I remembered I had not posted in a while and suddenly felt guilty that I could even think about that. “People have died Afiya, you just move on like it never happened?”,that was me beating myself up.
I know I am not alone. I am not even Nigerian so I can only imagine how they are feeling right now. What I am experiencing is known as “survivor’s guilt”, which is a symptom of PTSD.
Survivor guilt (or survivor’s guilt; also called survivor syndrome or survivor’s syndrome and survivor disorder or survivor’s disorder) is a mental condition that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic or tragic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt.- google.
“We live to fight another day”, this has been my motivation to move on.
No it’s not a mistake that we are alive but we live so we can fight and win. We won’t forget this course, it cost us blood. We won’t forget to fight for justice, it took away our loved ones. We won’t give up.
But today, rest. Step back and mourn and grieve and heal.
We live to fight another day but today, heal. For me, paying particular attention to my self-care routines is where I am starting my healing journey, exercise, journaling, praying, all of it.
Sending light and love to all my Nigerian family and everyone affected by all the happenings of this past week. God is still God and he is still good. We shall overcome.
Your girl,
Afiya.