When I Grow Up: I Want to Be a Psychiatrist

For the record, I’m grown. But not yet a psychiatrist.

I see your smirk. Yep. I see you thinking that this is just another childish dream…

But why a psychiatrist? Here is my story.

First, I digress.

In 2016, Kenya was documented to have 88 psychiatrists, going to 100 as of today. These serve a population of 47.6 million (according to the 2019 census). Are you shocked yet?

On 11th December 2019, a Mental Health Task Force was formed by the order of the President. On 7th July 2020, the task force urged the government to declare mental illness a National Emergency of epidemic proportions. This shows how bad a place we’re in mental health-wise as a country.

Now, how much will it cost you to be treated by a psychiatrist?

An article by The Standard gives an estimate of between 50,000KSH to 100,000KSH, not including the consultation fee.

The minimum consultation fee for a psychiatrist in Nairobi is 3000KSH.

Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital- the only government psychiatric hospital in Kenya with a bed capacity of 1500, charge a down payment of 10,000KSH for admission. (I won’t even mention the condition of the hospital)

Back to my story:

I am raised by a single parent diagnosed with schizophrenia.

From an early age, I had to learn to take care of myself and my parent. I became a caregiver as a child and grew up really fast. I remember getting up, fixing my breakfast, and getting dressed for school all by myself- in kindergarten.

I used to stand on a dining seat to reach the gas cooker so that I can make pancakes for supper. (I’m now a splendid cook by the way!) Then try to wake her up to eat because her medication made her sleepy. If I succeeded, it would earn me a beating… why did I wake her up? If I didn’t, God help me if she woke up in the middle of the night hungry.

I also tried to remind her to take her medication. Yes, tried. I had to do it in a way that would not trigger her rage. I had no right to tell her what to do. Doing it the wrong way would earn me a beating. There was no right way of doing it. I won’t describe her kind of beating; all I can say is I had a few visits to the hospital.

I’m the firstborn in a family of 3, and until the age of 11, it was just me and my mother.

One skill I perfected was how to tell when she was about to have a psychotic episode. I learned to see the signs. It was a matter of survival for me. One sure sign was when she cleaned for 24 hours straight. Day and night. When that happened, I knew she was gone.

Now, imagine a child living alone with a parent who is having a psychotic episode… Let me paint you a picture. Imagine yourself living in perpetual fear. 

That was me. I couldn’t even sleep. She tried to stab me in my sleep a few times. There are times I woke up in cold water, either soaked in a bucket filled with cold water or a soaking bed. It got to a point where I had to hide under the bed or in a closet to sleep. And pray she doesn’t find me. I had nightmares for a long time that progressed to hallucinations due to lack of sleep. We had this cycle of visiting a therapist every time she came back from the hospital.

I suffered from chronic tonsillitis. If I was sick during that time, it got worse for me. She would make me gargle Dettol antiseptic (that thing burns!) or eat Dettol soap. I would end up vomiting with serious stomach complications. With tonsillitis comes severe fever. That was the time the soaking in a bucket of cold water happened the most… It was her way of getting rid of the fever.

Living with her was scary. Living without her was sad. Her stays in the hospital were long, going for months. For a very long time, I couldn’t understand how my mother could be a totally different person from the sweet soul that she was.

In the mid-1990’s she retired on health grounds and we moved to a house she built in the village. My sister was born a few months later, and I was promoted to be a mother. That was also the very first time I saw her go fully psychotic.  

You see, her colleagues and friends used to rush her to the hospital as soon as they noticed slight changes in her behavior, so it never got to that point.

In the village, it was a whole different story. We lived in the same compound with a relative, but he only took her to the hospital when she was at the point of being a danger to herself and others. There is a time she disappeared for over 6 months. I went through hell. My sister was about a year old.

After a while, he stopped. He would just tie her to her bed and overdose her with her medication for days until she was calm. I watched the mother I knew slowly fade away… she was now a shell of her former self, disoriented and detached from reality.

I asked the relative why he no longer took her to the hospital and he said that the doctors had informed him she could never recover and live a normal functional life like before. That shocked me to the core, and I lost all hope.

Just before I sat for my KCPE, I came across a psychiatry textbook in my mother’s things. It sparked my curiosity. I could now understand what was really going on with her.

As I delved into the world of psychiatry, I discovered mental conditions scarier than what I had seen, that are managed successfully. My dream of becoming a psychiatrist began, and it kindled the hope of seeing my mother cured.

Fast forward to my KCSE. I couldn’t meet the cutoff mark to join a public University, and with no money for a private University, my dream was shattered.

So, I became the next best thing to a psychiatrist. A writer.

But hey, didn’t Lupita say that my dreams are valid?!

Welcome to Agape MindSpace, a family caregiver’s haven.