'You don't owe your sanity to anyone' -#NoShameDay founder, Bassey Ikpi

Nigerian-American, Bassey Ikpi organised the #NoShameDay event on Twitter. After the online event, she shared her story on her Tumblr blog, detailing what it's like to be diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.


Read on:

#NoShameDay Post
TRIGGER WARNING:Also, though absolutely true, the ending is unbearably corny… No Shame.


This was supposed to be my last No Shame Day. My last July. It was to have been my last June. My last May. My last Christmas. My last New Year. My last Arbor Day. August 3rd, 2016 was to be my last birthday.

What was supposed to be my last winter, I fell deeper and deeper into a depression that began while I was still in Nigeria. I came home determined to heal and wash off the years I felt I wasted. I felt like a failure. I felt like there was no reason for me to be alive. I felt like my life was spiraling into nothing. My brain told me, and I believed it, that I was never going to be loved, never be partnered, never be successful, never get a book deal, never write a book, never be able to take care of myself or Boogie financially. I was staring at 40 like it was an execution date and it was. And in my 40s, I felt lonely and damaged and and somehow unable to lift myself out of it. I stopped trying. I began slowly letting my family and friends know that I had no plans to live in my 40s. I would make it to 40 but the day after, August 4, 2016, I wasn’t going to be here anymore.


I inquired about custody. I spent time with him urging him to learn how to be a bit more self sufficient. In my fucked up immaturity, that meant teaching him how to make the grilled cheese sandwiches he loved so much. I was honest with my doctor and my close friends that I didn’t want to live anymore and I was not planning on prolonging it. I refused to spend another 40 years in this burning inferno of a roller coaster called bipolar disorder, refused to spend another year or ten fighting this mixed episode, rapid cycling horror. Everyone, including my doctors, reminded me of the days it would “get better”. They told me, “it always gets better, Bass. You feel like this and then a week later, you’re laughing and working on some amazing project…” And I agreed. That was true but what they weren’t saying was, “But it always comes back.” Something, some previously unknown trigger would light the powder keg and I would be blown backwards. I would be reeling and struggling to find the shards of spirit and resolve strewn around the me. My hands would quake too badly to piece things back together so every “it gets better” began to look worse. It was duct tape and stapled and missing pieces and gaping holes and I would use what was left and pretend it filled and worked properly. But every day, I was tired. Every day, I refused to move. Every day, I wanted to sit inside myself and disappear.


The morning held nothing but regret and disappointment. I reached out to make amends with friends I had let slipped through those broken bits I couldn’t piece back together: some welcomed me back with open arms, others refused. I didn’t blame them. I was, after all, a terrible friend. I reached out to exboyfriends, wrote long emails about this and that, clarifying or asking or offering forgiveness. I told my doctor every week, ‘You can’t talk me out of this. I’m not doing it today or tomorrow. I still have a few more months.“ I could see that she was frightened for me but there was nothing she could do. I’d been in therapy long enough to know what to say. I knew how to craft every single sentence so she under her oath, didn’t have the authority to call anyone or tell anyone. In hindsight, it was a cruel thing to do, I made her and my family helpless but in my mind, I was preparing them. I didn’t want it to come as a shock. I knew that a note wouldn’t tell them everything. It wouldn’t show them the way I was flinging my body across these days. The way I sometimes forgot how to breathe. Not in some poetic, romantic way. I mean, I couldn’t remember how to tell my lungs that I needed air. I hyperventilated often because my lungs had already left me. But I promised myself 3 more months, then 2… I would take my medication. I would go to therapy every week as planned but I was tired. And I didn’t want to do it anymore.


I messaged my brother, Roger Bonair-Agard, in the middle of one night. I’ve known him for ages and I knew that I could trust him. I sent him the first message: “I need to tell you something but I need to know that I can trust you."Without hesitation, he shot back: of course. I can’t remember what was said after that. I don’t know if I said anything to him directly but I remember teling him that I was going to send him the passwords to all my devices soon. I was going to tell him where the folder with the letters to our mutual friends were. I told him that I wasn’t doing it today but I wanted to give him enough time to prepare and steady.
I don’t know why I was offering people so much time to prepare. I do know: Because the ones I lost didn’t give me time to prepare and I’m sure their deaths wouldn’t have lived in me so long had they prepared me better. So I was preparing the people I loved.


