Hey, psst, Ika. There’s paper underneath your fingernails, it’s going to cut you until you’re ridden with pain and infections.
Also, you know what? There’s someone breaking in as we speak.
What if you’re secretly a murderer and you don’t know it?
Scream at her, hit her, take off your clothes in front of everyone.

When this voice speaks, someone else dictates my thoughts.
Someone quietly cruel.

These thoughts might be made-up, but
Why did I think that?
What if I act on it?
What does this say about me?

Am I really secretly that horrible?

The thoughts are annoying, and sometimes they make me feel physical pain. But it’s the reaction to these thoughts that really scares me.

Because a part of me believes all. of. them.

Feedback loops feed the system back into itself.
Basically, I think. Then I think some more. Then I try to pacify myself. I feel guilt for pacifying myself. 5-second relief. And then the thoughts come back stronger.

There’s dirt all over your hands.
The germs are crawling into your skin.
What? I just washed them with hot water and soap.
You’re a disgusting pig for not believing that your hands are dirty.
It’s okay, I know my hands are clean.
Really, Ika? How vile can you get? The germs are going to fill your organs till you’re vomiting leeches.

Perhaps it’s not someone else dictating my thoughts. What’s scary is that these thoughts could actually be mine.

They’re fake they’re fake they’re fake.
But one question sticks.
What if?

What if, just one teeny chance, they’re real?
I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust that they’re fake.
What if that’s just me deluding myself?

It’s truly isolating when you can’t even trust your own mind.
After all, who else do you have left then?

My brain screams 200 thoughts per minute.
And I constantly rifle through this information to find something of meaning, something worth thinking about, something that connects to my current situation.

I’m never done thinking.
I fall asleep daydreaming of a quieter tomorrow.
But alas, tomorrow never arrives.

I drift in and out of conversations like a genie.
Except I don’t grant wishes, I destroy them.
And this in turn destroys my relationships.
Whoever let me out of my lamp clearly erred.

Where does Ika end and where do the thoughts begin?
Or am I really just my thoughts?

How do I know what’s real, what’s possible and what’s fake.

I don’t need better thoughts, I recognise that after struggling for 14 years.
I just. need. less. trust. in the bad thoughts.

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Someone else’s thoughts are in my mind was originally published in open-desk on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If I had never shown you my medicines, it is never meant that Iam not Wounded. My soul is not made up to be this Fragile. I had never Asked for your sympathy nor for your taunts.

From Where should I start to planting heavy tress inside me to make myself stable ? and even if I did, will you promise to throw your venomous Axe away and Welcome me With heartwarming words instead?

I won’t lie, Not today. It’s is not easy to wake up every single day and seeing it as challenge. My eyes are swollen, shoulders are heavy, chest is tightening and head is about to blow.

Sometimes I wounder what if somebody asks me “What is bothering you?” ….. Ohh my, I might get panic because I don’t even know how to explain those little, small, tiny things that made this BIG effect over me. To be honest I do think that he/she can’t feel What I felt because Listening and noding is Easy but Going through it Isn’t.

I Always act like a Rough and Tough Guy from Outside and it made me feel secure cause it shows me that power gives me courage and Courage gives me Endurance and Endurance made me feel hopeful and My last and Only hope is Allah and I still believe that whatever Iam going through would End and one day My lord would Make me feel the best Inshaa Allah.

Asking for Love and Attention feels Cringe and Embarrassing and being Emotionally intelligent between Numb Homosaphian pissses me off. I can’t lay down my head into my Mum’s lap because 5 min of affection could never heal those tangled thoughts, the taunts , disappointments and Ache.

I feel Weak when I fall when someone gives me attention or even a tiny bit of Warmth and then my Stupid Ass Started Roaming Around them and pleasing them. Attachment issues aren’t joke, being a lovely person towards people who are Nice today And showing their true colors tomorrow isn’t not a joke, getting tear up while explaining yourself isn’t a joke, having trust issues and Overthinking problem isn’t a joke, Getting hard to breathe and Surviving is NOT a joke.

OVERTHINKING :

I heared this word about 2 years ago and I had never understood what it actually feels like to be an overthinker until I became one. Replaying That 1 conversation again and again then regretting over this and that then Those Bitter Words popping up in the head and the eyes getting Red was never thought would happen to me until I started Asking for space, Equal Respect, same status in my house as my brothers, limited freedom According to my Age and Basic Human Rights.

Note: I started writing this Article yesterday but left it in between and This is a new day with a new Page of Life.

