Former beauty queen, Anna Ebiere Banner has opened up on her experience as one that lived with depression and became suicidal at some point in her life.
The 2013 MGBN disclosed that her battle with lack of self-confidence had been covered up with pictures and beautiful social media posts.
She made this known in a series of posts on her Instagram stories on Monday “we don’t have it all figured out, I was suicidal at some time in my life, I never knew what depression was until I experienced it. It wasn’t pretty at all I was ashamed of some decision I made, I lost my self-confidence, I literally lost myself, I screamed silently, but God could hear me, she began.
“I had a beautiful baby girl at age 20 (unmarried, young and school dropout) and five years later I’m a graduate, I thought about quitting school so many times, trust me, I didn’t care anymore. It was too much for me to handle, mentally I was exhausted, at some point my daughter couldn’t recognise me. She called her grandmother mummy instead, I was shattered.
“These are not even half of the silent struggles, but guess what, I came out stronger and wiser, you might be going through worse, but I can confidently tell you that you will be fine, just don’t give up God is working silently for your sake, Joy cometh in the morning.”
She also explained how she got her first share of keeping up fake appearance on social media just to feel good for almost six years, how I’ve had sad birthday experience. It was pretty frustrating, but I was advised to always wear a smile to cover up the pain and sadness, fake it till you make it, smile was my hash tag, but I had to make myself happy by myself and it feels so good. My birthday this year is a huge reminder of how I’ve been able to pull through, I felt like I’ve been caged for almost six years of my life.
Honestly, no one sees the silent struggles and pain we all go through, all we get on social media are likes and comments from people who like you, admire you or even hate you and we post beautiful pictures just to feel good, sometimes, we post perfect family pictures too, but we struggle to sleep at night behind the social media doors.”