Letters We Never Say Out Loud

Dear Anxiety,

Mi have one question.

Why yuh always show up wid yuh slippers on?

Because normal visitors come, sit down likkle bit, maybe drink something, reason, and then eventually dem get up and leave.

Not you.

You come prepared fi stay.

Before mi even open mi eye good in the morning, there you are.

“What if?”“Yuh sure?”“Check again.”“What if something happen?”“What if yuh forget something?”“What if dem vex?”“What if yuh make the wrong decision?”

Sometimes nothing has even happened yet.

That is the part that gets me.

Everybody else is living in Tuesday and you have me emotionally preparing for a disaster scheduled for a Thursday that does not exist.

And you are convincing.

Lord, you are convincing.

You can take one unanswered message and build an entire documentary.

One strange tone of voice becomes evidence.

One mistake becomes proof that everything is about to fall apart.

One pain in my body and suddenly you have opened a medical school.

You make ordinary uncertainty feel like danger.

And sometimes I know exactly what you are doing.

I can literally tell myself, “Shell, this is anxiety.”

And you know what?

My body still believes you.

My heart still races.My stomach still turns.My thoughts still start running around like somebody left the gate open.

That is the part people don't always understand.

Knowing something is anxiety doesn't automatically make the anxiety disappear.

Sometimes I have to sit with you until you quiet down.Sometimes I distract myself.Sometimes I talk to somebody.Sometimes I pray.Sometimes I need more help than prayer alone.Sometimes I just tell myself, “Nothing is happening right now. Stay here.”

Right here.

Not Thursday.Not the imaginary conversation.Not the catastrophe you have already written, directed and produced.

Here.

I don't expect you to pack your slippers and leave forever.

I know you too well to make promises like that.

But we need some house rules.

You don't get to call every uncertainty an emergency.You don't get to turn every silence into rejection.And you certainly don't get to rearrange the furniture.

Yuh is a visitor.

Act accordingly.

Shell

Dear Little Shell,

Dem tell yuh that a lot, didn't they?

Too sensitive.

Yuh cry too easy.Yuh take things too seriously.Yuh need fi toughen up.

So eventually you started trying.

You learned to swallow the tears before anybody saw them.

You learned that sometimes adults were more comfortable correcting your reaction than asking what caused it.

You learned to read rooms.Faces.Voices.Silence.

You learned when to talk and when it was probably better not to.

And somewhere along the way, you started wondering whether feeling things deeply was something wrong with you.

I wish I could come back and sit beside you.

Not to give you some grand speech about the woman you're going to become.

You wouldn't need that.

I think I would just sit.

And when you were ready, I would ask:

What happened?

Then I would listen long enough for you to realise I actually wanted the answer.

There are things I understand about you now that nobody could have explained to you then.

Sometimes you weren't “behaving badly.”You were overwhelmed.

Sometimes you weren't being dramatic.Something hurt.

Sometimes you weren't difficult.You needed reassurance.

Sometimes you weren't crying “for nothing.”You just didn't have the words yet for everything your little body was trying to hold.

And yes, sometimes you were simply a child.

Children are allowed to have feelings that inconvenience adults.

I wish somebody had told you that.

I wish somebody had told you that being deeply affected by something did not automatically mean you were weak.That crying didn't make you foolish.That wanting to be loved wasn't asking for too much.That needing somewhere to belong wasn't something to be ashamed of.

I cannot go back and change what you heard.

I can't give you different rooms to grow up in.I can't make every adult understand what you needed.

But I can stop repeating some of those things to you now.

So when I hear that old voice telling me I'm too sensitive, I am learning to answer it.

No.

She feels deeply.

There is a difference.

Little Shell, yuh never did too sensitive.

You were trying to make sense of things that were too big for you.

I see that now.

More importantly, I see you.

Shell

Dear “Gwaan Pray Bout It,”

This one is complicated.

Because I believe in prayer.

I was raised in faith.

I know what it is to reach for God when I don't have words for anybody else.

There have been prayers that carried me through nights people knew nothing about.

Scripture has comforted me.

Faith has mattered to me.

