The photographs I kept are not photographs of medicine. They are photographs of a period when I was trying not to lose myself.
There came a point when my room became full of medication.
I kept looking at it and wondering how my life had reached this point.
There were so many boxes and packets around me that sometimes it felt like I could open a pharmacy with what was in my room.
But those medicines were not the thing I remembered most.
What I remember most is the person I was during that period.
I was trying to understand myself.
I was trying to understand what had happened to me.
I was trying to understand why the journey that was supposed to lead me to safety had left me so damaged.
These photographs show only medicine.
They cannot show the fear behind them.
They cannot show the nights I could not sleep.
They cannot show the weight I had lost.
They cannot show the person I was becoming.
They cannot show what it felt like to have your freedom restricted while you were already struggling to understand your own mind.
They cannot show what it meant to wake up and realise that your life had become something you never planned.
But when I look at those photographs, I remember.
I remember the hospital.
I remember the people I met there.
I remember walking through those corridors.
I remember having my phone taken away.
I remember being watched.
I remember the questions.
I remember the medicines.
And most of all, I remember wanting my life back.
I did not want to spend the rest of my life being defined by what had happened to me.
I did not want to become only a diagnosis.
I did not want people to see me only as a traumatised refugee.
I wanted to laugh again.
I wanted to eat normally again.
I wanted to sleep without being afraid of my own dreams.
I wanted to work.
I wanted to have friends.
I wanted to wake up in the morning and feel that I was actually living.
So I began searching for ways to find myself again.
It was not immediate.
It was not easy.
There was no single morning when I woke up and suddenly became the person I used to be.
It was a slow process.
One day at a time.
One decision at a time.
I had to learn that surviving something and recovering from it are not the same thing.
I had survived the desert.
I had survived Libya.
I had survived the Mediterranean.
But surviving those places did not mean that everything inside me was healed when I reached Germany.
The journey had continued inside me.
That is something I wish more people understood about refugees.
People often see the moment we arrive.
They see us stepping off a train.
They see us entering an accommodation centre.
They see an asylum application.
They see a number on a document.
But they do not always see what came with us.
Some of us arrive carrying memories that we do not know how to explain.
Some arrive carrying grief.
Some arrive carrying fear.
Some arrive carrying nightmares.
And some, like me, do not even know that they are traumatised until their own body begins telling the story.
I thought reaching Europe meant I had finally escaped.
I later understood that escaping a place does not always mean escaping what happened there.
Sometimes the hardest border is not the border between countries.
It is the border between the person you were and the person trauma is trying to turn you into.
I had already lost too much.
I was not prepared to lose myself as well.
So I fought to come back.
Not to become exactly the person I was before.
That person had been changed by everything I had survived.
I fought to become someone who could live with the memories without allowing them to control the rest of my life.

asylum system

wHy I hate religion

Before I left Nigeria, I had never really heard people around me talk about depression, trauma, therapy or psychological treatment.

Those words were almost completely foreign to me.

I did not know what depression looked like.

I did not know what trauma could do to a person's body.

I did not know that memories could follow you into your sleep.

I did not know that a person could be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.

Then, only a few weeks after arriving in Germany, I began to notice changes in myself.

I had been living in an asylum accommodation for about three weeks when I started losing weight.

And I mean losing weight quickly.

I lost 14 kilograms within a short period.

I was not trying to lose weight.

I was not on a diet.

I did not understand what was happening.

I simply stopped eating properly.

Food no longer interested me.

My appetite disappeared.

My strength disappeared with it.

Then my sleep changed.

I thought that once I reached Europe, I would finally have the chance to breathe.

I was wrong.

When I arrived in Europe, I did not really start living.

I was forced into another kind of journey.

This time there was no desert underneath my feet and no Mediterranean Sea in front of me. The journey was inside the asylum house and it system.

The danger had changed, but the struggle had not.

I still witnessed refugees dying suddenly.witnessing people Metamorphosen into structure of skeleton, I still saw police aggression. I still saw people going hungry. I still lost friends. I still watched people break down under the pressure of waiting, rejection, separation and uncertainty about what would happen to their lives.

I thought that once I reached Europe, I would finally have the chance to breathe.
I was wrong.
When I arrived in Europe, I did not really start living.
I was forced into another kind of journey.
This time there was no desert underneath my feet and no Mediterranean Sea in front of me. The journey was inside the asylum house and it system.
The danger had changed, but the struggle had not.
I still witnessed refugees dying suddenly.witnessing people Metamorphosen into structure of skeleton, I still saw police aggression. I still saw people going hungry. I still lost friends. I still watched people break down under the pressure of waiting, rejection, separation and uncertainty about what would happen to their lives.

I survived the journey to Europe. I did not know that another journey was waiting for me.
When I left Nigeria, I thought the hardest part of my life was behind me.
I had crossed the Sahara Desert. I had passed through Libya. I had travelled across the Mediterranean Sea in circumstances I still find difficult to explain. I had seen people become weak from hunger and dehydration. I had seen fear, violence and desperation. I had watched people lose hope.
I thought that once I reached Europe, I would finally have the chance to breathe.
I was wrong.
When I arrived in Europe, I did not really start living.
I was forced into another kind of journey.
This time there was no desert underneath my feet and no Mediterranean Sea in front of me. The journey was inside the asylum house and it system.
The danger had changed, but the struggle had not.
I still witnessed refugees dying suddenly.witnessing people Metamorphosen into structure of skeleton, I still saw police aggression. I still saw people going hungry. I still lost friends. I still watched people break down under the pressure of waiting, rejection, separation and uncertainty about what would happen to their lives.

our right as human