If you too are wedded to this bitch named Depression, lift your chin up and know that from this dark today will emerge in time a brighter tomorrow.

by:  Teddy Fikre  written:  Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Time to chronicle my life in between sips of this DOPE cappuccino I’m enjoying at Sakofa while listening to the blissful sounds of Kuku Sebsebe.  Nah, today you won’t find me extolling the virtues of Ethiopia neither will I delve into yet another Taboo subject in the Habesha community.  Today, while recovering from a night of partying and endless shots of Hennessy, I shall put pen to pad and write instead a sober article. This is a story of my life, about my escapes from the clutches of my wife Depression.  This friend visits me one in a while, she is the opposite of Serendipity.  Serendipity inspires me to smile and write, Depression robs me of my charm and my wit.  To wit, this is a story that countless Ethiopians share, but too few have the courage to express.  So let me express it for those who are robbed of their expressions and left shivering in dark lit corners.

My friend depression has with me for as long as I remember, she has been ingrained in my genes passed down from generation to generation.  I often state that nobility is earned but our last name is the only thing inherited.  But upon further examination, I have found this fact to be baseless.  Because there is another thing we inherit even if we don’t want her—this inheritance is a negest named Depression.  This queen has been passed down to me from my mother and her mother before that, she is part of me I just can’t shake.  Depression is my gabi, she drapes me in melancholy and keeps me company while I sleep on my couch watching television.  She is a persistent lady, she has found more ways to seduce me and with her I have given birth to countless bastard dark fantasies.

I am not sure why she insists of haunting me so.  She has robbed me of countless friends and kept me confined in solitary prisons.  I have tried many ways to rid her of my blood, I have drank a plethora of liquor, popped Zoloft and Lexeporo, and even tried to break up with her by taking Xanax.  Shit, I tried to smoke her away with weed, I tried to erase her with wine and beer.  But alas, this bitch won’t leave my side—I am stuck to her like crazy glue and she has me gobbed with like toxic ooze.  I have tried and tried unsuccessfully to release her from me by sleeping with endless Ethiopian women, but the only thing I found in their panties was Depression waving from their uterus.  Lord knows how many times I have had dark thoughts of death, but somehow I managed to live through it all in spite of my own undoing. Depression only grew stronger when I saw my mother trying to commit suicide on multiple occasions and fortified more when my father passed away from lung cancer.

It’s not always like this tough; once in a while, that bitch leaves me and I find myself smiling and sharing warm conversations with friendly strangers.  When Serendipity finds me and chases away my blues, I hold on to her like a lost soul in the middle of a lonely sea.  You see, Depression is the reason I am misunderstood.  People take my bluster as a sign of arrogance and my confidence for ignorance.  But if they only knew, deep inside is a child wanting to be loved by the very people who abhor me so. I seek validation from strangers and create mythic fictions of hatred only to seek vengeance for this made up story of oppression.  Depression has me shadow boxing myself only to continually knock myself out with jabs and round house upper cut to my own chin.

But this is not a sad story; far from it, it is a celebration of my resilience.  Depression is the reason I pop my collars in hurricanes (again that literal crutch).  I have to, if I did not defy her unending seduction, I would surely have perished by now from her odious potion.  I am not sure when it started really, when Depression became my best friend.  I would say probably in Ethiopia, where all my classmates hated me because my father bought me and my sisters shoes from Italy.  They thought we had it made—that we were living high on the hog—when really my parents were living paycheck to paycheck but insisted on giving us everything that they lacked as children.  Thus, they gave us everything, and in return that earned me and my sisters the scorn of a village of children in Bole.  I got beat up more than I care to remember, kicked in the shins by kids who had lesser boots than me.  This trend continued when we arrived in America, where 10 year old black kids would kick me further in the bones for saying “zee” instead of “the”.  Thus began my first memory of Depression, induced by a thousand kicks to my soul at the hands of hateful kids.

These unending kicks soon had me finding solace in empty bathrooms.  Lunch time at Woodbridge High School became the worst time of the day for Teddiye.  I would hide in barren rooms in order to escape the torment of my tormentors.  It sucked being the only Ethiopian growing up in Woodbridge, but really, who am I fooling, I would surely have been equally tormented in Bole as I was in Prince William County.  In due time, I learned to adapt, I learned to look at that bitch dead in her dark kool eyes and learn the language to battle her back.  I became a fierce jegna , I took on the spirit of my great great great grandfather Atse Tewodrose and started walking barefoot on her soul. Eventually, I took on an arrogant demeanor in order to hide my pain and to protect me from would be enemies.  I created an alter ego so that my ego could suck at the nipples of Depression and emerged from her womb a conceited citizen.

But I find at times, when I am the happiest moods, she somehow revisits me and wounds my ego with her piercing fingernails.  She stabs my heart with her arrow of enmity and leaves me bleeding in dark lit corners from her depressing blade.  But I have decided to no longer hide this condition from the world.  I know one thing, that which you hide the most is the prison that will eventually lock up your soul.  So I profess it now loudly and clear, I am engaged to this bitch named Depression.  Ironic isn’t it, her name is Depression Fikre—Depression My Love.  I would laugh had I not just cried a tear of Hennessy by this depressing thought.

Alas, I am not the first nor the last to be wedded to this bitch named Depression.  I know in countless dark lit rooms she haunts too many of my Ethiopian brothers and sisters.  If you too are wedded to this bitch named Depression, lift your chin up and know that from this dark today will emerge in time a brighter tomorrow.  While you might have inherited her, you do not have to be defined by her.  I beseech you to pop your collars in her hurricane and refuse to submit to her charm.  This is a collective Ayzoch to my Ethiopians in Ethiopia and in the Diaspora, trust me, the same thing that makes you cry today is the thing that will make you smile tomorrow.  In due time, your tear wells will be refilled with tears and your heart will be filled with smiles from strangers.  It is my hope that this story put a smile on your face and that you see that I am no longer Depressed Fikre.  Selam.

“A lot of people don’t realize that depression is an illness. I don’t wish it on anyone, but if they would know how it feels, I swear they would think twice before they just shrug it.”~Johnathan Davis

[dedication to Depression Fikre, click to watch video]

Author

Teddy Fikre

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