It still does.

So this is not a letter against prayer.

It is a letter about what happens when prayer becomes the end of a conversation that somebody was brave enough to start.

“I think I'm depressed.”Gwaan pray bout it.

“I haven't been sleeping.”Gwaan pray bout it.

“I don't feel like myself.”Gwaan pray bout it.

“I am frightened by the thoughts I'm having.”Gwaan pray bout it.

Sometimes the person saying it genuinely loves you.

Sometimes they simply don't know what else to say.

Sometimes mental illness frightens people, and spiritual language gives them somewhere familiar to stand.

I understand that.

But I also know how lonely it can feel when you finally tell somebody you are struggling and their answer makes you feel as though you have been handed back your pain with a Bible verse attached.

I can pray and need help.I can trust God and talk to somebody.I can have faith and take medication.I can believe in miracles and still make an appointment.

Those things do not have to fight each other.

Sometimes the answer to somebody's pain isn't another instruction.

Sometimes it is:

“Tell me more.”“How long have you been feeling like this?”“Do you want me to sit with you?”“Would you like help finding somebody you can talk to?”“Are you safe?”

And yes.

Sometimes it is:

“Can I pray with you?”

With you.

Not instead of listening to you.Not instead of helping you.Not because depression means your faith is defective.Not because anxiety proves you haven't prayed hard enough.

Prayer has a place in my life.

A sacred one.

That is precisely why I don't want it used as a way to make difficult conversations disappear.

Sometimes faith looks like kneeling.

Sometimes faith looks like getting up from your knees and accepting the help that is available.

Shell

Dear Jamaica,

Mi love yuh bad.

So don't get defensive before mi finish. 😂

Because one thing about we, we can laugh.

Good God, we can laugh.

Something can happen at 8:00 in the morning and by 8:17 somebody has found the joke.

Funeral?Somebody eventually remembers something the person used to do and the whole room gone.

Hardship?Give we time.

Heartbreak?Eventually there is a story.

Family drama?There is always one cousin who can retell it better than the original event.

Sometimes humour has kept us company when life wasn't particularly funny.

I love that about us.

But Jamaica, sometimes I wonder how much we hide inside the joke.

“How yuh stay?”“Mi deh yah.”

And conversation done.

Because “mi deh yah” can mean:

I'm good.I'm managing.I'm exhausted.Things rough but mi nah complain.I don't want to talk about it.I don't know how to talk about it.If I start talking about it, I might cry.Please ask me again.

And somehow two words carry all of that.

We know how to gwaan.We know how to make something stretch.We know how to show up when things hard.We know how to tell somebody, “Hold strain.”We know how to laugh in places where laughter almost feels impossible.

Those things have helped us survive.

But survival habits can become hiding places too.

Sometimes “strong” is somebody who hasn't had another option.

Sometimes the person making everybody laugh goes home and gets very quiet.

Sometimes the man everybody calls dependable is tired of being needed.

Sometimes the mother who “can manage anything” desperately needs somebody to manage something for her.

Sometimes the child we call miserable is struggling.

Sometimes the person who stops coming around isn't “moving funny.”

Sometimes something is wrong.

And sometimes, Jamaica, we need to ask twice.

Not everybody will answer the first time.

We have spent generations learning certain things should stay inside the house.Some things shouldn't leave the family.Some things you don't tell strangers.Some things you pray about.Some things you laugh off.Some things you just have to be strong about.

But what happens when the thing we're carrying gets too heavy?

I don't want us to lose the humour.

Please.

Life hard enough already.

And frankly, some things deserve to be laughed at.

I just want us to make room beside the laughter.

Room for:“Mi really not alright today.”

Room for somebody to hear it without immediately fixing, preaching, comparing or telling them somebody else has it worse.

Room for Jamaican men to be frightened.Room for Jamaican women to be tired.Room for children to have feelings adults don't understand.Room for faith and treatment.Room for grief that takes longer than people expected.Room for people who look fine and aren't.Room for the truth.

We can still laugh.

Just don't make the joke the only place we're allowed to hide.

Love,
Shell