This is coming a bit late, but here are the personal growth books that I read in the month of June. I did read other books of other genres, but I will be highlighting and talking about them in my next book lover journals blog post.

1. Spiritual direction by Henri Nouwen

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This has to be one of the best Christian books that I have read in a while. This particular book went to great lengths in explaining so many things that have been a source of concern to me as a growing Christian.

This was not a full book written by Henri Nouwen, but according to the publishers, a collection of the essays that he wrote during his lifetime.

According to the author, the goal of spiritual direction, which is essentially having a community of Christians to guide you along the way in your spiritual life, is spiritual formation, which is the ever-increasing capacity to live a spiritual life from the heart. 

And he states that three disciplines or spiritual practices are useful as one engages in the spiritual direction relationship. These things are what will help to create space for God in our hearts. They are:

• The discipline of the heart: Consists of introspection and contemplative prayer.

• The discipline of the book: in which we look to God through the sacred reading of the bible and other spiritual writings.

• The discipline of the church or community of faith: Requires us to be in a relationship with the people of God, witnessing to the active presence of God in history and community.

The author spends the rest of the book elaborating on the above listed and he stated a few insights that particularly stuck with me as I read the book.

• Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.

• Living into a new way of self-understanding and spiritual depth is aided by having a sturdy spiritual companion or soul friend.

• To be a witness means to offer your own faith experience and to make your doubts and hopes, failures and successes, loneliness and woundedness, available to others as a context in which they can struggle with their humanness and quest for meaning.

• Community is not some sentimental ideal place or time where everybody lives together, loves each other, and always gets along. That is never going to happen. Rather, in living together, we come to realise that community doesn’t require or offer total emotional harmony. It offers us the context where we try to love one another and receive the love and care of others.

• If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we are guilty of idolatry.

• Finding a spiritual director begins with prayer.

If you are a Christian that is currently struggling and trying to grow in his or her spiritual life, I believe that this is for you. In fact, the title of the book is a bit limiting when looking at the amount of information and spiritual knowledge that can be found inside it. It has taught me some great life lessons and I believe that it will do the same for you as well.

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2. 13 things mentally strong people don’t do by Amy Morin 

This is a book that was written by a therapist who wrote it on the brink of trying to cope with a plethora of losses in her life. In the book, she highlights some key attributes that people who have been able to develop their mental strength, which she states is about improving your ability to regulate your emotions, manage your thoughts, and behave in a positive manner, despite your circumstances.

She states some things to note about mental strength, saying that it is not about acting tough, not about ignoring emotions, not about having to be completely self-reliant, not about positive thinking, and not about chasing happiness. She even goes as far as to say that it is not synonymous with mental health but is instead more about building a sort of mental resilience over the storms of life.

The author then proceeds to list out the 13 things that mentally strong people do not do. Six out of the thirteen that were really interesting and inspiring to me were:

1. They don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.

2. They do not shy away from change.

3. They do not focus on things that they cannot control.

4. They do not resent other people’s successes.

5. They do not fear taking calculated risks.

6. They do not worry about pleasing everybody.

With each of the chapters, the author narrates stories of her clients that have battled with the issues and how they were able to overcome their difficulties in a way that is very motivational and pushes one to begin to think of ways of changing one’s life.

So, I do think that it is a very nice book and one that is worth reading by all.

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 3. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

I believe that this book can be stated to be the worthy predecessor to the sensational bestselling book titled, “Atomic Habits by James Clear”. Now, this does not mean that they both basically say the same thing. Even though they deal with the same issue of habits, they do have approaches that are a bit distinct, and to be honest, I found out learning more from Atomic Habits but enjoying The Power of Habit more.

This book is not just filled with tips such as the importance of understanding cues when it comes to being able to maintain habits, and being able to understand the environmental factors that may cause one to develop a habit and find it very difficult to let go of that habit, but is also filled with a lot of research and examples of the ways that countrywide or personal habits were able to be transformed by using the rules of habit change.

Essentially, according to the book, new habits are created by putting together a cue, a routine, and a reward, and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop. And the golden rule of habit change is that if we keep the same cue and the same reward, a new routine can be inserted.

This, according to the writer, was what was able to make a former addict and smoker completely transform her life, was able to bring America into the habit of brushing their teeth, was able to get a majority of the country to begin to like a new song that was once hated and so on.

The author also touches different other subject matters, like the idea of keystone habits, which are the habits that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns. He also touches on the topic of willpower and habits, the concept of priming of the environment, habit tracking, and so much more.

It is a great read, if you are a person that loves to dive, not only into practical lessons but research, studies, and stories that prove the effectiveness of the lessons being taught but if you want a book that goes more straight to the point in terms of habit change, I would suggest that you read ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. Both books are wonderful and very effective either way.

So there you have it, the books that I read during the previous month. What about you? What books have you gotten around to reading these past few months?

Have you ever worked as hard as you can to get something, be something, only to fail after being almost certain that you would succeed?

Have you ever felt the soul-crushing wave of defeat that usually takes over people at times like that, that feeling of defeat that grows and develops into the feeling of resignation, the feeling that eventually leads to your giving up on the one thing that you were sure that you were able to be successful in?

Have you ever had that soul-sinking feeling of realising that the dreams that you have had for years, the fantasies of the life that you felt would be yours might not, might never actually come to pass?

I am sure that we all have had times like this, times in which we have had to deal with the reality of the fact that hard work is not necessarily what guarantees success and that there is a possibility that you could work harder than everyone else in the room for something and still be the one to come out as the least successful.

