Agoraphobia

My guy! Omo, e taff tey (it’s been a long while).

I feel terrible for leaving you in the dark.

Where do we begin? Okay. Let’s go waaaaaaaaaay back to the first trigger. Someone said something. Then I saw something and I went bam bam back.

So, one of those days someone, a ‘friend’ on Facebook, offhandedly mentioned that I’m wasting my time here not making the most of our traffic here; that I have good content but I should pay a graphics designer to make designs for publicity for posts instead of wasting it. Omo. I didn’t know it got to me that bad. I almost deleted some posts sef.

And then a few days later I saw a post from another person’s blog with beautiful graphics. Guess what I did? Lol.
I’m sorry but it’s true. I abandoned you. And I’m sorry. I’ve been a terrible pal here.

I’ve struggled with coming here to write for a long while. No motivation worked. I tried, my dear. I tried. But, I did not get enough to come here, dear.

I didn’t try hard because I know how it normally worked. It was fear; with me. It’s the feeling I have almost every time I put out my content, the podcast, blog posts, anything.
It’s the same feeling I had again yesterday when I finally put up a video on my new Tiktok account. My guy, I was scared. Of what? I don’t know.
When I woke yesterday I thought about my work again, I put a lot into making each one and I really hope you can relate to it when you read it, hear it or see it. Typing this is herculean but I promised myself that I would write to you today and I intend to fulfil it.

My mind is as scattered as this post, because there’s more to say that I cannot wring out…

I want to tell you about how most days I wake up thinking of how to edit the podcasts and where/how I’ll find contributors.
I want to tell you of how I stopped journaling and started living through the motions.

I want to talk about the days I stayed up all night to edit my podcasts.

I want to talk about the days I… All those days… Good days, bland days, happy days, sad days.

Omo. Some days ehn.

But, I’ll tell you what happened this morning. Fear came to visit again. It makes my heart race, and ache (I mean literal pain here), and my breathing shallow. Then I remembered the words I’ve been reading in Romans, in Ephesians, in all the Pauline letters, in Psalms, in every new testament epistle, and the tears stopped( I didn’t know I was crying again).

I wrote new affirmations. I repeated it on 26 lines of paper till it sank.

I wrote it 26 times!

Fear is a liar.

I felt my breathing ease with each sentence and joy return.

How to end this is another herculean task. However, it must end.

This read is my most inconsistent and scattered one, yet…

I’m grateful you stayed with me. I love you. ❤️

For Ayo…

Hi, ALian. 💜

Don’t stone me yet. I can explain, trust me, but not in this blog post.

This one is for Ayo.

Ayo is a 25 year old digital marketer and ‘forex trader’ who works from home. He has two ‘heavy’ meals each day and snacks in between.
The only fruit he eats is groundnut (that has to count, my dear). His father died 5 years ago and was a known hypertensive, but as we all know, “he died after a brief illness”.

Every week he has to check on his mother who has type II diabetes.
He doesn’t know yet that today is world Hypertension day. However, he had salted dodo for breakfast and added two tablespoons of salt to the rice he had with stew for lunch.
Last week he testified in Church that he has never been to the hospital since he was born. Hallelujah!

Are you Ayo?

If yes, you should know that an estimated 1.28 billion adults aged 30-79 years worldwide have hypertension, most (two-thirds) living in low- and middle-income countries (Nigeria is part of this, dear) 🙂.

An estimated 46% of adults with hypertension are unaware that they have the condition. Less than half of adults (42%) with hypertension are diagnosed and treated.

And hypertension is a major cause of premature death worldwide.

You should also know that one of the greatest breakthroughs with non-communicable diseases is lifestyle modification.
Nigeria does not have a reliable health care system yet and while we keep hope alive, do not be the guniea pig.

Health insurance, if you can afford it, is not a sin, neither is it a luxury. The sick who is healed and subsequently engages unhealthy practices will need another healer.

I’m rooting for your health, as always! 🥂