Living alone diaries #22; Anime, the downfall of Nigeria, and love languages
One thing I really want to get into is anime.
I don’t know, but something about it has always appealed to me, I just never put energy towards it. Granted, I generally don’t watch much of anything, only a few shows and mostly YouTube. I’m not really a big movie/show buff and I much prefer reading to watching.
But recently I’ve been seeing a lot of animes that seem interesting to me, and I started watching some I’d collected from a friend back in uni. Right now, I’m watching the uber popular one, Attack on Titan, and its pretty good stuff, the only thing that irritates me is how long the inner monologues are sometimes, like damn, just act? Why are you thinking so much?
But I’m also a very impatient person so maybe that’s just me.
Anyways, it's really good stuff. I’m just at the part where Eren discovers he can turn into a titan, and it’s picking up.
This week has been…mostly uneventful.
Its November, the year is practically over and it’s been the fastest that I recall, maybe because it's my service year? I’m not sure, but everything seemed to move in 2x speed, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
The future looms.
And the future is not looking good, at least, for this country.
Because our economy is so reliant on FDI and trade in the dollar, it has become a way to check the economic state of the country. A dollar is now worth almost a thousand naira.
That is absolutely insane.
One single dollar is worth almost one thousand naira. That is one naira, in multiples of a thousand. And we are definitely feeling the effects of this drastic depreciation; again, because of our heavy reliance on imports (I think, don’t quote me on this), the prices of things have skyrocketed.
Transportation, food, electricity, technology, fuel, everything is at least 50% more expensive than it was in the last two years.
???
This is scary, in a very dangerous sense, because everything is way more expensive, but no ones living conditions or wages are getting any better. We’re all just suffering.
And Nigerians are so — for lack of better word — resilient, that we are just living around these things.
Food is more expensive? We’ll grumble but adjust. Electricity is costlier? We’ll grumble, but well find a way to live with it. Transportation is a hundred naira more than it was yesterday? Grumble for a few days, but ultimately, nothing.
It's such a hopeless and scary condition, because what can we do, really?
The government is not set up to help the people, it’s just a ladder to the top. Zero accountability, zero cares given about us normal people.
It’s scary and embarrassing and bleak.
And with all these things, you can bet crime rates are rising, corruption is the order of the day because that seems to be the only way to survive.
Omo.
Its like we’ve become desensitized to how difficult everyday life is in this country because we are powerless, because the people that are supposed to care for us simply don’t.
I know no one likes to read about stuff like this — we see enough depressing stuff on the news — but it’s starting to really bother me.
My hugest (weird word) love language is physical touch.
You might say that it’s because I never received enough physical affection as a child, and you might be correct, but I don’t care.
I love hugging and holding hands and being held and random caresses and touches that leave you feeling warm. And this is true in both my platonic and amorous relationships; I just love how being in physical contact with another human being regardless of the kind of relationship we have, can be so grounding and reassuring.
But ironically, I also have a thing where I really, really hate random people touching me or being in my personal space. This is one of the reasons why I hate being in markets, because people are constantly trying to sell stuff to you and for some odd reason, they think its by invading your personal space and touching you or grabbing your wrist or your shirt.
If anything, these things make me want to get as far away from you as possible.
It sounds like an exaggeration, but my skin crawls when people I’m not comfortable with touch me or move close to me. That’s why people that get too physically comfortable too fast i.e., people that thump my back to emphasize a point, people that lean in to talk to me (why do I know what your breath smells like, for God’s sake?), people that lean on me while in public transport, people that sit/talk/walk too close to me, trigger massive irritation in me. Like there is no need for you to be doing all that, can we just have a normal conversation like normal people — sans the physical contact?
Of course, this is the complete opposite when I’m comfortable with you; I love the cuddling and the hugging and the stroking (get your mind out of the gutter), because it means that I’m comfortable enough to enjoy that kind of intimacy with you and I want to experience that as much as possible. All my really good friends that I’m physically comfortable with know this about me, because even if we saw each other literally the day before, you best believe I will hug you again (for at least a minute) when I see you the next day.
Physical contact and words are the way I express the most affection — and are in turn the way I most like to receive it.
I once read somewhere that physical contact with another human being is actually proven to reduce anxiety.
Food for thot, innit?
This is completely random, but I was listening to a podcast this week (its called The receipts podcast, if you listen to the ISWIS podcast, you’ll love this one), and one of the hosts, Milena, randomly mentioned that she has anxiety about her safety- like me, and one trick that helps is that when she gets in or goes out, basically any situation where she has to lock doors, she would literally say it aloud, “I’ve locked this door”, as a way to assure it to herself that she actually did lock the door in the near future when she thought back to if she did or not.
Gosh, that was such a convoluted explanation, I hope that was sensible.
This is an amazingly effective trick, because anxiety isn’t always the most rational of feelings, and sometimes it will make you doubt things that you actually know 100% are true.
I have a huge, huge issue with this.
I will wake up in the middle of the night and go and check if I actually did lock my door, because what if I just thought I did, but I actually didn’t? what if I didn’t lock it firmly enough? What if I’m just remembering a previous time where I locked it, and not actually this time?
It’s an exhausting thing.
But speaking the fact aloud, hearing your own voice with your own ears, “I’ve locked this door”, “I turned off the heater”, “I’m with my phone, airpods and wallet”, all these things help affirm your actions in the real, physical world.
Saying them aloud makes me feel like they (my past actions) are real and tangible. And when in leave home, or I’m in bed, I can think back to that moment when I said that specific action and be reminded that, its not just in my head, I really did lock it, and I’m safe.
Its such a small, tiny thing, but it’s helped my anxiety so much.
Anyways, I think I’m gonna end this entry here because I really need to pee and I don’t want to stand up till I’m done writing this.
I hope you have an amazing week.
I love you
p.s, if you’re into electronic music, you need to check out metsa (an artiste), specifically his songs ‘All night’ and ‘Like to know’. They’re beautiful, bouncy, vibrant and they remind me of citrus and freshness, if that makes any sense.
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and if you want to keep up w me elsewhere, im mostly on twitter, but my instagram is pretty too :-)