I Woke up early today but didn’t left my Bed as usual. My eyes were closed but My ears were opened and brain was Consious. My Mother and Brother Wakes up even Early for their Morning Prayer and I heared all the things they say and do. The giggles and the chitchat sometimes made my head hurts because this is a thing I had never got and Could never ask for it.

Well Whatever, I have been deciding while lying on my bed to Wake up for school or not. As I was so tired of yesterday’s Science Exhibition in my School and it literally made me tired as I was standing for the whole day but I didn’t felt being tired as I was with people who makes me happy and Values me and What made me even more happy was the Chief guest who Praised me for my Random Explanation over a Random Project I got. This made me Proud. But when I came back to home my Shoulders were about to fall and My eyes were begging me to close, that was the moment when My body started losing control.

Every House is Not a Home.

I decided to skip school for today and went Outside of my house and let my body Absorb the Sun rays Falling over me. I look around the green tress, the green grasses, the warm sunlight, the blue sky and then my Hands. I started to cry because I felt that If I Do nothing, do I will be the real me ? This made my whole system shuffle. I always thought that I have to become someone for someone but no, now I have to become me for myself.

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Facade. was originally published in open-desk on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Iam Running while sitting on the chair and it makes me furious because my legs ain’t moving. I have been trying to focus on one things but My mind is not willing to stay still.

I have been brain Rotting for almost 2 hours.

Writing and Erasing.

And still I don’t have something great to do or think about. Whenever I get overwhelmed from Everything, My hands instinctively moves towards writing something.

This is so frustrating when my soul wants to Bleed on paper but my thoughts not giving a Damn to be untangled, so I start doing everything my heart desires and then nothing came out which makes me more and more Anxious.

From a couple of days, I have been searching for a purpose. A purpose to work upon something that could make me feel whole again. My Exams are over and Iam waiting for my results to came out till then I have pretty much time and Iam unable to decide what to do because all the things I thinked to do when I would be free is Rushing over each other and making my brain so conjusted to decide things respectively.

I want to study for law, become more religious, wants to Research over diffrent things, to Turn the pages of history, to Learn about human psychology, to cook, to glow up, to meet people, to spend time with my Grandma, to look for diffrent opportunities, to Write Everday about Everything, to play UNO with my neighborhood kids, to learn Makeup, to Start the upcoming class, to prepare myself for Result, to Earn a lot, to teach students and What NOT ????

All the things Mashing up at once and becomes so frustrating because I don’t even done Anyone of them fully and To take this Frustration over Another level, My periods just hit a day ago. Aghhhhhhh…. this times my Moodswings are on the Verge of breaking my patience because this is the first time it feels that I also gets mood swings because for no Reason I feel like crying & after 4 to 5 minutes I laugh my Ass off and for whole day I dress like Iam going to start my premium version for begging on road.

Ramadan Have teached us How to live with your Rabb but no one guide me how to breathe without a single sujood for days. The one who listens me when my ownself was tired to repeat the ache my heart has been holding for too, how could I stay away from that Rabb. The one who accepted me when my Own people Taunted me, how could I just let the day flows like sand from my hands.

ahh.. This is Freaking me out but a the same time it teaches me how to love the one who loves you the most that Iam suffering to put myself into the position again where I was 10 days ago.

Iam so touched with the quote that “When you’re happy you call the one whom you love but when you are hurt you Call upon the one who loves YOU Truly.” I felt it.

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I want to be Everything at once. was originally published in open-desk on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many lives passed through history without being documented. They left no official records behind, not because they did not matter, but because they were denied the tools that turn experience into history.

Who gets remembered has never been accidental. It has always depended on who had access to power, writing, and institutions.

History, as we know it, is not simply a collection of events. It is a collection of what was written down, preserved, archived, and later accepted as truth.

And for a very long time, the people who could do that were kings, colonizers, missionaries, traders, and political leaders.

They had access to systems that ensured their words outlived them.

Their letters became documents.

Their perspectives became official records.

Their decisions became history.

Meanwhile, many others lived a complex lives without any way to preserve them. Farmers, enslaved people, women, labourers, and entire communities preserved their stories differently.

They spoke them, sang them and passed it through proverbs, rituals, and shared memory.

These stories were passed down through oral tradition rather than written records. When those people died, their stories died with them.

Without written records to fall back on, many lives were never recorded as part of history, not because they lacked meaning, but because they lacked documentation.

This is how some lives become chapters in history, while others barely get mentioned. The people whose stories were written down, documented, and preserved are the ones who take up space in our government/history textbooks and records.

