Photo of Worms

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Trigger Warning: Suicide

You will grow up and leave home but your childhood will never leave you. It’s the strings on the marionette. The long shadow that illuminates your adulthood, a shadow cast without a light. Funny how you work hard, very hard, you acquire degrees, travel the world, determined to put a great distance between yourself and your childhood but it keeps rising around you like brackish water in a well, and eventually, at 39, it catches up with you and you find yourself in Mathare Mental Hospital. Literally the very last place on earth you imagined you would ever end up in your life. And a place of great imagination—literally and figuratively. 

The story of how WangaRay ended up in Mathare Mental Hospital in 2011 can’t adequately be put in context until we go back to Buru Buru where she grew up. And to go back to BuruBuru she has to tell the story of her mother and the darkness that stood like a sentry over her life. 

Unfortunately, as with most of these stories, it always starts with a father who left. 

“My dad left when I was two,” WangaRay says over the phone, “and he was gone until I was 12 years old when he reappeared briefly. He had remarried and unbeknownst to anyone, he was back because his new-ish wife had given him an ultimatum; go back and get the divorce from your first wife or else… My sister and I went to live with him briefly, but that didn’t work out, and my mother felt betrayed that we had left her to live with a man who had abandoned the family when she was the one who had stayed to take care of us. Things pretty much started spiralling from there.”

We are having a phone interview because she had requested that instead of a face-to-face. She had said she wasn’t ready to meet up with people. It’s late afternoon and she’s at home with her cats. I’m at home with a dying potted Lemongrass. 

“During that period, we noticed that my mom would not get out of bed,” she says. “She would not come out of her room. We were young but later I learned that she was having some sort of breakdown and I remember being ten years old and very scared. She would say crazy things, stare into space, refuse food. You’d find her seated in the living room, mumbling something, mostly talking to my dad, who wasn’t there. I was very scared.  But in retrospect, I think my mother always had mental issues because when she gave birth to my big sister and I—there were only the two of us—I later learnt that she suffered from postpartum depression.” 

Her father’s departure is a pivotal moment in her life because it was a pivotal moment in her mother’s life. It made her very unhappy and when your mother carries unhappiness everywhere, everything she touches is tainted by the stain of unhappiness. She enjoyed the community of Buru-Buru in those days when Buru-Buru hadn’t been corrupted by urban greed, the camaraderie of the neighbourhood but when she went back inside their house she felt the sapped energy of her mother, struggling to stay on her feet. “In those days, the 80s, nobody grew up in broken homes—it was a stigma. All of our friends went back to their homes with their fathers. We didn’t.” She says. “I was confused most of my childhood. My mom seemed to think we were the cause of her problems. That we burdened her. I didn’t understand why my mom said we were a burden to her. And she said it often. I never felt her love. Now as adults when I speak with my sister about that moment, it’s funny how differently we viewed that situation because while I used to think I was the reason my dad left us, my sister says she blamed our mom for my dad leaving. If you don’t tell your children the truth they will make up their own truths. They will most likely blame themselves for the sins of adults.”

What she can’t take away from her mother was how hard she worked as a single parent. She bought property. She invested. 

At 18 she started smoking. 

Before her graduation, she started working for the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as studying French at Alliance Francaise. The IT degree and French landed her a job at the ICRC Central Tracing Agency [Rwanda programme] where her job was to trace unaccompanied children who had been separated from their families during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and reunite them. 

In 1997 her sister left for the US.  She had finally escaped. She was left alone but not for long because when she became a little financially stable, she also moved out of the home of a mother who was gradually showing signs of distress, depression and general apathy. Her mom, having taken her golden handshake and tried her hand at business which didn’t work out, grew increasingly frustrated by the failure and seemed to sink deeper into depression with each passing day. “We had a strained relationship.” 

“In 1997 I travelled to Quebec, Canada for a French immersion course and then to the US to visit my sister in Birmingham, Alabama. My plan was to get my SS and disappear there, never to return home to my mother.” But then her mom fell sick and it was decided that she had to come back home and take care of her. She came back reluctantly, grumbling why it was her who had to come back, why not her sister? 

