21 Oct 2018

It is normal for a mentally unstable person to roam the streets under any weather condition with some flapping their hands like chickens do with their wings, while some just walk silently around.

The Merck manual of diagnosis and therapy defines mental health as disorders that involve disturbances in thinking, emotion and/or behaviour. It further states that small disturbances in these aspects of life were common, but that when such disturbances caused significant distress in the person and/or interfere with daily life, they were considered mental illness or mental health disorder.

During a Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing workshop in Lobatse in 2015, the then mental health coordinator, Mr Patrick Zibochwa said the burden of mental health disorders was at 3.7 per cent of the population of Botswana.

It was against this backdrop that we sought out and chatted with two people living with mental illness to find out how they led their lives. Mr Edward Masukudu, an intern at the University of Botswana (UB), revealed that he started having mental illness while he was a student at UB in 2011, as he always felt tired physically and drained mentally.

He said he once went to the UB clinic for assistance where he broke into tears and started saying a lot of things and touching on different issues when the nurse in charge tried to assist him. He recalls that he was then taken to Princess Marina Hospital as he had not slept for two days.

Mr Masukudu said he was sent home to recuperate, but everything worsened as he remembers talking non-stop.

It was then that his parents took him back to Marina, which then sent him to Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital where he spent a month.

He said he was tested for drugs, HIV/AIDS and he came out negative for all of them and so remained in limbo. He said he had to freeze his sponsorship and missed an entire semester while recovering at home, which he said was painful emotionally as he was constantly thinking that his age mates were continuing with their studies while he was not. “I was constantly wondering if this really was the end for me, but in August 2012, I resumed my studies,” he said.

However, Mr Masukudu said going back to school had its challenges as the medication affected the way he spoke, walked and he was always drowsy.  As if that was not enough, he said he lost touch with some friends, but he determined that it would not affect his healing process as he went for counselling at UB in a quest to accept himself.

As a coping mechanism, he said he joined the UB Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation as a volunteer from 2012 until he graduated in 2015, adding that he needed sports for therapy.

“I started an organisation called Masego Mental Health which aims to sensitise the community about mental health, support and help those living with mental illness as they face the stigma,” he said.

Mr Masukudu said since 2014, the organisation, in partnership with UB Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation, organised arts and sport competitions at Sbrana where they spent the whole day socialising with patients, playing football, table tennis, traditional games like mhele and hosting fashion parades.

He recalls that during his stay at Sbrana, he missed entertainment and he believes that having it gives hope to patients.

“Imagine that there are people with conditions that are worse than yours in the hospital. It is more like hell to be admitted at Sbrana, there is nothing that brightens your day,” he said. He pleaded with the management of Sbrana to consider allocating patients of the same condition to a section, unlike the current set-up where patients share a ward regardless of condition. 

Mr Masukudu, who suffers from bipolar, a mood disorder, which also leads to changes in energy levels, said he takes drugs daily, which also affects his body, emotions and thoughts. He said it was better to disclose when living with bipolar disorder as failure to do so could destroy relationships due to mood swings, revealing that one day he may want to sleep the whole day, while the next he may want to socialise.

He said people talk behind his back, mostly saying he was mad, and said those kind of remarks did not affect him as he had accepted himself while for someone who has not, such remarks may lead to the person being suicidal.

Mr Masukudu said living with mental disorder was painful because some people stigmatise them, especially as most Batswana did not know what bipolar was.

“People with bipolar are very creative and when you come up with ideas some will say ...yo wa tsenwa ga o utlwe dilo tse a di buang. Even at home, people decide for me, I can make decisions so let me do so,” he stressed.

He pleaded with families to help mentally disabled people roaming the streets instead of letting them lead miserable lives and be given luxurious send offs when they died. Another person living with mental illness is Ms Dikatso Selemogwe, who said she was diagnosed with chronic depression, bipolar disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

She explained that she has been managing her condition with psycho-therapy and prescribed drugs from Sbrana, where she said she has been admitted several times for stays ranging from two weeks to a month.

Ms Selemogwe said she does not allow what people say to get to her as her duty was to teach people about mental health, adding that her major challenge was that she could not work and fulfil her obligations as her condition was unpredictable.

The other challenge is that bipolar disorder makes her moods go up and down.

“I can be very low and have depression episodes and within hours change to hypomanic episodes,” she said. However, she said she was grateful that there was medication that regulates her moods. Ms Selemogwe said one of the weirdest things that happen to her was that she could be terrified and fail to explain what she was afraid of. ENDS