Kings, leaders, traders, and scholars fill pages with their actions, decisions, and achievements. Meanwhile, the lives of farmers, labourers, enslaved people, women, and an entire communities often survive only in fragments — a name here, a date there.

Their experiences, struggles, joys, and the way they lived their lives are rarely given the attention they deserve, leaving their stories incomplete or almost invisible.

And this absence matters more than we often realize. When stories are missing, cultures don’t just lose information; they lose depth and sometimes, meaning. Traditions become summaries instead of lived experiences.

What was once layered and complex gets flattened into brief explanations or stereotypes and that's why you'll see children who doesn't even know anything about your culture and history, some don't even know their root.

Instead of remembering individuals, history often leaves us with numbers — how many were enslaved, how many were displaced, how many died. But we forget their names, personalities, fears, jokes and hopes that made those people human. Statistics tell us how many, but they rarely tell us who these people were.

In the absence of detailed historical records, literature and poetry have often stood in as Storytellers. African letters, poets and novelists have tried to speak for lives that were never fully documented.

Take for example, poems like The Grieved Lands of Africa, where the poet mourns the scars of colonization, displacement, and injustice. Or Songs of the Women of My Land, a collection that gives voice to grief, endurance, and community shared memory.

These works may not have been written by people who witnessed every event they describe, but through imagination rooted in lived realities, they preserve emotional truth where official records fail.

Without stories, pain becomes abstract. The suffering gets recorded, but we can’t truly know what it felt like for those who lived it.

This is why it feels different to read about things like these in a textbook versus hearing a story told by someone who lived through it. The difference is that one informs you while the other stays with you.

Many at times, What remains are often just objects and dates — chains and shackles once used on enslaved people, buildings preserved as relics, and timelines neatly laid out in textbooks.

These things matter, but they rarely reveal what people actually went through. They don’t capture the confusion, the fear, the small acts of resistance, or endurance of ordinary people trying to survive.

We know what happened, but not always what it cost. And the gap left behind by missing stories shapes how we understand ourselves today.

When certain experiences are erased, future generations inherit an incomplete version of the past. They grow up with history that feels distant, impersonal, or one sided.

That’s what missing stories do. They leave us with incomplete histories, deciding which pain is remembered, which resilience is celebrated, and which humanity is overlooked.

This is why storytelling still matters, not just as decorations or entertainment alone, but as preservation against forgetting.

It’s a way of saying someone was here, and that their life mattered, even if not everything they experienced was recorded

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Not Everything That Happened Was Recorded was originally published in open-desk on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

back then in my college days, during our break time, I saw a group of my classmates playing truth or dare. I had no idea what that was until one of them said to the other, “Truth or dare?” She said “dare.” Then the girl said, “I dare you to kiss everyone here on their lips.”

In my head I was like, wait… is that a game?

So she got up and did it while the others were cheering her on. Wait, what?

Is this legal? Where did they learn that from? A lot of questions started popping into my head. But here is the scariest part: schools don’t monitor what children play during their recreation time, and parents sometimes don’t monitor their kids when they play with other kids. In fact, what do our kids watch?

Apart from truth or dare, there are other games that also need to be restricted when they become inappropriate. Games like “spin the bottle,” “seven minutes in heaven,”

and other challenge-based games that pressure children to touch, kiss, or act in ways that are not age-appropriate should not be allowed among minors.

Some online challenges and social media trends also encourage risky or sexualized behavior, and children copy them without understanding the consequences.

Children are very curious. They copy what they see. If they are exposed to things that are not appropriate for their age, they may act them out without even understanding what they are doing.

What looks like “just a game” can slowly introduce behavior they are not emotionally ready for. It can also create pressure. A child may feel forced to do something just to avoid being laughed at or left out.

This is not about blaming children. It is about protecting them and guiding them.

Schools need to pay closer attention to what happens during break time. Monitoring should not only be about preventing fights, but also about guiding behavior. There should be clear rules about what games are acceptable and what are not.

Parents also need to be more involved. Ask your children what they played, who they were with, and what they watch online. Know their friends. Supervise playtime when possible. Create an environment where they can talk freely without fear.

We also need to teach children about boundaries and consent in simple ways they understand. They should know that they have the right to say no, even in a game. They should understand that their bodies are private and deserve respect.

Children learn from what they see, what they hear, and what we allow. If we don’t guide them, something else will. The question is not just whether it is legal. The real question is: are we paying attention to what is shaping our children?

Please support me here i will be very happy with any support you give. Thank you.

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This is happening in schools, and many adults don’t even know. was originally published in open-desk on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.