She resumed her job at ICRC as a Help Desk Service Provider in ICT until 1997 and realising that she couldn’t do much for mom, left for Munich, Germany to look for work. “I got a job with Daimler Benz Aerospace in the IT department,” she says. “The catch was I had to come back home and get my work visa but when I came back they couldn’t give me a visa because I couldn’t prove that no German would do my job. The reunification of Germany had happened not so long ago and there were a lot of unemployed East Germans. I went back to pack up my stuff and came back home broken and dejected.”

Back home she got her mom a home nurse and she gradually got better. She left for Ethiopia for voluntary service with Voluntary Service Overseas [VSO]. “I always say I fell in love with and in Ethiopia.” She fell for a very tall, very sharp Dutch fellow called Pete. “He was brilliant. He taught physics and I taught IT in the same university. He was a mama’s boy. They were only two siblings like us. We had no care in the world in Ethiopia and it was easy to love one another.”

By this time she was smoking and drinking a lot. “I have always been the life of the party. I’m that person that makes the party a party.” She laughs. “My father was a very likeable, very charming man. He was short and stocky and he had that lovely salt and pepper beard and glasses. Very handsome guy. He left a trail of many broken hearts. But my dad doesn’t handle responsibility well, when things get thick, he takes off. I’m exactly like that. I’m my father’s daughter.” 

“Where is your dad now?” I ask her. 

“I don’t know.” She says. “Last I heard he was divorced. I last saw him at a wedding 22 years ago. We hugged and I said hey stranger. I don’t know whether he is alive or dead but if he is alive I wish him well.” 

She Whatsapped me some photos of her dad. And of her mom. And of a family tree. Her mom reminded me of Lucy Kibaki when she was younger. Maybe it’s the dress she’s wearing, or the hat or her regal look. Her father looks like one of those slick black reverends in the southern parts of the US who call people, “brother.” She also sent me pictures of a tree, a Nandi Flame, which she called the matriarch of all trees. And of her cats, Miki Maus and Kiki. Miki Maus looks like she studies German at Goethe Institute. And she won’t graduate, not with that attitude. 

In 2005 she packed a big bag and travelled to the Netherlands to visit Pete. It was spring when she got out of the plane. She had on a big scarf that smelled of cigarettes and perfume. Outside the trees looked like fragments of a vague dream. Pete drove her home in a small cute European car with the heat on. They listened to Dutch songs and he held her hand with the hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel as he steered the vehicle over old bridges. She was in NL for three months. When she came back she underwent a double surgery for fibroids and endometriosis at Nairobi Hospital. Pete flew in and brought her a stuffed animal. 

When she got better she embarked on a Montessori Early Childhood Teaching Course at the Montessori Centre International. “By this time I was pretty much estranged from my mom. I was living alone. No one knew where I lived.” 

One day there was a knock on her door. KK, a very close friend was standing there wearing the look of someone who had missed the last flight home. “Hey WangaRay,” she said. “I have some bad news.”

“I knew it!” WangaRay said. 

The previous night she had had a “spiritual encounter.” 

“The evening I had a deep encounter with her in my mind or dream. She had passed by my house.  I told her, mom, I did my best for you. I was asking for forgiveness because we had walked out on her in a huff, blaming her for stuff we didn’t understand even though now we understood she was just doing her best. My mom really felt bad when we left home and never looked back. She would tell her relatives how we left her, abandoned her. How she wished we had stayed. My mom died very lonely. I’m so sad for her. It’s a sad way to die.”

It was a rubbish time when her mom died. Relatives were talking shit. “They were saying I killed my mom.” She hardly had time to mourn. At the morgue she could see people looking at her and whispering. “My sister couldn’t come back home to bury her because her papers weren’t in order,” she says. “She looked like an angel in the coffin. She looked at peace, something she hadn’t known for many years before her death. I wrote to my sister and told her mom finally got her wings again.” WangaRay never drove with her body in the hearse. “I was happy she could finally rest. I felt guilty, feeling happy that she could now rest. She had struggled with her mental health for so long I was relieved for her.”

She tells me of a story she heard about moments before her mom died in the hospital. “The lady next to her in the hospital says that the night before my mom died she talked the whole night, calling out names, talking to invisible people. I guess my name was mentioned.”

“What do you think she felt towards you in her final moments?” I asked her. 

“Regret, maybe,” she says. “And love. I think she regrets not having been a better mom.” 

