The next morning, she sat at her office desk, staring blankly at the screen. She had a report to submit, emails to respond to, a meeting in an hour. But her mind was elsewhere.
Her bank app was open.
Her balance was N3,550.
Her rent was due in ten days.
She bit her lip, fingers twitching as she switched to an online store. A new handbag had just dropped, a limited edition release. She knew she shouldn’t even be looking at it. She had no business adding anything to her cart.
But the moment she saw it, sleek, black leather with gold accents, something in her itched.
Her heart sped up.
Her hands moved on autopilot.
Just one more. Just this one last time.
She clicked ‘Buy Now.’
A rush of relief flooded through her, followed almost instantly by a deep, aching guilt.
Her chest tightened.
Her head spun.
What was wrong with her?
Why couldn’t she stop?
Her phone buzzed.
Tola: Hey. Have you thought about what we talked about?
Adebisi locked her screen, exhaling shakily.
She couldn’t deal with this right now.
—
That night, she sat in bed, knees drawn to her chest, her mind a battlefield.
The spending had become her coping mechanism.
The pills were supposed to help. The doctor had prescribed them after months of sleepless nights, panic attacks, and breakdowns she couldn’t explain.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
That was what they had called it.
She had nodded numbly, taken the prescription, and walked out of the hospital feeling more lost than before.
The medication was supposed to make things better. And maybe in some ways, it had. The panic attacks weren’t as frequent. The crushing waves of fear weren’t as unbearable.
But the numbness was worse.
Some days, she felt like she was floating outside her body, disconnected from everything, everyone, including God.
Was she still the same person?
Was she still the girl who used to feel His presence so strongly?
Was she still the daughter He loved?
Or had she changed too much?
Her fingers hovered over the bottle of pills on her bedside table.
Her prescriptions were running low, and she had been tempted, so tempted to take an extra dose, to see if maybe they could fill the emptiness inside her.
But even as she stared at them, she knew the truth.
They wouldn’t fix what was really broken.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
The verse drifted into her mind, unbidden.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
She wanted to believe it.
But right now, the shadows felt stronger than the light.
….
Adebisi didn’t talk to Tola the next day.
Or the day after.
She avoided her texts, ignored her calls, and buried herself in work, convincing herself she was fine.
But fine people didn’t get headaches from lack of sleep.
Fine people didn’t buy things they couldn’t afford just to feel something.
Fine people didn’t swallow pills and still wake up exhausted.
She knew she was not fine.
But admitting that meant she had to do something about it.
And doing something about it meant facing herself.
—
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