Ahmad’s Diary #4: a mental breakdown, my sexuality, being single, and quitting
It’s 6:52 pm on Monday, the third of February, 2025.
I have just successfully concluded my first cry of the year, and it was so random too.
Earlier today I felt okay and was kinda looking forward to the new month, I took a 20-minute nap to recalibrate and get back into work because I have a new article to start, and it’s not even a very difficult one (it’s about fashion trends).
I usually split my writing into equal amounts and then spread them over the coming days, to make the workload lighter. Today I had to write one-third of the whole thing.
After my nap, I sat at my desk and started going through my to-do list and completing tasks, leaving the article for last — deliberately.
I started the thing o, got one page in, and I just couldn’t write anymore. My shoulders and neck hurt from typing and looking at my laptop all day, and I just couldn’t do any more.
I stood up and decided to unwind with some YouTube, then noticed I was feeling really dense and heavy — emotionally — I didn’t fully understand it, so I decided to journal.
A page in and I just burst into tears, man.
Because I felt so bad about myself and the fact that I didn’t finish my to-do list for the day.
It’s just this pervasive feeling of being lost. Doing so much and feeling weighted down by it all, not feeling like I’m seeing gains or rewards from all the work I’m doing.
I feel overwhelmed and tired and I wish I knew what I was doing, because I feel like I really, really don’t, and that’s terrifying because how am I going to do all the things I want if I don’t know what I’m doing? I’m doing things, but are they really going to take me to where I want to be?
Am I just wasting my time? Will this make me happy in the long run?
I feel like I’m doing all the motions but it’s like walking on a treadmill, I’m not actually moving forward, I’m just walking and walking and running and sweating.
I feel really tired, and I don’t feel like writing anymore, so.
Later.
It’s 5:07 pm, Saturday, 8th of February, 2025.
In startling contrast to the trainwreck you’ve just read, I’m having a good day today.
I’ve decided to start a new project/business.
If you know me, you have probably heard me talk about my disinterest in business, and believe me, I’m as shocked as you are.
You might argue that trying to grow my personal brand as a content creator is a business, but I would tell you to shut up and get out of my house, so that would be the end of that.
Anyway, this new thing I’m starting is so on-brand for me, I don’t know why I didn’t start it before. I’m not going to spill the beans just yet, but just know I am incredibly excited about it.
I’m not the most spiritual person, but I have a feeling I’m meant to be alone right now.
In a romantic sense.
Last year, I faced heartbreak, and after such a long time of being with someone, I didn’t know how to navigate my aloneness. Things didn’t end badly and we’re on great terms, so I’m grateful there is no baggage to carry, but there is still a space where someone used to be, and I’m only just starting to fill it up.
After the breakup, I entertained people who made me feel better.
Less alone, less aware of that vacancy.
And it worked in some capacities, mostly because I met some people I have genuine connections with, but they mostly didn’t work because it’s not healthy to run away from sadness/loneliness.
You start idealising the people you meet, moulding them into what you need them to be, making them a distraction, or a crutch, or an object of wanton fantasy and desire, and they’re golden and you’re lost in them and then they do something human, something thats not exactly what you need, and then you’re disgusted.
They become the problem, they’re too this, too that, not enough of something.
It didn’t help that last year was the most trying one of my life, and I was going through so many changes, disappointments and pieces of self-death, so everything was just… much.
The past month has brought a surprising understanding of self for me.
It was a deepening of something I already knew; my demisexuality.
Demisexuality, if you don’t know what it is, is when you require an emotional connection to feel sexual attraction/want to have sex with someone.
It looks different for everyone I guess because I can still be attracted to you without an emotional connection, but I just won’t be interested in actually having sex with you, and if I do, it’s empty.
I’ve learnt recently that for my sexuality, there is a big difference between finding someone attractive, and actually wanting to have sex with them.
Not all attraction needs to be acted on.
Sex is 70% mental for me, so without an emotional dynamic, I think it’s pretty uninteresting.
But this year is when I really deepened it and unintentionally decided to be celibate.
Because what’s the point of hooking up and on the way back home you’re like, okay, that was shit, I could have jerked off.
It’s like I’d been making myself have these encounters with objectively attractive people, but they’d be massively unsatisfactory, and I’d feel weird and/or bad after them, so what’s the point?
Anyway. Coming to this realisation has been really helpful because now I accept that I can’t do casual sex, I can’t do flings and hookups, and I can stop entertaining people in the hopes of finally meeting someone who just really does it for me without forging those emotional bonds first.
I can’t hack the system. This is just how I am.
