The only place I feel safe

…

Jul 14, 2025

C for Mental Health is a consociation of Nigerian students championing student mental health in Nigeria through meaningful discourse, advocacy and community engagement. Newsletters are by students for students!

I cried in the cab, on my way to the school clinic (Jaja). My head was pounding, my stomach felt like it had flipped, and everything in me was just tired. Tired from pain, tired from trying, tired from existing…

It wasn’t just about the headache, even though that one was enough to make me scream. It was everything.

The pressure, the deadlines, the tests, the assignments I hadn’t done, the group projects I was pretending didn’t exist, the unread messages, the late submissions, the unreadiness for the next exam…everything!💔

But the moment I got to Jaja, something changed. My head was still aching, but my heart? It had calmed down a bit, I felt…lighter. Not healed, not fixed, just… still. And in this school where everything is moving so fast and everyone expects you to be fine, that stillness felt like safety.

I don’t think I like hospitals because I’m sick, I think I like hospitals because that’s the only place where I feel like it’s okay to not be okay. That’s the only place where no one’s expecting me to submit anything. Where no one is asking what I scored on the test. Where no one cares about how fast I can move, or how put together I look. People come in weak, tired, silent, and they’re allowed to just be.

And maybe I keep running there because… I’m the strong one, the one people run to, he listener, the one who always seems like she has it together.

But the truth is, I don’t.

And sometimes, I want to be the one held, the one being helped, the one asked “are you okay?” and mean it.

And that’s what the doctors at Jaja gave me, they didn’t just give me drugs, they gave me attention, they listened, they asked about my symptoms, they waited for my answers.

And for a moment, I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt like a patient… not a problem.

In school, I feel like I’m always running, even when I’m sitting. Like I have to keep moving, or I’ll fall behind. And sometimes, I am actually falling behind, but I’m too tired to catch up.

But in that clinic, even with white lights and medicine smells and people coughing all around me, I found peace. Not peace because I was healed, but peace because no one expected me to hold it together anymore.

I think that’s what I’ve been looking for all this while, a place where I don’t have to be the strong one. Where I don’t have to shrink my struggles just because “other people have it worse.” Where I can just breathe without guilt.

The funny thing?

I used to go to the clinic in 100 level even for “ordinary” headaches. And now, I realize it wasn’t about the pain, it was about the pause.

And maybe that’s what you need too. Not necessarily a hospital, but a pause, a safe place, a still moment, a break from proving, performing, or pretending. A moment where you can just be.

Maybe it’s a corner in the library where no one goes, maybe it’s your friend’s room. Maybe it’s just your own voice, finally admitting, “I’m not okay.”

Whatever it is… please don’t wait until your head is throbbing and your hands are shaking before you finally let yourself rest. Don’t wait until your body screams what your mouth was too scared to say.

You deserve a space where you can just exist, no grades, no deadlines, no pressure or expectations. A space where you can just… breath.

And for me? That space is Jaja.

Not because I love sickness, but because it’s the only place I’ve found where I can be sick…in my head, in my body, in my heart, and not feel guilty for it.

I don’t know if you relate.

But if you do… I hope you find your own “Jaja.”

And I hope you walk in there one day, crying and tired, and walk out…still crying, maybe still tired, but just a little bit more seen.

Because sometimes, that’s all we really need.