Sure, for most people, this happens only in some endeavours and not in all of them. For me, it occurred during the time that I ventured into competitive essay writing and the occasional creative writing contests, back then between 2019 and 2020. I worked as hard as I could on the essays that I wanted to win and read as many books as I could find on academic legal writing and the likes, but somehow, I never did win, at least in the national level competitions.

It was easy for me to win in the occasional local university competitions though, those that usually had less strict criteria for success and fewer participants involved in them. But for those with difficult topics that required extensive research, huge prizes to be won, and participants that come from either around the country or around the world, I never emerged as anything. I never was able to get any of the prizes that I wanted to get, that I struggled to attain.

As for my creative writing, I was unfortunate enough to have begun a story that I had gotten into a rot in, and even though I spent that period taking course after course on creative writing and reading books on creative writing, I was not able to find a way around the story that I had come up with. In an even sadder turn of events, I had entered into several contests, one of them being a particularly grueling one that I was sure that I was going to win but ended up losing at the final stage.

And so, after the countless failures that marked the lockdown period for me, I simply lost hope in myself, in my writing abilities, both for fiction and non-fiction. By the time the school session began after the extended strike and I delved back into my academic studies, writing for me had been locked up and thrown into a trunk. I was not sure that I was ever going to be able to bring myself to write anymore; at least not in the way that I thought that I was going to end up writing.

But that did not matter, or at least that was what I told myself. I was a good law student, a great one even. I aced almost all of my papers and I, after the initial struggle, had managed to even include myself in all sorts of extra-curricular activities that I was doing great in. Of course, there were times, at least ten percent of the time, in which I would see an essay or two that was so alluring that I decided to give a shot at it, only to pass only ten percent of the time as well.

But as for my creative writing, the one that was really devastated by, the one that I had cried over, I had considered it over for me. I felt that I was never going to become the writer that I wanted to be. And it did not help that I did not get myself to sit down and think of new ideas to write about, and due to some perfectionist trait that I had, I could not get myself to be decided on a few that I came up with, thinking them not good enough to come out as a second book after such a long time of having a dry spell.

And again, it did not help that in all the visits that I went to with my parents, about seventy percent of the time, there was bound to be an interaction in which someone would ask who was the writer in the family, and then all eyes would be on me, and then I would be asked when another book would be coming up, and then I would feel like swallowing myself as I told them soon, hopefully soon.

Yep, losing hope in oneself, in one’s abilities, it sucks. It really does.

And what sucks more is the trunk load that it comes with.

I am sure that you all know what I am talking about. But here, let me list out a few of them: loss of self-esteem, shame, disappointment, embarrassment, even guilt, loss of self-respect, branding oneself as a failure and so many others.

You see, there is a difference between feeling down about a loss and completely losing hope in oneself. A lot of the time, when people, particularly those with a growth mindset, fail in an endeavour, they feel down, but after some time, if another endeavour that looks similar shows up, there is a high chance that they would hop in to try once again. But repeated failures can do things to the heart of even those with a fixed mindset.

And you know the thing that is so complicated about this? It is the fact that there are times that it could be logical to decide to pack things up, to pursue a new endeavour, to decide that there is no way that you could be good at this thing that you so desperately want to get and decide that by sticking up to this dream, this construction that you have built of yourself, you are limiting yourself, holding yourself back from the one thousand other things that you could be doing.

For instance, you would not tell someone that does not have the build of a basket baller, someone that is five feet tall and not naturally athletic that desperately wants to go against the six to seven-foot tall giants that are in the same court that he is at and that has failed consistently, for an extended time, to just keep trying and to never give up. No. if you love the person, you would sit the person down and let the person understand that there is no way that he could be successful in that endeavour and that it is time to let go of that dream and move on.

But then, should that always be the answer to consistent failure? And if not, what draws the line? If two people fail a thousand times at something, what would make someone try to make one person realise that perhaps it is time to give up while pushing the other person to try again, just one more time?

What marks the difference between when it is wrong to pack the trunk, lose hope and let go of some dreams and when it is the right thing to do?

…………………………….

I wish that I could say that I had a revelation as to the fact that perhaps, letting go of my dreams was not really the right step to take. How much I would have loved to come here and share the miraculous story of the experience that I had in which I realised that perhaps I was wrong in deciding that all was lost for me, that perhaps I was too hasty in my decision to let go of a talent that I knew that I had.

But there isn’t.

Turning back to my writing did not take overnight. It took time. The occasional fiddling that I did on my journals and my laptop, the different books that I read that did nothing but make me crave writing, even more, and the occasional times that I had a reminder that my stories were enjoyed by people. Watching my younger brother read the first book that I wrote a hundred times, not because of me, but because he liked the book that I wrote. Occasionally having someone come to me and tell me that he or she had read something that I had written and thought that it was really good.

I guess the biggest moment was when I found out about web novel writing, the avenue that I felt that I could pour all those ideas that I felt were not good enough to be in print, and then actually getting a readership on some of the books that I wrote. Eventually, it just happened. Over the strike, I realized that I was working more on my typing speed so that I could write more, and that the dream that I had always had of starting my blog had been resurrected in me. And then I realised that whatever thing that I felt, whatever it was that made me give up hope on my writing and think that there was no way that I was actually going to be able to become the writer that I always wanted to be, was gone.

……………………….

And again, the question of what made the difference comes into view. That was not the first time that I had given up on something before. I gave up on science after I encountered chemistry in SS1, I gave up on dancing by the time I entered secondary school for some reason. I gave up on wanting to enter school politics. I gave up on chess because I no longer had the time for it, on origami, and so many other things.

Like any other human being, my life has been filled with times in which I have abandoned pursuits and found other things to pursue. Of course, this occurred more as a child, but as I grow, it still happens sometimes. In a way, being able to let go of certain pursuits and take hold of others is all a part of growth.

