Living with the mentally ill

Living with the mentally ill

When this semester began the second and third year classes of Media were combined to take a joint course in Desktop Publishing by Dr. Ngugi.

On the first day of class, there was a gentleman who kept interrupting the professor. He uttered lewd comments about third year girls. Actually, he reported one for ignoring to pay attention to him.

All this time Ngugi knew he will have a hard time fending off questions and observations from the student who was officially mentally ill. This happened for over a half an hour until our Class Rep, Susan Wangari got fed up and shot, “Young man, for how long will you keep making noise to us?” The sophomores only looked on. The seniors looked disapprovingly at the young man.

That is the last time I saw the man. After class, his colleagues whispered that he is mentally handicapped. They went on to say that he hasn’t been like that. His fuse blew off just recently.

Today, in church there was a drunkard and crazy man who kept imitating the singers until the ushers whisked him away claiming he was “making noise”.

At home, these cases are commonplace. They dominate the street talks. Mentally ill persons are discriminated, isolated and abandoned because of their condition. There is one I know from my village who was impregnated by a sane man and left to care for her child. Now she has four street urchins. They are dirty, hungry and dangerous. They survive on petty thievery.

One such person slid to insanity so jokingly that nobody ever believed it happened. Till this day they blame witchcraft and bad luck. My ignorance drove me to greet her as I came to take home keys from my mom’s work place. Every Teacher crossed fingers and watched me.

“Ndukangethye nye ikiti ii(don’t greet me, you dog)”, she barked back and curled her arms around her bosom. Then she spit saliva in my direction.

My friend Tom (the crazy woman is his aunt) pulled me back and we walked away to town and told me I was lucky that she did not pour the hot tea she was holding on me.

What I noticed about virtually all mentally ill persons is that they crave for love and acceptance. Imagine being avoided by people because you are not like them. And it is not your fault….well for others it is their mistake.

They need to be rehabilitated. Let their families take them back. Their old friends, their colleagues (like our case), their State and everybody should ensure that they reform.

Take them to a psychiatrist or a psychologist, a counselor, a pastor, a motivational speaker, somebody. It’s funny how educated folks still believe in curse, witchcraft, and devil and blame the blameless for problems which have scientific solutions.  What is sure for now is that the uptake of drugs such as miraa (khat) is rife here and other hard drugs which can hasten the destabilization of a sober mind. Take care!

The writer is a student of Bachelors of Arts Degree in Communication and Media at Chuka University. He blogs at musyokangui.blogspot.com

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