It’s been almost three years since I had my first formal therapy session and everything completely changed from there. The last three years have been surreal. I walked into that appointment with absolutely no chronic illnesses, no medications, and three years later, I am dealing with over six conditions and close to ten medications. How did I get here?
This is the story.
In 2023, I started a new job, a pretty demanding new job, coming off from a previous job that also had its own challenges. Honestly, every single job I have had has been stressful from a human relations perspective, not necessarily about the content of the job, which is also often demanding. I was excited about this new job. I felt it would be the opportunity to build something concrete and substantial, and shape systems and policies, my soft spot. It didn’t quite work out the way I expected or imagined.
I was also about nine months into a new relationship with an old friend. The friendship and the relationship were two very different situations. During the friendship, I felt seen, supported and taken care of. During the relationship, I noticed how stark our differences were. When we were close friends, when I call, he comes, each and every time, without question. When we were dating, now there was distance, busyness and excuses.
I was also recovering from a devasting, life-altering, life-threatening surgery just a few months prior to the start of the new job. The surgery affected me deeply, physically and emotionally. I was grateful to have survived it, but it took a toll on me that I can’t even articulate, and I feel like those around me didn’t quite understand or empathize enough with what I had been through and the permanent implications.
In 2023, I was carrying a lot, more than what I can fully share here. I am a pretty stoic person, but I became quite emotional. Late at night, I would curl up in bed and cry, deep heaves and sobs. I felt like something was coming undone, slipping away from my grasp.
And then after a particularly challenging couple of days at work that completely threw me off, I knew what I had to do. I had to talk to someone.
I had been talking to Dr. Araba Sefa-Dede on and off informally. My family and I had a session with her once before, during a period when I was going through a difficult time and sought help from my aunt who then roped in Auntie Araba. She had come through for me at various times in the past. Our sessions were often informal. She knew my family history, knew about my father’s schizophrenia, so it was quite easy to open up without fear of stigma. However, early in 2023, after a few chats online, she informed me that she wouldn’t be available for a while. Unfortunately, she passed away a few months later. I wanted someone who had trained under Auntie Araba or was similar to her. I asked her poor, grieving daughter for recommendations, I asked psychologists who knew her, and I also reached out to some therapists I knew because of earlier family experiences. Private practitioners were expensive! So eventually, I did some googling and took a chance on UGMC and Dr. Paul Kumi. To be honest, I actually booked with his colleague, but her brother or a close relative passed away around that time, so I ended up with Dr. Paul Kumi. One of Auntie Araba protégés affirmed that he was good. He has helped me a great deal.
Initially for me, I considered therapy as preventative mental health. I wanted to talk to someone to prevent a descent into serious mental illness like my father. I wanted to be proactive, talk, let it all out, share the burden, get help, and take it from there. Less than three months after my first session, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and chronic depression (we are also exploring complex PTSD). At first, I took the news well, because it explained so much, and I felt so seen. After a while though, it felt heavy to carry.
When I first told my boyfriend that I was going to therapy, he wasn’t enthused. He said it would change me. It would make me dull and more accepting of his BS, and I wouldn’t challenge him as much. Men, I don’t understand them. First, he claims to want peace and quiet, and then he tells me he doesn’t want me to become peaceful and quiet.
My therapist and I explained my diagnoses to him. He had the same initial reaction that I did – it’s like a light goes off and you understand everything clearly. He understood. Every single thing the therapist said, he would echo, ‘Yes, yes, that’s exactly what happens, that’s her, wow.’ To be seen is like a drug, and to have your experience understood is quite euphoric. The dynamic of the relationship became so clear to him. Who I was became clear to him. He said he could handle it; he would need our help (the therapist and me), but he could handle it.
Just like me though, the initial high dropped quickly. Within days, he reverted back to regarding me as basically normal, forgetting what had been discussed and shared. Each time I tried to remind him, he would refute it, and say, ‘there is nothing wrong with you.’ I said to him, ‘you are dating a special needs person.’ He wouldn’t accept that.
I badly wanted everything in my life to work out. Therapy was mainly focused on stabilization – for work, relationship and family.
Family deteriorated quickly. It’s interesting that Oprah and others are talking so much about the trend of family estrangement. In 2023, shortly after my diagnoses, I initiated estrangement from my family for a period of six months. I hit a wall and I just couldn’t handle it. I needed space. I just blocked all close family to get room to breathe for a bit.
Having knowledge and insight doesn’t automatically solve problems. I knew what was wrong with my relationship, with work, with family, with me, but I didn’t yet have the tools, capacity, or skills to solve any of it, so I continued to function under great stress.