So why, when I let go of writing for that brief period of time, did I not mark it as one of the other things that I had done many times?

I guess it was because letting go of it did not just come easy, but came from a deep feeling of failure. But that was not all. I guess it all boiled down to purpose, and to listening to my heart.

Because in the end, there is no equation that tells you when you should let go of certain pursuits and embrace another. Sure, you could say that when one’s genetics is patterned away from what the person wants to pursue, it is not really right for the person, but it is not so clear-cut out.

When should you let go of something? Give up hope of getting something? When, deep down, you know that there is some other agenda driving your obsessive need to get that particular thing, some other agenda outside of that which you have been carved out to do. When you know that obsessively pursuing that thing is preventing you from growing as a person.

Sometimes it is brave to let go of things. Sometimes, it is toxic to keep telling yourself to cling to things, onto unattainable goals, because the world keeps pushing the ‘Don’t give up’ mantra down your throat.

And when you should not? When letting go of it feels as though you have let go of a part of yourself that you are not willing to let go of, not because of whatever benefits that you think it might get you, but because, deep down, you know that this is what you are supposed to do, this is what you have been carved out to do.

When letting go of a particular pursuit makes you feel as though you have created a vacuum in your life, one that you know cannot be filled by any other thing but the thing that you have let go of.

When you know, deep down, despite the failures, despite the letdowns, the heartbreaks, the slow tear to your self-esteem, that this is what you are meant to do, that all you have to do is get better and then let the star within you shine.

Simply put, when you know that the one thing that you have been failing at is your purpose and that the fact that you failed in it does not make it any less than that.

But what if you are not sure of whether you are taking the right step by letting go of something?

Take a break. It clarified me and made me realise that I was abandoning something that I was created to do, created to reach the world with, just because I had experienced a few failures. Of course, one of two things can happen to you, but if you take that break with the idea that it is meant to give you some mental clarity, then you will get that mental clarity that you desire.

And of course, there is no better way of getting mental clarity than actually being spiritually sensitive enough to communicate with the Holy Spirit and let Him reveal to you whether your failures are a result of the fact that you are treading down the wrong path or whether they are just hurdles that you have to pass through so that you can train yourself enough to be able to be truly revealed to the world.

So are you losing hope in yourself, in your ability to do something that you have been pursuing?

Don’t give up, only if you are sure that the one thing that you are pursuing is your purpose in life and not some triviality.

And if that one thing that you are about to give up on is your purpose in life?

Don’t do injustice to yourself, to the world, because of the crushing defeat that you are feeling along the way. The fact remains that in life, there is no true easy route for anybody. Even in that one thing that you are certain is your purpose, you are still bound to meet and face obstacles that will threaten to tear down your resolve and every other thing.

But do not let your failures be the things that will cripple you, dim your light, or let you go to the grave having failed to achieve the things that you have been created to achieve. Because that is the real failure, not losing in contests or failing at applications or not growing the network that you want to grow, but not letting the failures define what steps you take, letting the failures prevent you from achieving your purpose.

It is easy, especially as a person who reads a lot of self-growth and productivity books, to believe that it is possible to achieve change all at once, or at least, within a brief period of time. After all, most of the stories in self-help books go this way: I was broke and unhappy, working in a job that made me miserable, etc. And one day, I decided that I had had enough of what life was dishing out to me, that I wanted more out of life, so I transformed my life for the better, changed my habits and I have never been happier than I am at the moment. 

After reading scores and scores of these kinds of testimonies, most of the writers of such works not being very detailed as to the step-by-step process it took for them to get to where they were in, I started to think that the recipe to change was to barge into it all at once; that to be productive and make something out of my life, I was going to have to make a lot of radical changes all at once and I sincerely thought that I was going to pull through with it.

During the pandemic period, I thought that it was going to be possible for me, as it is for most people that make New Year’s resolutions, to switch from someone that spent all of her time watching movies, scrolling through memes on social media, and generally loved wasting time and engaging in convenient and pleasurable activities, that felt good to her, to someone that exercised every single day, quit movies and social media cold turkey, and spent most of her time reading school books, self-help books, or taking courses.

And it did work, for like, the first few days in which the motivation and the adrenaline were still intact. But after some time, I crashed, plummeted, and fell back to the person that I was but with the added benefit of the guilt that I felt for not being able to maintain and build up the life that I wanted to build for myself, not being able to become the ideal person that I wanted to be.

Here is the thing: not only was I not ready to make the change that I wanted to make, but I did not even take the time to build up the system that I needed to make the change possible. I wanted to give up on social media and the likes, but I never made provisions as to what I was to do instead during the periods in which I felt such acute boredom, that I needed the distraction that I got from social media. When I worked out, I put too much pressure on myself, and hence I began to dread exercising because all that I could think of was the pain that I was going to subject myself to, pain that left my muscles sore for days at certain times. And I dreaded the boredom and pain of the life that I knew I would need to live to become the ideal person that I wanted to be.

And it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to learn, but now I know that if you think you can just turn your life around, transform all your bad habits all at once, and make yourself the ideal person that you want to become just after one day of planning, then you are setting yourself up for failure. And even though I do not have the statistical figures to say that there is a 100% chance of failure, I can say that most people that approach habit change this way are doomed to fail.

Now, do not get me wrong, one thing that I have found is that once you are intentional about change, even if you fail at changing some habits or developing new habits, you never really go back to being the person you used to be. So even though I could not maintain a lot of the habits that I tried to crash into, even when I went back, I never did truly go back to the person that I was before I decided that my life needed a change. Something had changed within me with all the books that I had read, the videos that I had listened to, and even the experiments that I had tried in a bid to change my habits, a change that was so fundamental that it reflected in the time that I got back to school after the pandemic and strike.

