{"id":171561,"date":"2025-09-26T22:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T22:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171561\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T22:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T22:17:07","slug":"how-i-battled-overcame-depression-chimamanda-adichie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171561\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0How I battled, overcame depression – Chimamanda Adichie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Renowned writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie<\/a> has opened up on her struggles with depression, revealing how it affected her passion for writing fiction.<\/p>\n

In an interview with CNN Africa, Adichie said during the challenging period, she felt deeply unhappy, describing depression as a constant shadow that was hard to escape.<\/p>\n

She admitted: \u201cI was fighting depression. In that period, just deeply unhappy. Deeply unhappy. And there are ways to try and hide your unhappiness, but you know, it\u2019s there. It\u2019s a constant sort of shadow with you. And it\u2019s not a good place to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo in the years that I couldn\u2019t write \u2014 and really not being able to write fiction when fiction is a thing that you deeply love \u2014 it\u2019s just a terrible place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to her, she tried to fill the creative gap by taking on more speaking engagements, hoping to find inspiration, but often returned feeling miserable, instead, she found solace in reading books and poetry, which helped her reconnect with language and her craft.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did a number of things. I tried to distract myself. I said yes to many more things than I ordinarily would because I just thought the writing is not happening. Okay, why don\u2019t I just go and give the speech? And part of it was also, maybe if I go, then I\u2019ll get inspired\u2026 but then I wouldn\u2019t. Then I\u2019d come back and be miserable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think also I did things like I read the books I love. I read a lot more poetry in that period because I think poetry really helps with language. But also in the end, it\u2019s just about waiting and hoping. You\u2019re not in control of this thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The writer said she views creativity as a spiritual experience, stating that stories come from ancestors and spirits speaking to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are stories that are \u2014 so I call it the ancestors and the spirits speaking to me. So they\u2019re really speaking to me now. And I\u2019m very happy to be running around and singing and dancing for this novel, Dream Count, because it means a lot to me\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

She expressed gratitude after overcoming her struggles and finished her novel, \u201cDream Count,\u201d which has found success with readers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful that I finished it, finally. I\u2019m grateful that it\u2019s out. I\u2019m grateful that it\u2019s found its readers. I\u2019m grateful that, in some ways, really, honestly, it\u2019s kind of everything I hoped it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Renowned writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has opened up on her struggles with depression, revealing how it affected her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,88107,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-171561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-chimamanda-adichie","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}