So, I want to start posting here again.
But I want to cover topics and perspectives that I didn’t cover before. What will I call the renewal of mind that has taken place? Anyway, I would love to explore these parts of myself as well as write topics on some world related stuff that I didn’t do before. I guess this blog can be a place for pouring out of the mind.
I’ll make the update brief. Anyone that’s still here as well as new people passing by, I’ll like to see you with new content
As a first self diagnosed ADHD haver, I had noticed the signs for a while before finally admitting it and succumbing to the label. According to the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS v1.1), developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), I have ADHD. ADHD isn’t just about hyperactivity, I’m not bouncing off walls. It’s also feeling incapacitated to start things aka ADHD paralysis or executive dysfunction.
Recognition is empowering. From the onset of my life, I had the subconscious awareness that I wasn’t neurotypical. But then I had no idea what neurotypical or neurodivergent meant. It wasn’t thought in school. In school and society, you were made to conform or you were the problem. If you don’t do assignments or do house chores in a timely manner, you were just lazy, most places in my homeland didn’t considered stuff like executive function issues that make task initiation difficult.
Growing up, I thought I was shy, well I was but it become less and less of a thing the older I grew. My crippling shyness become less crippling. Then I also got to know that I was an Introvert. But that didn’t explain the social avoidance that I was sometimes draw to. When in university among roommates, I always made friends and had long chats. I had moments with some mates where we clashed heads but there was barely none that I didn’t interact in an engaging and fun manner. I even had close buddies during that period for some of the rooms I stayed.
But when left alone to my devices, I was more than okay being alone and saw little need to seek physical social interaction. I noticed most of my friends were people who approached me first and kept in touch more. This was more than an Introvert recharging her battery. It was clear that I was adaptive or was it me masking, as the neurodivergent community calls it. I felt good either alone or hanging out. Once I opened up to you enough from you were engaging, it was a vibe. But those days, I still had a period of social anxiety towards those who I didn’t know in large settings and formal places. I might have come across as cold or proud. Theres a lesson there about not judging a book by it’s cover.
I have come a long way, I have less social anxiety and feel better about speaking up, for myself and for others. My issues with executive function remain and sometimes I forget to hold eye contact with people I’m not familiar with. I promise I don’t hate you, lol. I have a system I’m using to schedule, arrange, clean, learn, work, etc all to keep me organised to a functional extent. Things that come easily for some people, mainly neurotypicals had to be devised and crafted for me.
But all in all, I’m greatful, understanding that you aren’t just dysfunctional or “wrong”, is a blessing and beautiful. Also nothing wrong with being weird! To all those with ADHD, Autism, etc and and also to the neurotypicals as well, keep on going. You’ve got this.
#adhd #neurodivergent
So… I had an accident. Something I deemed impossible even with the bad motor bike riders we sometimes use as transport on the busy Nigerian streets. Accidents are somehow rarer in my part of the world, I thought, compared to the developed world. The strange thing about my accident and knee injury though, were the little premonitions here and there before it happened.
I had an thought a month back that what if something happens to my knee and I was unable to bend it for a while to do a task I was doing at the moment. Very weird thought to think right? I had no problem with my knees so why would I think that? I brushed it aside. Before I entered the bike,I had a feeling the guy would make a mistake. He did.
Another weird tidbit was a moment where I imagined I had broken an arm and was wearing a cast, due to frustration with my current situation in life and just wanting a break. Even if breaking something would give me a break. I sighed and brushed it off, I didn’t think much of it, after all, I don’t REALLY want that to happen nor is there a chance of that happening.
I broke something alright, and it was in my knee. An open cut, A tore Patella Tendon, slight tear of some other musculature around, A bit of shattered bone from the patella. Even before MRI and Xray told this stuff, I knew that something was going to need repair. And turned out I needed surgery. I got surgery. It wasn’t a small money for us, but thankfully we could afford it. Not before the nagging and insults from my mother though. But I felt her pain too. Before that is the long story of the accident scene to a small hospital who gave me my first stitch, where I could feel the needle. Sweet.
The young bike rider of Northern Nigerian descent was said by his family to have broken collar bone and somethings, maybe his left arm. If the guy never approached me, it would have been a different night probably. Or if I had blown him off on the spot and took my time choosing another bike of my choice. But my damn niceness.
We made eye contact and he was already speaking to me, so why not put my bodily safety in the hands of this guy, right. Some nurses at the peanut sized maternity hospital/ clinic stylishly blamed me for entering the bike of an ‘Aboki’ (nickname for northerner), because its something she will never do. Meanwhile in real life everybody enters aboki bikes along with bikes from other ethnicities.
It was just my day to smash my knee. But it’s easier said and done to give advice and say what you would or wouldn’t do when it’s not your knee smashing day. Nigerians will say “God forbid” something happens to them, until it happens to them or someone they know. It’s never let’s amend the laws of transport or get these bike systems removed, its Sorry and God forbid.
I never saw the biker again, so I don’t know how true it was that he got injured. One of his people say he was shipped to the North for treatment. He stood up before me at the accident scene though, looking confused. He was held by the small crowd that formed at the scene of the accident. We were begged not to report it to the police in the clinic. My mother, brother and I, when they arrived, I mean.
We didn’t report. Their bike was sized and put at the back of the clinic. After the bike man’s people forked out a little naira and brought some whack traditional healer who gave me a rubbing leg session once, we payed the rest of the bulk money, not to mention the surgery that was upcoming. My mother gave them the bike days later when we were leaving the clinic. After that initial clinic, we never heard from them again.
Surgery: Surgery was something. It was done at the orthopedic private hospital I got the brace and crutches from. Also the second much painless stitchs (compared to the first dreadful one) after I bent my knee too much and fell backwards and opened the first stitch from the clinic, yikes. I found it online. I was already getting used to walking with a torn patella and the other torn up stuff before surgery. MRI and Xray said stuff was torn though and needed fixing.