So yes, I had changed, and that change sustained me and enabled me to maintain the grades that I got in the university whilst participating in a lot of extra-curricular activities and so on, but that did not wipe away the guilt that I felt in not being able to sustain that habits that I wanted to sustain. There was still some part of me that I knew could use some change, but because I had not yet learned the lesson that with habit change, I needed to take it one step at a time, I never was able to achieve the change that I needed to achieve.

You see, change is like growth. In fact, when it comes to behavioural and habit change, both words can be used simultaneously when they are looked at in a positive light. So when you change your habits for the better, you are growing as a person. And human growth takes time, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. You cannot speed it up, cannot take gallops in growth. You just have to take it one step at a time.

And what do I mean by this? Many self-growth coaches preach something known as 1% growth in all areas of change. That means that even when you want to make a radical transformation, you have to have a 1% growth regularly until you get to where you wish to get, until you become the ideal person that you want to become. Even if you want a total transformation in your life, you have to know that this sort of thing will not be achieved within a short period, that it will take time.

Look at habit transformation as a skill that you have to learn. Now, I have been working on my typing skill, even though I do not practice every day. And one thing that I have noticed, one thing that every typing app and website that I have used teaches, is that at the first point, it is very difficult to master touch typing. Sometimes, you have to reduce your wpm to 10 until you can achieve close to 95 percent accuracy. Learning how to touch type during the first few months can be very frustrating and it is still frustrating for me at certain levels, but you cannot speed up the process or you will end up getting finger fatigue and achieve nothing.

In those first few months of learning any skill, you have to learn how to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you make along the process, in fact, be prepared for making a lot of mistakes. The important thing is that you should not give up on yourself and think that you will not be able to master that skill just because it has been very difficult for you in the first few months of trying to master the skill. But then, the great thing about learning a particular kind of skill is that the moment that you are able to wade through the first few tough months, it becomes very easy for you to speed up your growth process. So, for most typists, after they are able to reach up to 70 wpm or thereabout, reaching to 100 or 120 becomes very easy for them.

Habit change should be viewed through the same lens as learning a skill. As I can tell you for sure because I am still, for a lot of habits that I am working on, still in the beginning stages of hunting for the best steps to go about and maintain the routines that I want to maintain, it is difficult to get to change the bad habits that you have, habits which you must have stuck with for years and which have become a part of your being. Thinking that you can just stop a particular habit especially when there are cues all around that push you to perform that particular habit without ever missing the comfort that the old habits provided, is nothing but a fantasy. But deciding to improve on that habit in small bits at regular intervals, is a more plausible way to go about things.

What do I mean by this? Maybe you spend too much time watching movies and you want to end this because you are very much aware of the amount of time you are wasting on movies. Instead of just stopping movies entirely and deleting all the movies that you have on your phone, you could limit yourself to just one movie a day, then one movie every three days, and then one movie a week. Maybe you want to grow spiritually but are finding it difficult to. Instead of thinking that you can become a prayer warrior all of a sudden, you could start small and dedicate an amount of time, even if it is twenty minutes every day, to God and spiritual activities, and from there, you can incorporate spiritual books, .

And whenever you begin to work on yourself, you should be aware of the fact that you might stumble and crash to the ground. You may wake up after resolving to reduce your screen time and see yourself spending hours on end binge-watching a movie series. You could decide to be intentional about your walk with God and see yourself spending a week without remembering to perform your spiritual activities. Two instances could happen whenever you meet this kind of roadblock. The first is that you could decide that you can never change, as many people do when they encounter any sort of frustration or find themselves going against all that they have planned to do, going back to the habits that they decided that they were going to change. Or you could forgive yourself, know that this is just a part of the process, and kick yourself back into gear. The difference between the two choices you have to make is that one would lead to you remaining at the spot that you are and deciding to never change because you are afraid of failing or falling short of any expectations for yourself. The other would lead to a situation in which the little stumble that you had in the past would not even matter in the long run. Yet, we have a lot of people choosing to give up on themselves and their dreams of change simply because it was not the smooth, clear ride they expected it to be.

All in all, change is a slow, difficult process. As you work towards bettering yourself, be prepared to meet stumbling blocks in the way. But you should always ensure that you take change one step at a time so that you can always be prepared to meet whatever obstacles you might face along the way. Assuredly, no matter what pace that you are working with, as long as you continue moving and never relent, someday, you will become that ideal person that you want to be.

I find it rather shocking, perhaps, because I am a writer as well, that many people take the habit of reading fiction as nothing more than a leisurely activity, on the same level of entertainment as mindlessly scrolling through memes on Twitter or playing video games. 

Of course, there is no doubt that with the freedom that has been afforded every single person on this earth to write and self-publish a book, unlike what was available when books could only be published through top publishing companies that thoroughly screened books before they could reach the eyes of the public, and with the recent phenomenon of improperly constructed web novels, with plots that are as absurd as the styles of writing and the prevalence of grammatical errors in each of them- this is self-deprecating, I do earn a fair amount of both passive and active income from writing web novels, that there are books that are so mindless that reading them could be placed in the same category as mindlessly scrolling through social media.

But as for me, a chronic book lover, or bookaholic, as we like to call ourselves, I have found that books, and especially fiction books, do offer more than entertainment, but an opportunity to find some of the most interesting ways to learn about new concepts. 

The importance of fiction in this regard is a bit underrated. As an almost involuntary act, one of the first things that I do if I want to find out about a particular concept or learn something new is to check if there is a novel somewhere about it.