By this time things with Pete were on life support. Pete had been supporting her financially but he had a problem also supporting her mom. “He said he couldn’t support three households; his, mine and my mom’s.” She says. “I called him the night before my mom died and I told him about my spiritual moment with my mom and he kept saying that I was talking crazy. This was a red flag for me because if I ever turned out like my mom then he couldn’t or wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t be supportive. Later, when he was due to come in from Nigeria we gave it another try, he heard I was in hospital, so he Googled Mathare and said, hell no and went straight home. Ha-ha. We broke up.” 

Soon after they buried her mom she moved to her childhood home in BuruBuru. She was all alone in the house, her mother’s energy lingered around. The furniture seemed to still radiate with her smell. She opened closets and stared in them. She touched cups. She brought the fabrics to her nose and smelled them. They smelled of memories. It was strange going back to where it all started, to see the mementos from her childhood all which came with their own stark memories. “I completely isolated myself in BuruBuru, phone off, TV off, no contact with the outside world. Initially I kept busy by working on the kitchen garden in the backyard. I immersed myself in my childhood memories. Days rolled by and I ate less and less. I wasn’t drinking, or smoking by this time, I had long stopped but I felt myself sink deep into a world of silence. I felt myself get lost into myself, parts that I didn’t know existed, or even know I could access. Soon I was delving into a spiritual journey, a very chaotic one, a dangerous one that needed supervision. I lost track of time as days went by, lost all sense of reality, I didn’t know if I slept or not, daytime felt like nighttime and time stopped making sense. I had only my cats—Fifi and her three babies—as my reference point to life.“

It’s the watchman who noticed that something was amiss; the gate had been left open for days on end. So was the main door. He ventured inside cautiously, calling out as he walked through the house. He found her in the backyard, nearly naked, very gaunt he could count her ribs and glassy-eyed. She turned her head slowly, like it was too heavy for her neck and stared at him with hollow dead eyes. Her cats that had gathered around her scampered for safety when he approached her. 

“I wasn’t fully aware of my situation, of myself during this point. I think I was trying to kill myself but this wasn’t suicide by starvation, it was something called Kundalini Awakening, heard of it? It’s not stuff for the un-initiated or unsupervised yet I fumbled my way through it. It’s stuff that can kill you. I was undergoing a psychotic episode.” She WhatsApped me a strange photo of an emaciated and heavily bearded man seated cross-legged in a yoga pose. “This is the image of Bhagavad-Gita,” she wrote, “it describes what was going through my mind and manifesting in my body during that time.” 

It’s from the house that she started seeing a therapist while living with a relative. Her mental health deteriorated sharply until she was finally admitted to Mathare Mental Hospital in 2011.

“First time I was admitted—because I was a guest twice at this institution—I was checked into the general ward which is like rows and rows of beds and mattresses on the floor. It’s not a place I would recommend. What they did was at night they’d give everyone medication that would knock off everybody and close the doors for the night.” She says. “The first night a lady grabbed me and pulled me out of bed and started kicking and punching me. I was screaming for help but nobody came because they probably thought it was some crazy woman screaming. And anyway, there was always someone screaming there. I got a good beating. The head of the dorm eventually rescued me.” Her file, she says, had bold letters on the cover with the words; SUICIDAL.

She was later moved to the Amenity wing—the semi-private wing. “There I got beat up by an Indian girl who was there with her sister. Her sister was friendly towards me, so maybe she was jealous or maybe—as I was to learn later—my very long hair must have reminded her of one of her relatives. These are girls who had been abandoned by their families and forgotten there.” 

Food was terrible. The daily routine was; breakfast, out to bask in the sun, lunch, out to busk in the sun, dinner, medication, and sleep. “The night before I was taken to Mathare, I had sprayed Doom in my hair thinking—in my state of psychosis—that it was hairspray. This act saved me because the general ward was very notorious for lice. Everybody had tons of lice in their hair and when they moved you to an amenity which was relatively cleaner, they had to wash you thoroughly with hot water or shave your head altogether. I didn’t catch lice because I sprayed Doom. The place is dehumanising. Animals in zoos live better. ”  

However, she found some camaraderie in the amenity wards. “I think I’m a very sharp person. I’m very good at maths and the sciences. The only time I ever felt challenged intellectually was at Mathare because I met some of the most brilliant people there. We would play speed Sudoku and finish in under three minutes. Conversations were extremely intelligent to the point of being intimidating. I recall a man called Zadok who was there for alcoholism. Insanely intelligent. We clicked. He escaped once, went out and got drunk and came back in.”

