“Why are you crying,ehn?! Queen of the coast just tell me why you are crying. When you were flying in the night you didn’t cry;now that you have been caught you have emotions abi?!Put your head in one place my friend!”
 
Nonso is sitting there in the corner watching his mother shave off my hair; there’s no pity in his eyes. Infact his eyes seem to be mocking me.
  “This is the ‘worse’ our vows were referring to Nonso;DO SOMETHING!” I say with my eyes but his eyes and mouth remain still.
My mouth is too weak to scream,my body to weak to struggle. For a week,they have not fed me. For a week,they’ve not let me shower. For a week,they’ve kept me locked up in this hell hole. And nobody knows. My friend came to visit yesterday but my mother-in-law turned her away at the door saying that I had gone to London with the baby. I tried to scream so she would hear me and save me but my voice couldn’t get past my stomach.

When will this torture end?! I’ve begged these people to hand me over to the police but they refused. I begged them to just kill me but they refused.

  Everyone says a mother’s love begins from the moment she discovers she’s pregnant. Mine did. I loved Junior while he was yet unborn. I don’t know what happened when I finally had him. Looking at him made me angry; each time I heard him cry, I felt like an angry charging bull. I just couldn’t look at him,couldn’t touch him, couldn’t hold him, couldn’t feed him. I hated Junior and I didn’t know why. How can a mother hate her innocent baby?! Impossible as it might seem, I hated my baby. I couldn’t explain this longing I had to harm him. For the first week,my mum held him,fed him and cared for him because she felt my withdrawal was because I was still recuperating and getting used to motherhood. But when she left,my mother-in-law came and she forced Junior on me. She wouldn’t hear of her only grandchild being bottle-fed.
On this fateful Saturday morning when she pushed the two week old squirming and screaming Junior into my arms, I lost control and walked straight to the balcony as if in a trance and dropped him from 3 storeys before it could even register in my head.

And so since then,my mother-in-law has made me a prisoner in my own house, beating me,starving me and punishing me daily. And my husband is doing nothing about it.  

Yes,I killed Junior. I really can’t explain why. I am not a witch. I am not a psycho murderer. Yes,I wanted to kill my baby but I didn’t want to kill my baby. Oh God,I’m confused! What did Junior ever do to me?! Why did I do it?!What happened to me?! How this this happen?!

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Another issue from my sociology class! This one might be a tad bit difficult to decipher because it’s not a popular problem. The problem I sought to highlight in this story is post-partum depression(clap for yourself if you already guessed)…Post partum depression is a form of clinical depression that happens to some women who have just had a baby and even some men whose wives have just had a baby. Some of the symptoms are sadness,fatigue,irritability,withdrawal from the baby,a longing to harm the baby e.t.c. If a new mother kills her child and is taken to court, she won’t be punished if it is proven that she’s suffering from post partum depression! So it is wise to be informed about it so as to prevent any problems. It’s a real illness we really should learn more about because we never know when we might be able to identify someone suffering from it so the person can get help early.For more info, please Google it. Peace!x