. Next thing I know, I’m on my bed, held in my friend’s arms, being soothed with comforting words about how he was a waste of three months, how he never deserved a relationship with me, how he was chopped anyway. The next morning, I’m concealing puffy eyes, headphones in, revising for the last stretch of exams, pretending to be okay to kill the dread that hasn’t left my chest. My heart is heavy. We ball though, right? As a healing perfectionist, I’ve always been hungry. Hungry to fulfill the role of the responsible girl, the high achiever, the pretty one, the one who can handle it. Especially as a girl raised in an African household — where a...