She would trail one of the doctors doing her rounds in her gown. “In the criminal ward I met a woman who had waited for her husband to come back home and told him, “My dear husband, I decided to slaughter the goat we had for your meal.” The husband said, “But we don’t have a goat!” It turned out she had slaughtered and cooked their toddler. My doctor would turn and tell me, “You still think you are mad?” 

“At night you would be knocked out and in the morning as you basked, you didn’t feel the sun on your face. You felt nothing. Nothing registered.” She says.  “It’s like your mind was wiped out. I don’t remember much of the period I was there. Nothing meant anything. There was a great disconnect between the body and the mind. It wasn’t treatment, it was maintenance. I don’t remember how many weeks I was there. ”

When she was discharged she went to live with her mum’s sister in her farm in Githiga, Kiambu for close to eight years. She was in the deep end of depression and suicide watch. She slept all the time, so much that her aunt would press her ear against the door and listen for any sort of life and there would be dead silence for days. She added a lot of weight. There was great sadness, the type that you can smell of you. When she was on medication, life lost all meaning. Nobody understood her. “Life was so mundane, I wanted to end it immediately. I told my doctor that I now understood what my mom was going through. I felt how trapped she was. How unhappy she was when she died. I didn’t want to die like her; sad and alone.”

She says. “My psychotic episodes opened me up to spiritual realms that I never knew existed before. The experiences can only be described as ecstatic. But coming down from those highs with the help of dawas led to the most severe depressions. Daktari refused to label my diagnosis but I can say that I’m also bipolar.”

Slowly and painfully she started getting out of the funk. It’s full of setbacks and misfires, misgivings and ebbing hope. Days when the very act of getting out of bed feels Atlassian, like dragging a dead weight up a mountain. Days when your mind feels like it’s devouring your body. After eight years she left her aunties farm and moved into a house in Githurai 44 where she lives now in a bedsitter with her two cats, Miki Maus and Kiki. “I feed my cats when I wake up, I take coffee, I clean up and cook and meditate and sometimes I go to the farm in Gatamaiyu, Lari, in Kiambu.” She says. “I inherited an 11-acre farm from my late mum, with tea and trees on it. I do day trips to the farm called Nanday farm. I have two permanent tea-pickers there. I organise tree planting exercises on the forest side. I started a recent project making vermicompost using red worms.  I have sent you a photo on Whatsapp.”  I go on Whatsapp. She’s sent a photo of worms. A poster of her tea called Kagwe tea from her factory called the Kagwe Tea Factory that she sells in 50gm 199gm 500gs. There is a picture of her in a floppy next to a water-fall. Another photo of Miki Maus and Kiki looking pensive and unbothered as cats tend to look. She has captioned that picture, “my furbabies. Reason I wake up very early.” 

She turned 50 years old in January. 

She’s on drugs daily. Every 6pm she takes Sertraline for depression and Olanzapine for psychosis. “I hate them, they make me a zombie but after several relapses when I wasn’t faithful with taking them but now I have made peace with them and we are good friends.” She then adds, “Psychosis is very interesting.  It’s losing touch with what’s considered normal.” I can hear her put the quotation marks on that word. “I sometimes miss it, it’s liberating. Why do you think many mental patients walk naked, picking plastic? It’s just another dimension of existence but because we are conditioned from a young age to think of certain things as wrong and right we follow that trail. Psychosis frees you from all that right and wrong thinking.” 

It’s 6pm. We have been talking for two hours and it’s 6pm. She had taken her drugs thirty minutes ago and any moment now she will slip into the zone she calls zombie. The cats have been fed. She will power down. We sign off and I go to our Whatsapp and look at her pictures then I go stand over my lemongrass and whisper, “Why do you break my heart so?”

 

***

 

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128 Comments
    1. The emotional roller-coaster that is this read is something else…
      The other day I was thinking of “the call of the void”. I am pretty sure I am not the only one who gets that “call”. Perhaps it is also a form of mental disorder or something?

