Bassey Ikpi > Quotes

“Because I know how that dog-eared page persists and insists you return to it. I know how the brain and the heart and the spirit fight daily to stay in the book and not write themselves out of the story. I know. I know. I know.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“ANXIETY IS ITS OWN creature. Anxiety asks me to focus on the terrible things I’ve done. The people I’ve hurt. The promises I’ve broken. Anxiety tells me to make a list. Mistakes. Regrets. Lies. A litany of shortcomings, a coil tightened, ready to spring.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I thought about the way my mind wanders, how I drift through days losing hours, forgetting to remain in my body. How they call me absentminded, forgetful. The way I am mercury spilling over surfaces—solid and liquid, here and not.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I give them the suggestion Allow yourself morning. I tell them it means that today may have been a rolling ball of anxiety and trembling, a face wet and slick with tears, but if you can get to morning, if you can allow yourself a new day to encourage a change, then you can get through it. Allow yourself morning.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I forgive her always because how can you not forgive someone whose whole life was a sprint towards survival?”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Imagine you didn't fit in anywhere, not even in your own head.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“This job that I'm so lucky to have, this job that I am constantly reminded not to take for granted, this job that people would die for. I'm waiting for it to kill me.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“My older cousins told me that white people used to be brown, like us, until they did something to anger God. He turned them into fleshless, pale shells as punishment. “Look at how their skin reddens in the sun. Look at how it burns. Look at how the sweat pours down their faces and flattens their hair.” They used my fear to convince me to steal coconut sweets and biscuits from the market—threatening me with “God said to listen, or do you want to become one of the white people?”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“She weaponizes her silences.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“My mother mistakes questions for attacks and accusations. She weaponizes her silences.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“This thing ain’t easy. And I don’t mean to complain because this life is beautiful and it’s magic. And I am blessed and grateful. But this brain feels broken sometimes. This brain does this thing that takes little soap bubbles of “everyone feels this sometimes” and morphs them into latex balloons of “you’re the only one in this world who can’t seem to lift herself out of bed in the morning” and then the balloon becomes brick and the brick becomes wall and the wall is a mountain and then you’re stuck. So I’m grateful to only be latex balloon right now.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Anxiety asks me to focus on the terrible things I’ve done. The people I’ve hurt. The promises I’ve broken. Anxiety tells me to make a list. Mistakes. Regrets. Lies. A litany of shortcomings, a coil tightened, ready to spring.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“how can you not forgive someone whose whole life was a sprint towards survival?”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Even when the best things occur, when the sun is angled just enough to offer light or there is beauty somewhere shining in the distance, the voice says‚ This will not last. You do not deserve this peace. Remember that time . . . remember how he cried . . . remember how she shook with disappointment. Remember how you break everything you touch”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Yoga was still terrible, like a game of Simon Says with no winner.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“He is the only one I regret being too broken for. If I could have allowed myself to love him, maybe this life would have shaped itself differently. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to wait to break. Maybe I wouldn’t have broken at all. Or fallen. Or maybe he would have caught me. Or maybe I would have destroyed him. I think I would have destroyed him.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“The restlessness has begun, like a low hum in my belly. It follows me through my days. I am sleepless nights. The comfort found only in quiet.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“It's difficult to distinguish which lies are mine and which belong to others. Which I told to close the gaps in my brain and which were told to me to silence my questions.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“It makes you feel unfinished, like in your family's eyes you will never be completely whole. And in your eyes, you have never been completely whole.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“You are proud of the way the night loved you so much it offered you stars for your face.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I feel like a fraud. Like, who am I to inspire or advise anyone? And I know it's not all true. I know it is the broken brain and the way it misfires that makes it feel true.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Understanding that this isn't real. But it is. Knowing that I created it. But I didn't. This, how did any of this happen? This back and forth trying to figure out how I came to this here.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Imagine you don’t fit anywhere, not even in your own head.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Anxiety is its own creature. Anxiety asks me to focus on the terrible things I've done. The people I've hurt. The promises I've broken. Anxiety tells me to make a list. Mistakes. Regrets. Lies. A litany of shortcomings, a coil tightened, ready to spring.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“They looked up at me like eyes of judgment. But there was nothing those eyes could say to me that mine hadn't already held.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I thought about the way my mind wanders, how I drift through days losing hours, forgetting to remain in my body. How they call me absentminded, forgetful. The way I am mercury spilling over surfaces‚ solid and liquid, here and not”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“Soon she will have to pretend everything is okay and perform”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I always feel guilt when people are worried about me. I've been told that guilt is normal. It probably is; I just know that I'm not.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“I know how the brain and the heart and the spirit fight daily to stay in the book and not write themselves out of the story. I know. I know. I know.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

“It all feels like a long winter. And as a child of summer and sun - born with too much fire - winter is not a season that can go on for too long.”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays