Things aren't always what they seem.....

This is probably the hardest thing ever for me to talk about. Most know me as the happy, funny, chilled out Kofi. But deep down I've been struggling with depression for a number of years and its quietly eating away at me every single day. The worst part about suffering with depression, is the stigma that comes with it. The last thing a person wants to hear is 'you don't really have it' or 'your problems aren't that bad, it could always be worse'. Im from a community where we don't talk about our problems, my family doesn't talk about their issues, and being a young black man from the inner city you definitely don't talk about whats going on in your head or how you feel. So many people wonder why young black men are going crazy and are so violent, its because they have so much going on in their heads and nowhere to express it, eventually its all going to boil over.

For those that don't know i'm a professional basketball player, sports is a dog-eat-dog world and not exactly the place to express your feelings. Everybody wants to be seen as an alpha male because being tough is how you survive. I don't think talking about how you feel is necessarily weak, in some cases it actually means that you're tougher than many because you have the strength to open up. Its easy to keep everything to yourself, everybody does that.

It's got me thinking what about after basketball, am i supposed to keep up that act ? How do you know when to separate when to be an alpa male and when not to. Dint get me wrong, some people have that 'alpha male' mindset 24/7, but i think everyone has it messed up sometimes, theres plenty to ways to be an alpha male. Respect comes in many forms.

I'm in a very weird place because i studied psychology at university and got my degree, so technically, on paper I understand the mind and depression from the outside looking in. I also understand depression from the inside. I feel like I'm constantly in an internal battle with myself, of being depressed and the other side of my mind understanding what happens to a person when they are depressed and knowing the steps i need to take. Its horrible to be honest. People may look at my life thinking 'what does he have to be depressed about ?'. Don't be fooled by social media, people only show you what they want you to see, we don't have camera with us 24/7 showing the ups and downs, so if you look at my life from social media you may think its perfect. Believe me, i try and keep it real as much as i can. Don't get me wrong i am happy at times and do have happy moments and i post about them, but to be the 'Role model' I'm supposed to be, I have to provide inspiration, to me that means giving positive energy to others not necessarily showing the negative things going on in my life.

I understand that showing a mixture of aspects of your life can also inspire, showing the bad days aswell as the good days but for the 13 year old kid following me who wants to be a professional athlete, I'm not trying to discourage him like i was when i was 13 and just starting out my journey. Im not a dream killer, but this has slowly been killing me on the inside.

I feel like everyone has things that are secretly eating at them, i can't be the only one. People have different faces, they have one face they show to the world and then they have the other face they have when its just them and their thoughts. I definitely have them, when I'm out with friends or playing basketball I'm cheerful, happy, funny, bubbly and upbeat but when I'm by myself and my thoughts can creep back to the front of my mind its a different situation completely.

I'm an only child from a single parent mother, didn't know my dad. This dude basically gave me up, didn't want me and took care of all his other children and were in their lives.

Can you imagine how that could make a child feel, i thought i was some special unicorn that didn't even have a dad, it was just me and my mom and then every now and then i would hear from this stranger. I knew the concept of a dad but never ever had one, a young black man raised by a woman with no male influences other than his uncles and his older male friends can be a recipe for disaster. Theres not really much a single parent mother can do, she has to go to work and take care of the home. I used to watch 'My Wife & Kids' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' every single day, thats where i was learning what a Man/Dad was. From television shows.

I think its different for a little boy thats being raised by a woman, because theres only so much she can teach about being a man. From a male standpoint, the young boy is just being raised by his male friends, they are just older and winging it and passing on retarded information on how to be a man. It's a recipe for disaster if you ask me. I grew up wanting to be a single parent, because thats what i was raised in and all i saw in my community, do you know how stupid that sounds, its crazy.

I know more about how to be a single parent mother than how to be a man, simply because i was raised in it and have television shows as my base for the other. Long story short, basically my dad was killed in Jamaica a few days before i was due to fly to America and start my university career. The night i was flying to America, my mom cam into my room 45 minutes before the taxis were coming to take us to the airport. She told me the news and said " So what do you want to do ?". I had absolutely no idea, how do you process that ? what do you answer to that question ? So I get told my dad, who I didn't really know, who only came on the scene once I became really good at something, is murdered. And I'm told 45 minutes before I'm supposed to be flying to the opposite side of the world alone.

I just sort of brushed off the question, we went ahead with the original plan of me pursuing my dream and I went to America. The thing about this situation, was that i wasn't a little boy anymore, i wasn't the little boy watching tv shows wondering why those children deserved to have a dad and why i didn't, I wasn't having days anymore wondering what i did wrong as a child to not have one. I was over it all, i was grown , 20 years old and exactly like the stupid young men i looked up to when i was little, the same guys who decided to just wing it and figure it out through their mistakes. I was now that guy.

That was 20 year old me, I'm 26 now, a bit wiser and less of a rebel. I used to hate the world, my mindset had always been me against the world. Honestly i still think this from time to time but its something I'm conscious of now and constantly try and work on. I've got the biggest chip on my shoulder, but what do you expect when you're basically not wanted from when you're born by someone who made you. I don't think thats the part that burned me the most, i think it was the fact that he would spend time with all his other kids and get to know them, like what was wrong with me. I'm your kid too. I could accept him going ghost, i wasn't used to having him around anyway, the odd phone call every few months or the odd letter with 20 pound in was all i got. I used to be labelled a 'troubled' kid, i got called 'bad breed', thats what jamacians call a child usually who is cheeky and gets in trouble alot.

To label a child, who gets up to mischief, a troubled kid instead of helping them and learn about them is usually how it goes, and we wonder why we have so many wild adolescents. I don't know how communities are so surprised a teenager is bad when you've been labelling them as bad since they were a child, they're just fulfilling the prophecy you stuck on them. I used to get called bad by teachers, family, coaches, everybody i came in contact with. I didn't feel i was bad, i just had to express myself, i didn't feel like i was ever heard, was always brushed off. My mindset was 'you're going to notice me one way or the other', this brushing me off business wasn't going to continue.

Remember, I already had in the back of my mind every single day that i wasn't 'good enough', that I 'wasn't worth it' by a person who helped make me, so i was already carrying that chip around. Then to get branded by other people, lets just say I didn't really care about much at this point. Kofi as an adult has so many questions, I understand things a lot better than I used to, one thing that eats me up every single day which i don't really know how to deal with are all the questions i now have. The same stupid stuff my dad used to say to me in letter or on the phone when i was 13, I could call out now and be able to ask him what he was thinking saying that to a 13 year old. I could ask him to his face now.

'why didn't you want me?'

' why wasn't i good enough?'

'What was it about your other kids that you liked more than me?'

'why would you have children that you can't or don't want to take care of?'

'You wasn't interested in me before other people started showing me love at basketball, why are you around now ?'

These are some of the questions i have had for a very long time, they will never have an answer...

My mind works differently to some, as an athlete if we see a challenge we do what we can to get the result we want, if that doesn't work then we work harder until we get the results. You don't just 'accept' the cards you were dealt, theres always a way if you have the will. I have this mindset with everything, and this mindset is killing me because there is actually nothing i can do about this. I have to go the rest of my life guessing the answers to these question from a man i know nothing about. How do i get this chip off my shoulder? How do i become a father myself, is my plan to do everything the complete opposite of him a solid plan ?....No idea if I'm honest, so having children myself is an issue in the back of my mind.

Even the most confident looking people, aren't always what they seem. A lot of people think I'm very confident and independent. Im actually pretty quiet, i have my moments where I'm loud and upbeat but I'm actually reserved and quiet. Im not as self assured as many think, when you wasn't wanted from a young child, you kind of have confidence issues when it comes to people. Always thinking does this person actually like me, do they like me for me. You end up with all these thoughts in your mind because of the past trauma suffered as a kid. Ive tried to combat it by being overly confident and independent. Its almost like an alter-ego, the super confident guy who does what he likes when he wants, whether he's with people or not. He's super sure of himself and what he's about. His self worth is never a question.

I feel i had to form this mindset to protect myself, most people don't know I'm actually not like that, obviously i have my moments but i prefer to just be quiet. Im always questioning my self-worth and if people like me, or if my family love me or if my girlfriend actually loves me for me. Its exhausting and I'm tired of it, thats why i had to write this just to get stuff out of my head.It was getting too crammed with all my thoughts.Writing things down or talking about them helps with emotion management but i find i hard to talk about this stuff because i don't trust people, so i felt writing this was at least a start.