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  1. I am scared, its all looking like the everyday life I live. Mental Health issues are real. PS Don’t ever take friendship for granted as your friends by virtue of their company grant you a way out of your risky psychotic world

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    1. If not by reading other things seem like a movie … God be in control of us all we attend to those who need us most. It’s called charity starts at home re-examine ur close people don’t let go of family and friends cz of their mis…

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  2. May she find peace.
    Childhood trauma is debilitating. It does not know the number of degrees attained or the countries one has travelled. May we all find healing

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  3. Sometimes I look at people with mental illness talking to air, And wonder are they the free ones in this world? Seeing what we cannot see? They see the spirits all around us that we cannot see.

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  4. “My dear husband, I decided to slaughter the goat we had for your meal.” The husband said, “But we don’t have a goat!” It turned out she had slaughtered and cooked their toddler. My doctor would turn and tell me, “You still think you are mad?”
    A prayer for all going through this phase.. may healing of soul, body and mind be yours.

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    1. I haven’t recovered after reading that. Tried picturing the events that could have transpired after that. Wild. It’s mental health awareness month, my heart goes out to everyone struggling.

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      1. It’s sad that in Kenya, mental health issues are not taken seriously. I mean, unless they have improved, I hear Mathare no treatment is provided just basic medications. God have mercy on Kenya and Africa where we live by grace.

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  5. Love and light to her. I find our stories to be quite similar having grown up with a mother and father that separated when I was young. I have a sister and a young brother, my mother passed last year and just like her, we had all left to stay with my father. Not like we had a choice he was paying the tuition and when my mother died, he cried, like a baby, while I held his hand. I think I learnt a long time ago that all things work for good, there is always a greater reason, a greater purpose, a greater love and a higher power.

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    1. A lot more than anyone cares to admit. I bet we don’t even have the right statistics. I hope that gradually a lot more people can openly discuss because from there solutions will be found. Let’s not even talk about the stigma around mental health issues!

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      1. True. When I was growing up, people with mental illness, those that walk around talking to themselves, were treated worse than animals. Throwing stones on them, calling them names, and called names like “muntu o thuu” – translated “mad person.” I believe our statistics are not accurate because most cases go unreported and not all mental illness have explicit physical signs. In some mental illnesses like depression and anxiety most victims don’t walk around naked or talking to themselves. Sadly, most families even don’t know signs of mental illness, so the person continues to suffer in silence.

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  6. I held my breath so much through out this read. More power WaNgaray.

    Sad how the child, in most cases the uncared for version come back to haunt us

    More grace. You have so much knowledge. Maybe you can give sessions in places where psychotic groups congregate to help them come to terms.

    I hate to imagine the state of a psychotic without resources. They would be the ones walking naked, collecting plastic.

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  7. Damn. Damn. This was so thrilling yet sad to read. I feel like we need to hear more of her. Good job Biko. Sigh!

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  8. I loved this one. As someone who got a nervous breakdown about 6 months ago….I totally relate to the deep lows. Thanks WangaRay for sharing this. Continue taking the meds and attend therapy to develop coping mechanisms for life’s highs & lows

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  9. WangaRay is lucky to go through this with a tidy inheritance to back her up.
    If i may ask, is hallucination a “spiritual experience” or is it brain shock due to brain chemical imbalance.

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  10. It’s another page from the book Veronica wants to die. We are all beautiful people, thanks for sharing. Stay strong

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  11. Could we see her photos too? The descriptions are soo vivid, i feel like i already know wangaray.i want to marry the picture in my head to the real self.

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    1. I hope someone from Mathare hospital admin has read this. Although her time there is way back, hope the conditions in that mental health centre has improved, especially the nurse to patient ratio.

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  12. I have a mother who has mental health issues so I can understand her thankfully mine is on medication and it’s working. I think she made her situation worse by engaging in Kundalini yoga, it must have increased her psychotic episodes.

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    1. Mary Gichuru I didn’t even know, at the time of my psychotic breaks, that that’s what that was, as I was bila guidance and/or supervision. All I knew then was that it was very deep meditation that ultimately got very heavy at some point and I got lost in the ethers.
      I only got to put a name to it much later when I was finally on the road to recovery and trying to make sense of it all.

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  13. ooh God…could I be….could it be..I get migraines sometimes..weird my migraines. I feel as if there is a needle stuck in my head. I have been depressed for a while….I just pray it’s not moon hard madness….on God.coz no can’t be.

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  14. Imagine living half of your entire life in such a state? In retrospect, I think she inherited her mum’s mental issues and I really feel sorry for her. I wish she mentioned if her sister is doing well and if she offered her any Kind of support.

