HIGH- FUNCTIONING DEXTER [TRIGGER WARNING! This post mentions suicide.]

Photo by Ahmed on Unsplash
 

What’s that dear reader? Wait another story? Okay, only this one, then I must go; I must go and be alone for I have a newfound strength in solitude.

You enter the ominous aristocratic setup; a grand building greets you at the entrance and a forbidding doorbell glares at you as if daring you to press it. You are then greeted by a shrewd fellow; the building’s secretary. Sometimes it’s a simple wave, other times it’s the usual smile that strangers familiarize themselves with as they share the spite of catching the early worm in the wee hours of the morning.

The paintings are peeling, and the pillars seem to rise and fall like a horse on a ghoulish carousel. You walk through the vestibule and a young fellow in a fitted and padded blazer walks past you with one hand in his pocket, looking down ardently trying to act as though they had never encountered you in their lifetime. This person is hiding something. Then another walks past, this time his pair of trousers are unusually tight; testimony to their awkward strolls, and glances past the brutal truth of the mirror-like windows adjacent to the common room. He also looks down. He is also probably hiding something.

You walk past a man with an asphalt black cassock, a pious bend, a small wave, a bid of goodbye, then a disappearance accompanied by another reappearance of yet another reclosed figure. He walks without the navy blazer, nevertheless, his beige shirt is well tucked, his striped cravat tightly fastened, his lanky hair neatly combed, not to forget his coal shoes; bustling with brightness. All these are but a façade. He loves to wear his ready smile accentuating the fan of lines beneath the epicanthic fold of his eyes. He too is hiding something.

The instructor, the student, the pious, the forgotten, and the dismissed, typically everybody, is hiding something.

Pageant the pain away, wear your smile, show up, sit down, and grind until your heads explode. A walking zombie, he is almost aloof from his surroundings. In his eyes, you can see and smell the essence of one haggard and battered.

His shoulder is slightly bent from the weight of the enormous number of books he has been carrying, perhaps not to read but to feed off Master Guilt, the ruler from within. They all do that. In this haven, most of them are riddled with guilt even when rest and repose are rather fundamental. They love to wear masks, however, behind the mask is a broken man after his brother’s soul.

They loved calling him Dexter, just like the old Cartoon Network character- Dexter, yes, he only had one name. I will not reveal Dexter’s real name; not the Cartoon Network’s Dexter but my story’s Dexter, the one I once made acquaintance with. The one who still dwells.

Dexter is both good at sports and academics. He is one of those fellows whom everybody seems to develop an African personal vendetta, only because of their nefarious claims that perhaps life has given him better handling compared to their lives filled with inner vitriol and self-loathing. Africa is the cradle of jealousy and hatred.

Dexter adored school, especially the school’s grand library brimmed to bustling with the latest editions and other scientific sources of reference. It was in this place of affluent ease that he felt as though he could be himself.

“I long for the day to break so that I can ease my mind from its impulses to want to learn and play the sport that holds my heart’s roots and even meet and converse with my benign friends. Two more hours until I can finally put on my Navy blazer and fasten my stripped cravat ready to start my day looking like a miniature corporate junkie.”

Deep in Dexter’s heart, there is a dark residue, which he hides behind his thick-lensed Baus spectacles. He has astigmatism, his look-alike father has it too.  

He glances at the passing trees as the school bus passes across the border into Nairobi County; Kenya’s Potemkin city. With a twinge of judgment, he notices the differences in the type of vehicles overtaking the yellow school bus; five Range Rovers, a Mercedes Benz then four ramshackle vehicles follow suit. He could never quite understand the social classes in Nairobi City, where sordidness was always juxtaposed with affluence. Take a look at the leafy suburbs of Karen with its grand mansions and villas juxtaposed with the vast Kibra slums. Sometimes it was hard for Dexter to take it all in.

“I always sit at the window seat, three rows back, two seats left. There is something about seat 32 that brings out the human in me. I simply cannot explain it, nonetheless, I must sit there. MUST! I exude some sort of authority, it has always been there in me and has formed roots in me. The moment I step into the bus, the student occupying seat 32 gracefully rises paving way for the captain.”

The school bus passes through the Thika highway. He lives in the vast and leafy suburbs of Muthaiga. Not the self-imposed New Muthaiga alias Roysambu, but the Old Muthaiga, where allegedly governments were formed and others overturned. All these are but conspiracy theories.

“School is five miles away. A tension, a tingling, and some trepidation. I now have to wear my mask, maybe today I will wear my 'confident-nothing-shakes-me' mask. A hidden turmoil. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration [ Frank Herbert]. I know it by heart, however, there are those loopholes in one’s will whereby fear penetrates and almost takes them alive, leaving the part without fear caught up in the frenzy, and in the end, it is like nothing was worth it; all the fights, reaffirmations, and all the captain elections won."

 I have a deep secret. There is a battle in my mind. I say this riddled with consternation, a sheep disguised in wolf clothing, a boy disguised as a man. They see me as a paragon of manhood, as though I have my entire life figured out. Dexter is the greatest of all time. He will save us from our turmoil”

“Is it because I am a class captain or a genius in the sport, or maybe my grades match my efforts? I hate being looked at as a success reference. I hate being put on a pedestal. Everybody expects too much from me, my parents, my friends, my instructors, and me. I feel anxious about having to outperform my classmate to fit into what society expects from me. On the outside, I might look like I have it all figured out or I have it all together but deep inside; I am all weary, torn, and worn.”

The day is November 1^st, 2021. The church bells ring, and the congregation rises. The solemn chants begin. You can see the diminutive figures from the back. The clergy leads the way each of them dawned in violet chasubles, then comes in seven almost heavily built men; three on the left three on the right, and one in the middle. The one in the middle lies down supported by snow-white cushions sewn into cherry wood. If something moves it is alive, if it is catered for and pampered it is loved, if it is scolded or treated with hate, it becomes frustrated and calloused. The man in the middle lying horizontally did not move.

Then came in a lady, she was dressed in a floor-length mantilla that covered her immaculately cut Dior suit; the fruits of her hard-earned coins. She could have been anyone but she was not anyone. She held a picture frame while closing behind her a young fellow carried a cross with the words ‘DEXTER’ written on it.

So are you happy now that you have killed me with your unprecedented expectations? I just wanted to be a normal black teenage boy, play football make friends, get through high school, date girls and eventually graduate Summa Cum Laude or even a decent Cum Laude, but here lies the body of the one who could have been all, whose life I took without a knife held to my throat. Rest in peace, Dexter, who I took for granted.

Dexter committed suicide. His high-functioning anxiety was too much to bear. The pressure to be the very best, he could not bear. He needed to numb it.

Sometimes society's expectations of people push them into developing high-functioning anxiety. Some people may not know how to cope with these expectations and end up pulling off regrettable stunts. There is only so much that a person can do. It is important to give individuals space and let them flourish at their own pace, without bombarding them with certain standards that we cannot even dare try to achieve. Mental health is by far more important than every sleepless night, burning the midnight oil or any prizes won. 

Please reach out to a health professional in case you are struggling with your mental health.

You can also reach out to me 

@nigelwasike on Instagram