BY WACHITEMBO MUKUKA
I didn’t know how to start this so here we go I guess. I’d like to share my journey of self-acceptance and the perils of insecurity, depression, anger, suicide and anxiety that I faced and by the grace of God managed to conquer, it wasn’t easy but it definitely was worth fighting for. So, here’s a backstory just to give the narrative some context. Growing up I didn’t have problems with myself image or who I was until my late teens, I guess you can attribute some of it to the increase in consumption of media, and what was portrayed to me as cool and fresh and as a young man just trying to be loved by everyone and get a few ladies on the side in the process I begun to pursue this “image” which was at the time worth giving up everything for but for some reason I could never be cool enough I guess in part due to the habit that trends have of not sticking around for too long, by the time I acquainted myself with one, another would’ve come along. I look back at those moments now and it seems I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed cause it was really impossible feat I had tried to accomplish but nonetheless I forged on and inevitably the burden begun to take its toll on my self-esteem, a couple million trends, and a few broken relationships (that I will not be getting into) later, my self-esteem was at an all-time low and one of the only things that prevented me from throwing a bunch of pain meds down my throat to end it all in what I imagined would be a peaceful way to go was the fact that the peace would last a few moments before I landed in hell and if I thought I had problems before I’d really have problems then. I had managed to run myself into the ground and at this time the insecurities had begun to affect my relationships with God, my friends and family. I came to China for this medical degree thing in a very beat up state and I thought that a mere change in scenario would be like a fresh start, but what I failed to realise is Fresh Start + Same Old Me = Same Old Me, and as you might already have picked up it begun to affect the new relationships that I was forming here also and none of the people here were the wiser because I had become a master of faking it, so good in fact that I couldn’t differentiate what I had constructed and what was really me, so you could say even I played myself , but a string of bad decisions and failed acts later, these relationships started to fail as well. Noticing the same pattern beginning to form again, I was in despair, I couldn’t sink any lower than I had without actually blending with the Ocean floor, I decided to do something that I should’ve done a long time ago but never did. In a moment of depression and nowhere else to run to but God I asked a question that literally changed my life:
ME: “God, how come all my relationships start off real nice and peachy but after a while it all comes down like a house of cards, and it just feels like everything is fake?”
WHAT I BELIEVE WAS GOD: “Because you’re fake”
ME: “Okay, Bye”
That was not the answer I was expecting and concurrently why that prayer session ended so abruptly but it’s something I needed to hear. I’d been acting to be someone I’m not for such a long time so that people would love me and at a point it felt like people loved the act that I put up and not necessarily me and ever so rarely I’d get tired and not put up the act anymore and be the real me and people would ask me why I’m being weird and this would force me to bury the real me even deeper for fear of rejection. But after the epiphany I received from God and a number of longer prayer sessions later I begun to realise that the acceptance I was looking for God had already given me and realising that gave me a freedom that I’d never experienced before. When he says I’m fearfully and wonderfully made and that He loves me and to show me this He sent his Son to die for ME! That’s actually all I never needed, as love casts out all fear, when the love of God came down and I actually grasped it everything left me, suicidal thoughts, thoughts of not being good enough, the depression and anxiety all left literally just like that, I know it sounds too easy and people go through months of therapy for the same type of problem, but I kid you not I woke up one morning and I felt like a new creation, I resolved to be who God purposed me to be and to execute the passions he had placed in ME fearlessly and without a concern of what people say or think because He has placed a high value on me and me not doing it so it was time I started being the valuable being that I was made to be and stop denying the world Gods glory. To conclude, I know this is a struggle that a lot of people face especially in this digital age filled with ad campaigns everywhere you look and everything is begging for your attention it’s very hard to see yourself for who you actually are, but don’t look to world to define you or to find worth in your possessions, but rather may you give worth to your possessions because of who you are, turn to the Word of God and let that define you and teach you to accept who God has made you to be regardless of what anybody says, cause ain’t nobody got sauce like you. God has chosen you and He loves you more than you can imagine, do yourself and the world a favour by loving that person also.
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