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  15. Thank y’all for your comments. I’ll try respond to some, if not all, of them.

    Thanks and blessings!

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  16. And then it hits you, the spiral goes just down, the journey maybe blurry but now I want to play fast sodoku.
    Let’s check on each other
    Thank mama Miki for allowing us a glance through her
    Thursday’s have been hard for me and I am yet to read your book

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  17. A very interesting read. More strength and grace for your complete recovery WangaRay.
    The Spiritual realm is a very present realm though invisible, so when people say they’re seeing or hearing things that others can’t see or hear, then people ought to pay attention instead of stigmatising people.
    I also think there was a “transfer” when her mum passed, and now with no explanation she begins to encounter the same mental challenges her mum had.
    It would be a good idea to seek refuge in Christ, and in His name severe every cord of connection, between you and your mum.
    People should never have to suffer afflictions when Jesus Christ has paid the price and disarmed the enemy over 2000 yrs ago.
    John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance.”

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  18. My Aunty…i spent time with her jst before the second mathare episode…n i learnt alot,everday I thank God for sanity….i saw her struggle with the mental issues, it broke my heart…I love her..thank God she’s well n can tell a story…

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  19. She sounds so enlightened. Its eye openning looking at the world through her eyes, but it breaks your heart and scares you to learn the price she’s had to pay for those views. She must be brave, just for the fact that she has had to go through any of that. I am amazed at her resilience. Its interesting and equally sad at the same time it provokes alot of internal questions about the relationship of an indivindual and the society….but all these are scary thoughts to bear…the dilema!!….

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  20. This is deep. She has clearly made peace with it and now lives her life on her terms. Glad she never went back to her childhood home again, such familiar environments work as triggers. More power to you Wangaray. Love and light.

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  21. ” If you don’t tell your children the truth they will make up their own truths. They will most likely blame themselves for the sins of adults.”

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  22. Perfect story…we should all learn to talk openly about mental health issues.Thank you&bless you.

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  23. What an incredible story.
    Wishing WangaRay the very best as she continues to live her life in the best way she can.

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  24. OMG. I thought my life sucked. But I think I’m OK. This is too much. Wishing you well Mama Kiki and Miki. I hope you find healing, total healing. I’m glad that you have sort of found a routine that works.

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  25. This is sad. Im Praying and Fighting hard to never get there. I don’t have furbabies i got baby babies and they need me sane

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  26. Oh my! What a sad story! What a string woman!!! I pray she gets well soon. May she also know Jesus deeply, he is the only one who can give her the liberation she hopes for.

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  27. I’m proud of you in so many ways my dear friend. Thanks for standing up and owning your story and for sharing it with the world. Thanks for the much you’ve taught me throughout the years and for standing by me even when you were facing your own battles. Love always

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  28. I freaking need a stiff drink after this read.. Heavens! Even a jug of crude oil will do. If only we could acknowledge that mental health is real and reduce the stigma surrounding it.

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  29. Great read! Dear to my heart as I know all mentioned in this article. All the best Ray! I always admired you as you kicked behinds in your academic excellence. Just know your mom loved and showed ya’ll off! Reason we got a whooping because Wangari is #1/2/3 in NRPS! Cheers to life.

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  30. Very timely, it’s mental health awareness week.people go through so much….one day at a time ,it shall be well.meanwhile, let’s exercise kindness

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  31. I wish her well.
    May she stay focused on her projects.
    I wish there were alternatives to the medicines.

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  32. Quite a nice read.. depression is there. I hope she finds peace.
    One question though, in this quote here “…..Kagwe Tea Factory that she sells in 50gm 199gm 500gs”

    Why 199gm and not 200gms, seems odd..??

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    1. It wasa typo.

      Kagwe Tea is packed and sold as follows:-
      ❗ 50g
      ❗ 100g
      ❗ 240g
      ❗ 500g

      Thanks and blessings!

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  33. Mental health is not something to be taken lightly.More sensitization should be done so that more people are aware of the signs/triggers to look out for and seek medical attention as soon as possible or take the necessary measures to prevent the condition from progressing.

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  34. Whatever Is written here is quite relatable not on a personal experience but on experiences that I have witnessed in Mathari hospital
    This specific part where she mentioned “The only time I ever felt challenged intellectually was at Mathare because I met some of the most brilliant people there. ”
    Truly, everyone there is intellectual without a doubt
    I hope we all get to debug our myths and stereotypes on mental health and lean on paying attention to the people close to us
    Such an educative and enlightening read Biko!