That has been how I have managed to navigate and learn new things about one concept that has been rather intriguing to me, which is the concept of the human mind. For a relatively long time, I have been mesmerised by the way the mind of humans work and I have found myself conducting personal studies into psychology, and more specifically, into mental illnesses, trying to figure out what changes occur in the brain and mind of a person that makes the person develop a mental illness.

One of the first mental illnesses that I became interested in was depression. This did not just occur without a reason, for I was introduced to that aspect of psychology by a competition that pushed me to study depression. It was a poetry competition and even though I have forgotten what wordings were used in the theme of the competition; I do recall that it had something to do with depression and suicide. The moment I saw the competition and got interested in it, I knew that one of the first things that I was going to have to do would be to read all that I could on the sickness, and not just read up on it objectively, but to express, with words, what goes on in the mind of a person, what pushes a person to decide that suicide is the only way out for him or her.

I began researching, of course, and at the time, I did not make use of a book but did a Google search on the topic. However, while I saw a million and one blog posts that tried to explain the symptoms of depression, I could not make sense of what went through the minds of people suffering from the mental illness until I stumbled into a blog post in which the sufferers and suicide survivors used their own words to explain what it felt like for them to be on the edge, what it had been for them to decide that there was no other way out for them than to end their own lives and it was only through reading those accounts that I could tap into the thought processes of depressed people and have a feel of what they felt.

Some lines of the poem that I came up with after reading the personal accounts are:

I am alone in a dark lonely night, silent as a graveyard, basking in my state of acute pain

..........

It has been a war between hope and despair, a war in which I tried to ignore the intrusive thoughts, the impulses, the outright despair that threatened to override my survival instincts

..............

I can’t see beyond this deep pit that I have been hurled into, the pain will never end, I will be better off dead

...........

I have to do this, I need to

I need to end my incredibly painful, totally senseless now, need to end these dark nights of the soul that I have had to endure.

.....................

This may be an impulsive ultimate decision, but I have a strong conviction that it is the only way out.

Now, given that I am not much of a poet, and because of some issues that I had with my submission, I did not get to win the contest. However, there is no denying that it did open my eyes to the world of the psychology of mental illnesses and began my quest to find more ways to learn about them.

Given that I had gotten my true first understanding of the mental illness, I sought to write more about it and many more mental illnesses, using my knowledge of the illnesses to bring into light the challenges that people who pass through such illnesses go through because I felt it was important to bring these to light, given the fact that in Nigeria, mental illnesses are more or less unspoken about and many do not even get treatment.

Of course, to write accurately about both depression and other mental illnesses, I had to supplement my knowledge by reading stories of people that had suffered from the illness; it came as no brainer to me that if I wanted to learn all that I could, the best place to look in was in the world of fiction.

And that began my quest into reading on mental illnesses, including depression in fiction.

Now, I believe that depression is one of the easier mental illnesses to write about, so I found it very easy to find scores and scores of books on the topic. Here are some novels that I read and how they opened my eyes deeper into the mind of a depressed person. 

1. IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY BY NED VIZZINI.

This was one of the first books that I read on depression. It is a true-life story of an experience that the author went through (I feel as though I should note this, but after I finished reading the book, I, to my greatest despair and sadness, found that the author committed suicide a few years after writing the book so it changed a few things about the perspective I had of the book.)

The book centers on a fifteen-year-old boy named Craig. From what I can recall of the book, he enters a high-profile private high school that he worked very hard to get into, but the moment he enters the school, he begins to find it very difficult to cope amidst other smart people. Furthermore, the fact that his ‘closest’ friend, one whom he does drugs with, gets into the high school easily without putting in much work and is currently dating a girl that he has a crush on does not help matters for him.

The pressure that comes with the pressures of his over-demanding school, his feeling of inadequacy in the school, his perfectionism, the fact that he is somewhat of an overachiever, and the teenage angst that he is overcome with plunges him into depression. After some time, he finds it difficult to even eat, and eventually, after a night of coming terribly close to committing suicide, calls a suicide hotline and gets himself admitted into the institution where he spends five days on admission.

During the five days, he has experiences, meets other mentally ill people, gets a crush, and is eventually able to overcome his depression.

From the onset, when I read the book, I found it to be an interesting and heart warming book about survival and one that was very detailed and did quite a lot in opening my eyes as to not only the fact that depression is not age specific, but to the mind of a depressed perfectionist teenager. But I have to admit that I was sceptical of the five days to recovery narrative. I felt that the things that happened were a bit too rushed and there was not much of a thorough analysis or much time given for a proper dive into the internal issues that led to his depression. it almost appeared he got into the institution, fell in ‘like’ with a girl, made some new friends, found that some of his old friends were not the people that he thought they were, got some support, and that was enough. It was a nice story but from what little I knew, I felt that it did not seem quite enough to treat depression. But I had these beliefs before I found that it was a true-life story.

But the book has its peaks. There was not much suspense in the book, the action was minimal, but I have to say that it was clear that the author knew and had gone through what he wrote. The portrayal of what Craig went through before he entered the mental institution was heart-wrenching, honest, and realistic. The conversations that he had with his therapist opened my eyes to a lot of the internal struggles that a person with depression has to go through, and I even related a little to the pressure that he felt with being inadequate in school. 

Craig, the protagonist, was light in how he talked about his depression, without leaving the heavy nasty parts.

“Some days I woke up and got out of bed and brushed my teeth like any normal human being; some days I woke up and laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and wondered what the hell the point was of getting out of bed and brushing my teeth like any normal human being.”

“I just want to not be me.”

“I should be a success and I’m not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I’m still a nobody. When am I going to not be nobody?”

