September 3rd was my 9/11 and I want to talk about it.

I met a friend who we’ll call M (20). It was a brief encounter, and we would not meet again for about a year, if not more. The next time we would see each other would be in my friend King’s apartment. We planned how we’d be each other’s community and even formed a group chat, as I was looking to move out and loved the prospect of being neighbours with my friends.

Things didn’t go as planned, at all. As someone who is trying not to be superstitious, the changes were a little tough to deal with. M was being kicked out of her apartment due to interpersonal conflict, and was having issues with King as well.

Pandemonium and I were dispositioned to help M and did what we could to mitigate conflict and provide other resources. I believe this enabled M to end her friendship with King, which was held together largely by King’s love and willingness to help M, and M’s need to survive. A lot was roughly swept under the carpet because conflict navigation became a source of conflict itself. M would withdraw while King would abrasively approach the subject, a combination that yielded little good. I recognised that some of her behaviours and thought processes were like mine when I started therapy, but it’s a waste of energy trying to walk someone through cognitive distortions when their living situation is insecure.

Over a short period of time I learnt that M had escaped an abusive household and still lives in fear of being found, that she’s anaemic and has high blood pressure (at 20 years of age), that she had dropped out in her third year of University where she was studying biology, seemed an easy target for lecherous lecturers and well-to-do men who wanted to use her… and wanted to go into content creation.

Ultimately she was a part of my community and I wanted to help her whenever I could. 

And so M was kicked out, and we had no idea where she was going to go. But she found somewhere, a guesthouse close to the community. We had no idea how but she was going about her day to day. She would ask for money here and there. Sometimes I had, sometimes I did not, and I didn’t like that I couldn’t always help her. So when she told me she was owing one thousand cedis at the guesthouse, and I asked her if she was okay with me crowdfunding for her, and she consented. And I began asking around. Once we cleared her guesthouse bill, she asked me if there was any extra she could use to eat. So I started asking for more for her. (Very grateful for Pandemonium’s help in finding her somewhere to live temporarily)

One friend I reached out to offered to help her build her CV and find work. I joyfully accepted on her behalf, while still crowdfunding for her. I took my appeal to social media, and asked for help from people I had seen crowdfunding for other people. Twitter decided that everything was wrong with my request, that I was a disrespectful begging thief stealing for myself under the guise of crowdfunding for a friend, and that I deserved hell for it. And it’s been hell ever since. I watched people I assumed to be my friends join others in mocking and insulting me, without so much as a word to me, or a word for me. It definitely hurt. Of course it did, they knew enough about me to know I was employed, some had even seen my efforts at crowdfunding before I brought it to social media. And they couldn’t even say I wasn’t a thief? 

But even as I was being cyber-bullied for daring to ask for more than people thought was reasonable, people started to donate, for which I am still very grateful. The most amusing was the person who sent me one Cedi. It may have been an attempt at a jab, but I only amusedly vowed that every pesewa would make it’s way to my friend. 

So I spent the day running a fever, glued to my seat, being utterly unproductive at work. Watching people insult me, and trying to redirect the conversation, feeling utterly alone. I’m thankful for my friends and former friends who spoke up for me. The manner in which they did may not have been the best, at all, but they spoke up for me and I’m grateful; in some cases surprised, but grateful all the same.

“Why won’t you post her CV?” She doesn’t have one, and as far as I know, still doesn’t. I was in no way against her looking for work, but unlike some of us, she has no family to lean on, who would provide support such as shelter, food, and money. I calculated food, water and airtime for her, and nothing more. The insinuation that I had factored weed into what I was asking for hurt for this reason, and for the fact that anyone seen as a drug user would be treated even more poorly and I did not want that.

People implied I was going to receive loads of help from “eager” men, even bringing up the possibility that someone would’ve sponsored a trip for me to “clear my head”; all insinuations I despised because of how vulnerable she is, and the fact that she has been preyed on along similar lines in the past.

All this would’ve mattered very little if I felt like my efforts had yielded; they did not. M is not convinced that a 9-5 is going to be of any help to her, and is working on her content creation. M has a naïveté to her that she currently cannot afford.  Her interpersonal skills require a lot of guidance and reworking, which is pointless when safety has not been established. My mother said she needed more help than I could afford her, I agreed, and took my L. Ultimately, by virtue of the fact that she is human, she deserves food and shelter, and that, aside what I knew about her past, was my motivation to ask for help for her. I did not expect our friendship to last, owing to my own interpersonal skills as well, and was fine that, provided she was back on her feet and taking care of herself.

I did learn, though, that I do not truly understand poverty. I mean well, and I am eager to help, but still do not understand how people navigate the current economic landscape, and therefore struggle to intervene in meaningful ways. I still want to try. I’m still going to, but this experience did irreparable damage to my own relationship with help. I have decided I’d rather die than crowdfund for any of my needs no matter how dire, and if I find out that people crowdfunded to keep me alive I would kill myself.

I am a very dramatic person, full of emotion and intensity, so surely, entitling this piece as I did was purely theatrical, no? After 9/11, airports would check you for any and everything, down to your socks and your shoes. You can’t travel with too much liquid, and any liquid you absolutely need must come in a “travel-size”. To my knowledge, at the time of writing this, these new procedures have done little to prevent any terrorist attacks. I have been deeply harmed by people I thought were friends, or friendly enough acquaintances, because I did not expect them to mock me so gleefully, join others in doing so, or misinterpret the situation so wrongly that they seemed gleeful at my perceived struggle. Now I am weary of everyone, convinced I am only being tolerated, and ready to cut people off at the drop of a hat. Giving people the benefit of the doubt has only led to more harm and disrespect. But however intense my efforts at screening new people coming into my life might be, the only thing that prevents new trauma and betrayal is death, and for once, I have not considered this.