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  35. WangaRay, ati 11 acres? Mundu umwe? I envy you.

    I did Kundalini Yoga while in campus and got to know about Chakras and all that. Am glad I didn’t lose it because mostly, it was a lot of fun.

    The story feels like our everyday lives. I read somewhere that its likely we are all mentally unstable, but at varying degrees. This story makes that concept so true.

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  36. The article is so real that for those who have lived with people with this condition at some point you want to know what really went wrong and when you don’t get the correct answers you start to fill you could have been part of the problem. It’s really depressing because not even money can heal it so quick and the daily drugs… nutshell you have so many questions and no straight answers…. Thanks

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  37. I cried reading this, then I laughed at some experienced at Mathare, then I cried again.

    It is sad, that there are not enough resources to help people deal with their ‘worms’ in this case I mean worms as the issues in our childhood.

    This was a hard read, but it is also the face of reality. May we support mental health awareness, and may we normalize therapy.

    May we stop the stigma around life issue, because it is all life and it breaks us. We need to get to a place where we can understand that breaking is also normal, and that we can talk about it. And we need to have safe places to allow us to break and mend our brokenness.

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  38. Niceread. It’s also horrifying how the mental institutions in Kenya are just poorly manages and just scary

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  39. Christ! She has just described what I’ve gone through for the past five years,minus the suicidal thoughts.

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  40. Biko has a way with words that is so beautiful…you just marvel. A thought provoking read that is also timely. Also raises the issue of Adverse Childhood Experiences and their effect throughout ones life.

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  41. Weuh, this is rough, it’s going to stay with me for a long time, some cards that this life deals some people are just heartbreaking. However WangaRay you have had to overcome so so much , rooting for you , may you find happiness in this life.

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  42. As a recovering mental health patient, I feel extremely blessed and grateful to be alive during another May Mental Health Awareness Month, as it wasn’t always a given for me. I endeavour, in my own lito way, to get peeps talking about this topic that is still one that is often swept under the rag. If/when you like, you may engage me on some of the conversation-starters that I have posted on my blog,

    nandiflame.wordpress.com

    Thanks and blessings!
    WangaRay.

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    1. Wangaray , You will Triumph eventually. You have already come so far.

      Thank you for sharing and enlightening us so.

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  43. Sad to see how mental illness humbled her obviously flourishing career life. Such a sad story.
    Would have Wanted to know what happened to her sister, was she, WangaRay, the only one who inherited her mom’s condition? Or was it just fate?

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  44. Sad to see how mental illness humbled her obviously flourishing career life. Such a sad story.
    Would have Wanted to know what happened to her sister, was she, WangaRay, the only one who inherited her mom’s condition? Or was it just fate?

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  45. I just lost a cousin to depression. A young, vibrant, handsome, ambitious 25 year old graduate with has full life planned out. Juma dear, may you feel and enjoy the freedom that life denied you.

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  46. I consume Kagwe tea ☕
    So glad to have met WangaRay virtually.
    I hope she gets much better with time.
    Loved this piece; thank you Biko ❤️

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  47. After reading that a lady slaughtered her toddler, we need more about mental illness because this piece here sheds more light on mental illness’s struggles. How is her sister doing…? Is she struggling too? I personally won’t judge anyone going through anything and in whatever state they are in.

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  48. There is absolutely no health without mental health.
    We should always be grateful for good health, it’s the new wealth

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  49. It’s soo wild how we treat the mentality incapacitated…. It’s sad and scary that it can happen to any of us if we don’t take care of our mental health …if we don’t deal with the stuff that bothers us in the middle of the night ..
    I am so bothered by this story but that what makes it so relevant … Coz…it reminds us , it’s not the guys who shout in the streets of town ,it’s your friend, your sister, your mother …ain’t that a shock! Reminds us to wake up and take our mental health seriously…Damn …lemme go Thank God of the love I have

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  50. I’m glad the topic of mental illness is coming to the limelight. I wish you well WangaRay. I wish the government can put more resources ad finances in mental health and healthcare in general.

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  51. Imagine living half of your entire life in such a state? In retrospect, I think she inherited her mum’s mental issues and I really feel sorry for her. I wish she mentioned if her sister is doing well and if she offered her any Kind of support.