Duh, I could see the inside of my knee on the spot of the accident, a story for another day… Adjusting to using crutches and a brace was slow and painstaking, but the pain was reducing. I couldn’t raise my leg or bend the knee but I was adjusting to using my brace and crutches I got from the orthopedic hospital. Surgery was a new level of pain. I was admitted.
The next day was surgery. Anaesthesia was numbing of the legs and covering my view from what the surgeon and his team were doing. After surgery my legs were still numb and I didn’t move. I was transported from the operating table to my bed. When the numbing wore off, pain hit. And oh boy, it was next level pain.
I would say it was worse than the pain I felt from the actual accident. Which didn’t surprise me, I could hear some hacking with a mallet and drilling. Some iron was put in my knee that will still have to be removed three months later. I was put on non weight-bearing, so I am expected to hop about . Anyways I was uncomfortable for days, back to square one. It reminded me of the day after the accident where I was nuts with pain at some point at the xray place. I just couldn’t make my leg comfortably. It was also always placed up on something too. A chair, A pillow…
Nigeria is a country with immense potential and resources, but also with many challenges and problems. One of the most pressing issues facing the nation is the poor quality of service delivery in many public and private sectors. From health care to education, from security to infrastructure, from electricity to water supply, Nigerians are often frustrated and dissatisfied with the services they receive or pay for. But who is to blame for this situation? And what can be done to improve it?
In this blog post, I will argue that one of the major factors responsible for poor service delivery in Nigeria is the attitude and behavior of some service workers. Service workers are those who provide services to customers or clients, such as doctors, teachers, police officers, bankers, engineers, etc. They are supposed to be professionals who have the skills, knowledge, and ethics to perform their duties effectively and efficiently. However, many service workers in Nigeria fail to meet these standards and instead engage in practices that undermine the quality and value of their services.
Some of these practices include:
From dealing with alopecia, to once menstruating for almost a month, to the time i battled with night bodily itching, to HBP, to OCD (not the fancy concept some people misuse when they like arranging stuff, the actual one that starts in the mind that has several categories), to handling Maladaptive daydreaming, to whatever else i remember… Might help someone.
I didn’t realize so much until i actually thought about it, and i was like sh*t, a lot happened.
And remember:
Hi! I’ve been gone for sometime. Okay maybe it has been years… it happens. Life happened, the pandemic started, post pandemic and all that. But none of that is an excuse, i just fell out of it blogging one day. Maybe because I felt i had to restrict myself and my thoughts in my posts. There were certain topics i wanted to talk about om life, being Nigerian, living in Africa, race, gender, community, thoughts that i shyed away from.
I thought hmmm… do i want to really share this, what if this and that saw? I basically cared too much to be a personal blogger. Another reason i might have suddenly quit was thinking i had outgrown some of ny content and not willing to evolve. I also stopped writing poetry like that. I remember the hassle of editing sometimes. Maybe because I didn’t see myself monetizing anytime soon as well, so i went freelance writing to earn some money for a while and didn’t get back to the blog.
All or any of this might be true, but it doesn’t matter. I was thinking a moment ago, that i have so many personal stories to share, as my comfort permits. I was thinking a while ago, do i need to start a podcast? What’s the way to start a quality podcast that would get some core audience and won’t have me talking to the wind, i asked myself.
Then i remembered i have tiktok, and i rarely talk on it. There’s something about my personality that restricts my sharing it seems. I always think of audiences too when i think of it, am i making this for a worldwide or Nigeria audience? Too much thoughts kill the sporadic creativity a good content creator should have, and such would bounce to any podcast i create if i don’t fix it. Plus doesn’t podcast work better with a crew or two? Idk.
Then i remembered i had a blog a moment ago, i had a voice here, event if it was not as solid as I’d like. But blogging is dead? I thought. Or is it? In the age of tiktok, instareels, YouTube and the youtube shorts, informative long twitter threads, forums would blogs be a place people still cared to hear stories from? I asked myself this literally all in a split second. Then i answered myself in the next one, yes.
So now I’m back.
Hey y’all, been gone for quite a while. I can legit tell you that I have no idea what I’ve been doing since the begging of this year. Which brings me to the topic at hand. This year… whew. It has been rough. And the seem to have no pattern like other sane years. No wonder many people want to go back to 2019 or have a do over.
My year started hard, then coupled with the coronavirus affecting the world, to the lockdown… Things are tough, is all I’m saying. I do hope it becomes less tough. Well this is my coming back address in the middle of a crisis typing from a broken phone.
Howdy folks. Happy lockdown!
I am here
I am me
But I’m not seen
no, just looked through
passed over like a left over bread
used like an essential machine
To be touched not to be felt
To be gawked not to be seen
To be left not to be held
To be consumed not to be tasted
To be perceived not to be smelt
Whatever they make of me is what I’ll be
If the distance crevices of my mind are to protest, it is shut down
I am but an unwilling puppet, patiently waiting my demise
Food tastes like air to the specter
Laughter like a sudden madness
Tears like a tired tale of ever flowing rivers of sadness
death sounds like bliss, because live seems like a disease
I am here
I am me
I am invisible©yenzyoh
Hi guys,
I now offer natal chart and tarot readings for just $20 dollars. Feel free to contact me via comment or my email address : Odifayeni@gmail.com.
Let the truth all be revealed.
Be thankful for the struggles you go through. They make you stronger and wiser. Don’t let them break you. Let them make you
Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who decided to stand their ground
Everything that happens to you is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
No one saves us except ourselves. No one can and no one may. We must walk the path ourselves.
To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.
– Epictetus
theyenzyradical 