The author wrote other books dealing with teenage angst and depression, but I did not get around to reading any other ones.

2. BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, I’LL BE DEAD BY JULIE ANNE PETERS

I have to say; the title made me know that I just had to read the book.

And this book, oh my, it is something, to say the very least. 

The book centres around a protagonist named Daelyn, who is on her last strand of life. What this means is that she has attempted and failed to commit suicide so many times. In fact, the last attempt she had, in which she poured ammonium and bleach down her throat, resulted in her having a burned stomach lining and a collapsed oesophagus and she has to wear a heavy neck brace. Also, the attempt leaves her unable to talk and eat. She gets skinny and frail as a result.

A bit of insight is given into why Daelyn wants to end her life. She has been bullied throughout her years in school, demeaned and insulted because of her weight, and even almost gets raped at a point in time. Furthermore, because of her being overweight, her parents make her go through a series of diets and even enroll her in a fat camp in which she gets abused emotionally and tortured with excessive exercise.

This culminates in the suicidal person that she is at the moment. 

As a character, she does not have much to offer but I think I understand why the author chose to make her that way. She is at a point in which she has logged onto a website for suicidal people and has 24 days in which she intends to distance herself from every other person in the world and mentally prepare herself to finally have a successful attempt. 

Apart from the flashbacks that she has, most of her days are spent reading novels and on her laptop, having no other hobbies or activities. She is almost dead on the inside, deeply depressed, and does not show much of any emotions in the book. She could be viewed as being a bit one-dimensional in that aspect, but I think it makes utter sense. 

Right as she is trying to get distanced from everybody, in walks Santana, a boy her age that, no matter how much she tries to distance herself from him, just does not leave her alone and talks a lot to her even though she does not respond to most of his questions. Eventually, though, she begins to have tender feelings toward him and they build their friendship.

The book ends on a cliff hanger. It is the last day of the 24 days that she has set out to die and the author does not resolve whether or not she chooses to die, leaving it to the readers to decide. 

Like most books that deal with depression, this is not action-packed and is quite disturbing to read. But the writing of the author made me enjoy learning about the book and does a good job in showing what the thought process of a suicidal person feels like, as it displays raw accounts of the girl deliberating on how best to die and choosing the most pain-free ways to go about it. It is a great read if you are into heart-wrenching stories.

3. SUICIDE NOTES

This book is different from the others because, despite the title, it is quite light-hearted if compared to some of the other books that deal with these topics.

It deals with a protagonist named Jeff who, after a failed suicide attempt in which he slits his wrists, he finds himself committed to a mental institution where he is to stay for 45 days. 

But here is the thing, even though he attempted suicide, he does not believe that there is nothing wrong with him and is under the belief that he differs from the other patients at the mental institution, people that he refers to as nut jobs.

The book follows the 45 days that he spends in 45 chapters in which Jeff gets to have an experience that is somewhat similar to the one of Craig in ‘Its Kind of a Funny Story.’ However, just like the other book, this one cannot be listed amongst the best books on depression that I have read in terms of how it describes the illness. Also again, it did not go into a deep dive to explain what happens in the mind of depressed people, no doubt because they wanted to push the narrative of the main character being delusional, funny, and comical (like calling the doctor Dr. Cat Poop throughout his duration kind of funny).

However, his tone was confusing to me. This was someone that attempted suicide, something that a lot of chronically depressed people do not even get to do and he is being written as comical almost the very next day? I did not buy it at all.

There is a point in which one character, the friend of the protagonist, Sadie, commits suicide and I think that was the only point that I felt genuinely sad in. Apart from it, the book ranged from being too light-hearted to being disturbing at some points.

4. CUT

This is another book that is quite insightful, but which I had mixed feelings about. The main character is a 15-year-old girl named Callie, who cuts herself and, as a result, has been put into a rehabilitation centre called Sea Pines treatment centre.

But during the period that she is there, she does not show any sign that she is willing to change, does not even speak, and is mocked by her fellow patients as a result. In fact, while she is there, she is silent during group time, hides behind her hair, and even when she sees her counsellor, she cannot bring herself to speak. All she does is watch and listen.

She is the only cutter in the group for a while until Amanda comes into the group. Unlike her, Amanda is very vocal and shows her scars. According to the book, the moment that Callie sees the scars or tattoos that Amanda does on herself, for some reason, it makes her want to stop cutting herself.

It is later revealed that she is a perfectionist, a runner, has a sick younger brother and her parents are too busy to pay any sort of attention to her. She also has social issues, as is revealed by her silence around the other patients and how she finds it difficult to make any sort of connection with them.

Callie blames herself for a lot of things. For her brother’s illness, (and it is revealed that a particularly nasty incident with her brother, in which her brother fell very ill, seemed to lead to her cutting), for the fact that she is neglected by her parents and blames herself for her mother’s anxiety issues. Also, the fact that she lives in a lonely broken home contributes to her mental illness.

After some experiences that she has with her fellow inmates, including her interactions with Amanda, the anorexics, and Daphne, the girl who is obese and is a compulsive eater, she finds healing within the centre and in the end; she decides that it is time to speak and narrates her experiences to her unnamed counsellor.

The book was the shortest of the bunch and whilst I was used to the lack of suspense and much action that is associated with books that deal with this topic, I have to say that, compared to another book that had descriptions on cutting that I had read, ‘Scars’ by title, the description of the cutting and the reasons behind the cutting were a bit lacking.

I did like the book, especially the inner drama between the patients, but it was not comprehensive enough and did not go deep into the inner workings of the girl’s mind or give a very satisfactory ending.

The four other books that I read on the topic include:

1. MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES

2. GET WELL SOON

3. THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING

4. CRANK

They will be analysed in another post (link will be attached to this one once it is published).