I offered better communication. Plans to visit: New York, Chicago, The Bay Area. It was a good bye tour. I saw Hamilton because Leslie Odom Jr. DM’d me one day to tell me he loved my poetry and asked me if I wanted to see it. Was he joking? Wait For It was my theme: "Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints… it takes and it takes and it takes…” And he, in all his kindness, invited me to see the show. He didn’t know that it was part of my farewell tour. While there, another friend went into crisis and I sprang into action: I made calls, I emailed, I texted. I was desperate to get someone to him. I was desperate to save him.
On the phone with someone I thought loved me once, that evening, he asked me, “You work so hard to save others. Why won’t you let us save you?” My response: They are worth it.
I don’t remember what he said after that. I hope he gave me some words of encouragement but I think he knew me well enough to know that they were just words.


January became February. February became March. March became heavier than I could ever imagine. I wanted to push up the day. Maybe April…but that month belonged to 2 of my siblings. I couldn’t do it to them. May. May was soccer season. Sometime in March or February: Time means so little when your brain is broken. I had spent too many weeks huddled in the dark of this bedroom. I wasn’t eating or speaking. My brother, Jesam, came to me and I don’t want to recall what was said. But my heartbroke for my family. I didn’t want to but I had to try to reconsider. I didn’t want to but to see my brothers and my mother and to hear my sister, I pleaded with them to let me go. I tried to make them understand that this thing hurt more than their love. I tried to show them and tell them how much better off they would be without me. They fought me, not physically, not even verbally but with their anguish and their love. I was defeated. I was tired. I couldn’t fight myself or them. I didn’t want to fight them. I wanted them to live a life better without the burden of me. That night, my brother shared something with me that I didn’t know. I was too fatigued to hear him but I still feel the weight of his words in me. My other brother offered me something else that held me weighted and waiting. They had taken the number of my doctors. Made a call. My meds were upped. My therapy was taken from twice a week to three. And slowly, the day became weeks (I think). and suddenly waking up was no longer met with disappointment. It wasn’t joy but I didn’t dread the morning like it held spikes and acid.


Then Roger invited me to Chicago. He asked me to come and do nothing but exist there. I was exhausted and needed to see something other than the plain of this bedroom so I went.  It reminded me of something. The me that still had hope and youth on her side existed there.  I don’t know how but I found her there. I could feel the ice around the depression melting away. I still didn’t want to see 40 but for the first time in a long time I wanted to try. The threat of love and usefulness began to exist again. I came home and all I had was the words someone had given me, somewhere: Try. Just try.
And I have been, ever since. It wasn’t an overnight turn around. As a matter of fact, with my birthday 2 weeks away, August 4th still sings a siren call for me. I don’t know what will happen. I throw myself into these days: writing and laughing and doing what I can to help people I think can be helped more than me. It isn’t the healthiest and triggers and warning set me back quite often but the ability to get back up, though slower and with more creaking bones and yes, plenty of tears, still exists.


I know that I still have work to do. I have rededicated myself to this mental health advocacy and The Siwe Project.  I have taken Ali’s quote about service being the rent we pay to heart. I am doing this work so I can rent to own. Every day is a challenge and a choice but I make it. It’s easy for so many to wonder what there is to be so depressed about or suicide is not the answer and to them I ask, “Do you even know what the question is?”


You couldn’t possibly.


But in case it isn’t, I’m allowing myself morning. I am allowing myself destinations and tomorrows and I have to do this or that in 2017. I need to see this or that when Boogie is 10. I need to be this or that before I can say good bye and it is those things that keep me moving. On the days when I can’t even figure out what the point is, I pull up my laptop and I hop on Facebook and I write a long ass post like this one and my “reason” is “How many likes will I get on this?” Just curious not betting the farm on it or even seeking validation. I’m seeking recognition: Who is paying attention?  Who notices that I’m still her? And some days, that is enough.


One morning, after a night of one ambien too many causing me to fall asleep with my earbud in and Hamilton on repeat, I woke up toLeslie singing, “I am the one thing in life in I can control. I am inimitable. I am an original…” By the time he got to, “If there’s a reason, I’m still alive when so many have died…”
I was also, willing to Wait For It.
I’m still waiting and I hope I can keep it up for another 40 years.
#NoShame #NoShameDay