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  52. Moving forward,
    Someone out there might be needing these pointers right about now!

    https://nandiflame.wordpress.com/2022/05/13/were-in-this-together-%f0%9f%a4%97-%f0%9f%a4%97-%f0%9f%a4%97/

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  53. I am have survived depression. And nothing of what she says is new to me.
    The thing about some of these issues is; Disease never picks who to attack It just does. I am intelligent and know very well what i need to survive and make it out of this situation alive. Unlike Wangare, i am lucky to have a child. But this is the scary bit, those Zombie meds are no ones cup of tea. The level of ‘ i do not care what happens’ that people using them experience cannot quite be explained. What makes it a catch 22 situation is some people will not make it out alive if they do not use them. For a minute there i too had to use them daily. I added an astounding 10 kilos in a span of one month. But, they eventually helped. And i got out of the funk.
    Mental state awareness is prime to anyone struggling with mental issues. Triggers must be taken note of and immediately taken away.
    To anyone struggling and especially to Wangare, keep fighting. Its an upward battle, but everyday we make it is a day to celebrate. And in the days of darkness, remember this: Someone somewhere needs you. Even if it’s a cat. You are their life, keep fighting.

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  54. We need to do better as a country and as a continent. Alot of us are still ignorant on matters mental health

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  55. Salute Wangaray!
    The mental health journey is one that is well understood if you have walked it. I’ve been suicidal since I was 11 years old and so I battle my demons to date. They are mostly triggered when I’m going through a rough patch but I try to ignore them as much as I can. Its good to learn of people who have battled even darker demons and come out victorious.

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  56. This is a piece and a half. So many pple even now struggle with mental issues and it’s heartbreaking. May we all find peace

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  57. WangaRay is living in her past which is full of self-pity, bitterness and it’s clouding her thoughts to even enjoy the present…..She has to make peace with things in her past since they are out of her control. The curse of a blessing in having a photographic memory.

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  58. “Days when the very act of getting out of bed feels Atlassian, like dragging a dead weight up a mountain. Days when your mind feels like it’s devouring your body.”
    Hate that I relate to this. WangaRay’s story goves hope that we win at the end, albeit not fully, we win.

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  59. It’s sad that somethings in life go full circle.. And we are at times genetically pre-disposed to mental disorders. Wangaray wishing you well..

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  60. Very nice read and thanks for sharing. Googling Kundalini Awakening because it feels I underwent this very thing recently. I’m not even sure what to call it but I shall accept the science of psychosis for what it is and my bipolar diagnosis. Again, thanks for sharing this

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  61. “My dear husband, I decided to slaughter the goat we had for your meal.” The husband said, “But we don’t have a goat!” It turned out she had slaughtered and cooked their toddler.

    r/twosentencehorror

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  62. I’d love to read this articles…got to know you by a friend and Indeed I can’t get enough of this.

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  63. As someone who has dealt/deals with depression and now as I have come to understand, bipolar. I get the empty days which are made much more apparent by the periods of spiritual and intellectual highs. And yeah psychosis is indeed freeing until people start talking and you are no longer acceptable to society. People think that medication solves the problem and it’s as easy as taking your daily meds but those drugs rob you of your personality and leave you feeling hollow and It’s only untill then that people truly start to contend with their existence. And what most people don’t know is, the doc has to try different meds on you untill they find what works for you. I’m happy that she’s finding/found peace. Such stories restore hope and renew strength.

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  64. Mmmh…. sorry for those low moment but have learned something.. although nko na maswali ” explanations” I’d love to answered one on one please if u won’t mind.

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  65. Mmmh…. sorry for those low moment but have learned something.. although nko na maswali ” explanations” I’d love to be answered one on one please if u won’t mind.

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  66. wow powerful life story. I have worked in a psychiatric unit and I get that environment she talks of, Wish her the best in life

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  67. Wow, auntie Ray we stayed with you for 1 yr and i never sensed you had gone through all this, all i knew is that you liked ur cats soo much, u were a peace loving neighbour, u were extremely generous and kind and we clicked soo well esp when i was paged ☺️.Hugs dear you are a brave fighter keep on fighting, it shall be well.

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  68. Ray is such a warrior going through such is hard to take in but she has done so good ……..she’s such a motivation