Therapy was used for firefighting due to the magnitude of chaos in my life. 2023 was a mess. Early 2024, I re-engaged slowly with my family. And I continued to work hard to save and preserve my relationship, to keep my best friend, to maintain the one person I felt I couldn’t lose in the midst of everything. I have already shared on my Substack some of the frantic efforts I made to keep him, the presentations and research and the routines.
Alas, in August 2024, just days after he told me we were good, and he had no issues, all was well with us, the breakup text dropped. I went through a spiral that day. I called questioning him about an ex. He hung up and texted that he was done. That was it.
I have been through some stuff in my life, including the surgery I have referenced, but there have been two other surgeries, just as life threatening. I have been in a helicopter crash, that exploded mere seconds after I got out, but I still sustained injuries, concussion and a coma. I have been in a car crash, where one vehicle t-boned the car that I was in, leading to rescue by US fire, police and ambulance (my friend was driving and injured quite badly). I have been in a bus accident, again, leading to US fire and police rescue. I have suffered PTSD, I have had nightmares. I have been sedated before traveling. I have been through pain, through trauma, through chaos, through uncertainty, but that text drop? It hit me hard. I felt like I stopped breathing. I was frozen. It was surreal.
That text led to a flood of stress hormones, cortisol, and my system physically started shutting down. It was Thursday night. The pain started on Friday. I was a zombie through the weekend. My aunt was in the hospital and my mom asked me to help check her out on Monday. I could barely move or walk myself, pushing through pain. Once I got her checked out and in a taxi, I went back inside and asked for a doctor. Then I asked for my mom to come. I was in so much physical pain, it was unbearable. I was admitted to the ER that night.
My ESR (inflammation marker) was about 180 (maximum for a woman should be 20). I was put on morphine for the pain, and other drugs to lower the inflammation. I was completely out of it. The hospital assigned a therapist to me as well. I could barely eat. I was in the ER for four days. Then to the ward for 3 days. There was no physical justification for my pain. It was purely emotional trauma causing a physical collapse. After my discharge, I was placed on bedrest for another five days. Two weeks total. That breakup text took me out of commission for two weeks.
Towards the end of 2024, my therapist insisted on placing me on antidepressants. I had resisted medications since I started therapy. I didn’t have a choice this time. Publicly, no one could tell or guess that I was struggling, but internally, I was truly deteriorating. I accepted the drugs, reluctantly.
In 2025, buoyed a little bit by the antidepressants, I launched my YouTube show, to share my lived experience, and help others to feel seen and to get help. Unfortunately, somewhere mid-2025, people attempted to break into my home multiple times. I suffered severe panic attacks and hospital detention. I had to see a psychiatrist at Korle Bu for treatment. That’s when I realized I had gained a lot of weight. I weighed myself in 2024 just before I started the antidepressants and by mid-2025 when I got weighed at Korle Bu (I never weigh at home), I had gained 15kilos. A lot of antidepressants cause weight gain. Not much had changed in my exercise or diet routine. It was the medication. I was stunned.
I decided to go and see an endocrinologist. At this time, I was on two medications – the antidepressant and one for the panic attacks. I gave the endocrinologist my full history and a very comprehensive set of labs and scans were ordered, including an EEG (brain scan). This is what led to the discovery of the non-convulsive seizure disorder – three medications were ordered for this. Through the comprehensive labs, my inflammation markers were still very high. Honestly, I first discovered I had high inflammation in 2019, but a lot of doctors just didn’t take it seriously. This endocrinologist did and referred me to a rheumatologist who also took it seriously, ordered more scans and tests, and I ended up with undifferentiated autoimmune disorder, with accompanying drug. The inflammation had caused high cholesterol, so the endocrinologist also placed me on a cholesterol lowering drug. Low vitamin D popped up, so supplements were added, including for sleep.
The endocrinologist also prescribed GLP1 for weight loss, but due to lack of finances, I am not on that. Instead, I have switched antidepressants to one that causes less weight gain, and a seizure control drug that helps manage weight, although it has more challenging side effects such as loss of words, quite unfortunate for a writer and speaker. I just can’t win.
From a breakup text, to serious hospitalization, to antidepressants, to home invasions, to panic attacks, to psychiatric care, leading to discovery of weight gain, leading to diagnoses of seizures and autoimmune disorder and ten medications total. The toll is immense. My nervous system is struggling. I am depleted.
In 2026, a new therapist I saw recently asked me, what would normal, healing or thriving look like for me. And I said, ‘I just want to breathe. I know life will always be hard, but this is a bit too much. I want life to ease up just a little. Something needs to change. I need to breathe.”
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com