In all, I have to say that the novels really opened my eyes to all the intricacies of living with chronic depression. As an author that intends to write a lot of stories dealing with victims of abuse and mentally ill persons, to bring light to the issues that they face, they have provided me with a blueprint on how to go about writing the books.

And also, I believe that we all should read some sort of literature relating to mental illnesses. Not only will doing such broaden our minds, but it could potentially lessen the prejudice that people with mental disorders face.

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One of the first Christian books that I finished by the time that I decided to become intentional with my relationship with The Lord was ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren, which, I have to admit, took me over forty days to read even though the advice of the author was that each of the 40 chapters were to be read one a day for forty days. The book opened my eyes to a question that I had never even thought of asking myself before, and that was the question of what my purpose was in this life.

Of course, throughout my life, I had thought a lot about what I wanted to be in life, and I had moved from wanting to be a medical doctor to a professor, and then somehow wound up studying law. A lot of what I wanted to be was hinged on the fact that I wanted to make a lot of money, and be, as I am sure every child has dreamt of being at least once or twice in his or her life, the richest person in the world.

In fact, when I was in secondary school, in one of my first journals, I wrote that as an adult; I was going to make 75 billion dollars, which of course, at the time, there had been no billionaires that had risen to that point. And with that amount of money, I was sure that I was going to be boosted to becoming the richest person in the world.

Never did I, during those years, think of what my purpose was based on what the Lord wanted me to do. 

That has changed, of course, and that happened, to a large extent, by the time that I was done reading the book. But it was not the only thing that made me go back to thinking about what my purpose was.

A few months ago, in a conversation that I had with a Christian family that I was a member of, a question was brought forth, and that was what we all wanted to be in our lives. Each of the people that I sat with was given the opportunity to talk about what we wanted to be and I got to sit and hear those that wanted to practice different areas of law, those that wanted to open studios, become businessmen, and kingdom wealth builders, those that wanted to open fast-food joints, those that wanted to study to the peak of education, those that wanted to become philanthropists.

During my turn, I have to admit that I felt a bit at loss for words. For one, I did not have as much as those that I had listened to had. As I listened to them, only one thing came to my mind.

But first, I set things out clearly. I did not know whether I was going to be practising the law that I was studying; I did not know whether I was going to further my education. In the next ten years, I said, I was not even sure that I had marriage and children in view. 

There were only two things that I had in mind. One was that I wanted to live the monastic lifestyle, spending months in solitude, away from the cares of the world, with a safe space to think, and I wanted to write, write words that would glorify the name of the Lord, books that would inspire change and a transformation in the lives of others, books like those of the renowned preachers and self-growth coaches, both fiction and non-fiction alike.

Also, I had it in mind, even though I was not sure of it at that moment, that somewhere in the near future, I wanted to be the one person who would bring about a mental illness awareness in Nigeria through my writings, as I realised that Nigerians seemed to heavily neglect that aspect of health more than others.

I felt as though what I had said was insufficient, given that it was not as fully fleshed out as some others were. And that felt wrong for me, given the fact that I do very much like to think of myself as very driven and ambitious but the key thing I had to note was that, not only were the things that I said the first things that assuredly came to my mind the first time that I heard the question of what I wanted to do with my life, but I also had the time, although it was limited, to think up more things to add to the list of things that I had in mind.

After the discussion, which later spanned to a teaching on how what the Lord may have planned for us might not be what we have planned for ourselves, we began to sing a song and a prayer over and over again, which went like this:

“Thy will be done.”

The song had only this as the chorus, with us inserting things to go with the song like:

“Even when I am weary, thy will be done

Even when it is not my plan, thy will be done

Even if it is difficult, thy will be done.”

I have a prayer book, and shortly after that, I wrote two things down in that prayer book.

They were

“Father please, I want to be ever focused, ever pushing on to achieve the purpose that you have set out for me. Father, please give me the grace to conquer and overcome every distraction that seeks to make this not to become a reality for me.”

And 

“Father, I do not know where you are leading me, what direction you wish for my life to take. But Lord, please open my eyes so that I may tow in that direction.”

After saying those prayers, there was no instant revelation that came to me as to what I was supposed to do. But that was not surprising. After all, I knew people that I considered greater leaders than I am in the faith that admitted that they were not sure of what it was that they were going to do. And besides, I was aware that sometimes, the Lord does not show you the end of the road. He just directs your steps. But when you reach there, you will know that you have arrived at the promised land.

But then again, there are people who are aware of their purpose, know clearly what path they are to chart in their lives, even those that may know there is a chance that the Lord will not come in and pop some surprise for them in their lives. But for a lot of us, I believe that we still have to keep treading on the paths that the Lord has set out for us, mostly unaware of where he is going to lead us to, unaware of where the final destination is going to be in. Sometimes, we may not even be aware of the fact that the Lord is charting a way for us in the first place.

I have found that for a lot of biblical leaders, that is usually the path that the Lord prefers. When the Lord told Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute, in Hosea 1:2, He told him what it was to represent, but not what the end goal of it all was.

When Joseph began to have his dreams and visions, which eventually led him to be hated by his brothers and be carried out to Egypt, he just followed the way that his circumstances forced him to, ensuring that he did not deviate from the ways of the Lord, without knowing that he was towing the way that the Lord had set out for him.

The Lord kept Abraham largely in the dark, even though he was knowledgeable about the fact that he was to be a father of many nations, of whether it was going to be possible given that his wife was barren. It took till Abraham was seventy-five before he even received a message that seemed to indicate that the Lord had plans to give him any children at all. 

