I am not sure what the official statistics are as at today, but if we are to go by the reports we read in the news and the experiences of the people around us, I think it is safe to say depression may be on the rise in Nigeria.

According to health.harvard.edu, there are many possible causes of depression, including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, medications, and medical problems, also stress, grief or difficult life circumstances.  It is believed these factors can act alone or interact to cause depression.

For this post I am going to focus on one of the major depression triggers in Nigeria, which is – difficult life circumstances.

My mother passed on 17 months ago aged 63 years. One day I am going to write about her life and her death, but not today. Today, I write about the overwhelming pain of loss I felt and still feel. Today, I write about this thing called grief.

In this post I will be focusing on the things I experienced at different times especially in the first one year after her death. In another post coming later,  I will share how I have been able to deal with some of these things and how I am finding healing and purpose in the pain.

On this day last year, my mother, Christiana Iyabo Adu died from the complications of Parkinson’s disease, aged 63. I don’t have words to describe the cocktail of pain and emotions that has poured though my soul since then, grief broke me into tiny little pieces.

This post was first published on Woman.NG 

For most of my adult life, I have not been contented. I wanted many things to be different, I wanted to be in another place, and I wanted more than I always had. I am not wrong to desire and pursue the bigger, better and brighter things of life, but I have not done myself much good by allowing that desire to overcome me and blind me to the beauty of the many good things I already have.

This post was first published on Woman.NG 

One of my favorite songs of all times is Emeli Sande’s Read All About It. In the year I fell in love with this song, every evening after work I put it on auto replay while I drowned the noise of the world in a warm bath. There I could listen to my own inner voice, untamed, unafraid, and unashamed. There I could be the one who is not stuck in silence afraid of saying something wrong.