Surprisingly, it’s been a freeing realisation. It almost feels like a reclamation of my sexuality, and I’m grateful for it.
I hope all this made some sense.
It’s 1:20 pm, Monday the 10th of February, 2025.
Yesterday I did something that made me really proud.
I decided to quit the course I enrolled in last month.
Wow. writing it down is almost comical — the year just started, and I’ve already quit something. But I don’t even feel bad about it, ironically, I feel even more clearheaded now.
Coming into this year, one of my goals was to advance.
In every way possible — in my career, my creativity (which is my career now, but you get), in my connection with myself, and my relationships.
For career advancement, I started a content writing course.
An eight-week affair I thought I could easily do on the weekends and that would be that.
Oh, I overestimated myself. I didn’t take into account the fact that this course would not happen in a vacuum.
I have a full-time job, and I’m trying to start another full-time job (content creation). I also live at home and in Nigeria, where anything can happen, and parts of my time are not mine.
You guys already know how much pressure I put on myself — this whole debacle is evidence of that, really — and how tasking January was for me.
The course structure is weekly classes, followed by assessments, which were mostly article writing too.
So, I was writing for work, on this journal blog, and then I had to write for the course too.
It’s safe to say I had to do so much writing I became sick of this laptop and was having violent visions where I chucked the thing in the oven and set it ablaze.
I also hate having pending work. I hate when there is something to do and I haven’t done it, so these assignments started to pile up, and I felt more and more shit about myself.
The final straw was yesterday.
Yesterday morning I received an email notifying me of the capstone project onboarding (essentially splitting us into teams and prepping us ahead of our final project in a couple of weeks) that was to take place at 5 pm.
I said oya nau.
5 pm came, I joined the meeting, and just hearing the instructor (who is a friend, by the way, so if you are reading this, it is nothing personal, dear) talk about this project thingy and what it’s about and all that, I had the most gorgeous epiphany.
It hit me square in the face, with all the ferocity of an expertly cracked whip.
Ahmad, you don’t give a fuck. You don’t want to be here. You don’t have to be here.
Don’t get me wrong, for a couple of days prior, I contemplated it — leaving the course — but that would mean giving up.
That would mean breaking a promise to myself. Did I deserve to achieve all my dreams if I couldn’t push past the exhaustion and overwhelm to get to the end of this wretched race?
But yesterday evening, my mind was fully clear, and the epiphany rang so true it was akin to divination.
I knew I didn’t want to be there, in that moment, participating in that meeting, and I knew there were other, more life-giving activities I could pour myself into, and I knew it was all my decision.
So I left the meeting and that was the end of that.
The whole thing taught me that it’s okay to revise your goals, and it’s okay to let a few things go.
Yes, I want to advance in my career, but not at the cost of my love for it or my mental health.
There are other things I can do — like posting more consistently on my social media to build my personal brand, or getting a tripod and actually starting the YouTube channel I’ve been talking about for years — instead of stretching myself to complete a course just so I can say yeah, I completed a course.
Who gives a fuck?
There is so much else for me to do. I’m not saying building a personal brand, starting a business and starting YouTube are easy. Far, far from it.
I’m saying it’s hard work, but that is the work I’d rather be putting my energy towards. That is what I’d look back on and feel proud of.
Not a certificate I get at the end of a course.
Maybe another time, but definitely not now.
I need a drink.
It’s 4:47 pm, Friday the 14th of February, 2025.
Writing this date made me remember that it’s Valentine’s Day!
I hope you guys who are partnered had a good time.
I’m in a good mood because I posted my first reel on Instagram today! I’ll link it here.
I read that reels are the best way to grow your account because Instagram is really pushing the feature, but it always seemed so daunting, everyone using them (reels) seemed so perfect, so I ignored it in favour of regular posts.
This afternoon I just opened TikTok randomly to get inspiration, and after a couple of videos, I decided to make something. A vlog of different clips from different days, that ultimately tell the story: a day in my life.
It came out beautiful and I really love it.
Unplanned, real, and beautiful. It reminded me of why I love creating content and why I am a creator.
I hope you guys like it as much as I do.
below this entry is a clap icon and a comment section, and you can “clap” (hold down on the clap icon continuously) on a single post for as many as fifty times, this shows me how you felt about what you just read and also helps other people see my entries. Clap for me? you’re doing the lord’s work. i also love to read and reply to comments, because i love attention, so leave me a comment, hm?
and if you want to keep up w me elsewhere, i’m mostly on Twitter, but my Instagram is pretty too :-)