Moses was largely in the dark until his eighties as to what he was saved for. He knew that he was a child that was saved by the Lord from death, but the Lord did not tell him what purpose he was exempted for until much later in his life.

But then, some people knew or rather had an inkling of an idea of what they were to be carved out to achieve from the Lord right at the beginning before they were to perform their tasks. Over the years, there have been people that have received the call, to be pastors, missionary workers, to preach the word of the Lord through their medical practice, law practice, etc. But I would like to believe that even in the midst of their knowledge, there still has to be a sense of uncertainty, they still have to contact the Lord daily to know if they are or are not going in the right direction.

THE WILL OF THE LORD VS OUR TALENTS

So more recently, I have had the vague sense of knowledge of the fact that whatever the Lord has called me out to be, there has to be an element of my writing talents that will be used for it. The Lord was the one who gave me the gift. What other reason would he have given it to me for?

There is this school of thought that believes that whatever our purposes are, it has to stem from what we like to do, what we are naturally good at, and what our talents are. If you know how to sing, then that must mean that the Lord has called you to be a singer. If you are an intellectual, then it must mean that the Lord has called you to be an academic.

And I believe that there has to be an element of truth in that. Most of the time, we do not know what we will end up doing, but most can hinge on the assurance that one way or the other, the talents that the Lord has given to us, the things that we are naturally inclined to do, will be what will determine what God has created us to do.

But is that exhaustive? Gideon was a coward, and yet the Lord called him to be a great war leader. Moses was a stutterer and yet the Lord called him to lead a nation. Most of the apostles were bereft of the education that would make one capable of being able to preach to a crowd of people, but they were called to do that. I know pastors, evangelists, and bishops, that have said that in all their life, there was no way that they would have envisioned that this was the path that the Lord had set out for themselves, that there was nothing that gave it away that they would have any talents or gifts that would lead them to be able to do the things that they were called to be. Many have testified to the fact that they cried and fasted even, when they received a clear sign of what the Lord wanted them to do, unable to understand why they had been chosen.

But in the end, they showed, despite the assumed lack of talents, that they had what it took to do what they were assigned to do. After all, whomever the Lord anoints, he equips.

So maybe it is not a question of personal talents or what we love doing but what the Lord has equipped us to do. Sometimes, it may align with what we think are our talents and what we enjoy doing. Sometimes, we might not have been able to figure out that we were equipped for the purpose until after it has been revealed to us.

I was listening to an audiotape by a preacher once when I got something that I knew had to be reassurance from the Lord as to what direction my purpose was to take me. The preacher had mentioned something about the fact that the entertainment that we have in the world has been polluted by the devil and that he uses it to trap the souls of men. And that was when I heard a still small voice inside of me tell me I was to make an impact for the Lord in the entertainment sector. I do not know exactly what I will do, but I know that by this, my purpose is to cause a turnaround in the entertainment sector of the world through my writing. 

I do not have a clear map as to where I would have to go, but that is of no concern to me. For I am assured of the fact that wherever the Lord tells me to go, I have prayed and asked for the grace to be able to go. But I do know that I will make use of my God-given talent for writing.

THE WILL OF GOD VS OUR PLANS AND DREAMS

When we were having that meeting, a woman that decided to join us in the retreat camp that we went to stopped us in the middle of the discussion. And then she proceeded to mention something that I believe is worthy of note.

Her message was simple and clear. She made it known to us that stating plans for our future and dreams the way that we stated them were things that were meant for the secular world. As for us, we should never fix our minds rigidly on whatever plans it may be that we may have made for ourselves.

Therefore, there is a chance that every vision and dream that you have been working towards by God could be upended by the Lord because it may not be what the Lord has set out for us.

After all, our purpose supersedes our ambitions, the plans that we have made for ourselves, and where we see ourselves in the nearby future. Our purpose is not meant to come from within, but from whatever that the Lord has set out for us. After all, He alone knows why he created us. He alone knows the good plans that he has made for us according to Jeremiah 1: 5.

So, does that mean that we are not meant to have plans, dreams, goals, or visions for our future? Does that mean that we are not allowed to plan our lives, and make career choices because the Lord may have other plans for us?

I do not think so. But there is a bit of condition precedent to making any plans for our lives as Christians, a condition precedent to having dreams and goals for our lives.

According to James 4: 13-15

13. Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 

14. How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog- it is here a little while, then it’s gone.

15. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

That is the condition precedent. We are allowed to make plans by the Lord, we are allowed to have dreams and set out goals for ourselves. In fact, to be successful in life, we have to do these things, otherwise we will roam about listlessly, not knowing what we are doing with our lives. 

But whatever plan that we are making, whatever dreams that we have, we should have in mind that the ultimate plan is to achieve the purpose that the Lord has created us to do and we should always seek the help of the Holy Spirit to ensure that we are working according to the plans that God has set out for our lives.

THE FIVE PURPOSES THAT THE LORD HAS SET OUT FOR US

According to the book by Rick Warren, there are five purposes that we should always have in mind as we set out on our day-to-day activities. These are the core reasons that we have been created on this earth and we should never ignore any of them.

1. The centre of our lives - Worship

2. The community of our lives - Fellowship

3. The character of our lives - Discipleship

4. The contribution of our lives – Ministry or Service

5. The communication of our lives – Mission or Witnessing 

All in all, to discover our purpose, we should always seek the face of the Lord through prayers, the study of the word, meditation, and retreats. And if we have been working according to the footsteps of the Lord, we should be assured that even if we do not have a clear picture of where the Lord is leading us, we are heading in the right direction, in the direction of our purpose.

What views do you have on the topic of purpose? Have you discovered what purpose the Lord has for your life? Please share in the comments.