It all began in June last year. One afternoon, bored and in need of something to occupy my time apart from writing and doing voice-overs, I called my sister and asked her to give me a “seed”, which could have been anything — a car, a sum of money or a house — and I promised to triple the seed before the end of the year. I wanted to test how industrious I could be with resources, but my sister didn’t see it that way. She thought I was talking strangely and spoke to my family about my request. Her report to my family threw them into a panic. They already were concerned I was spending time by myself.

***

I guess it didn’t help that I had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital the previous year due to a drug addiction problem. Depressed and unemployed in 2018, I had developed the habit of using marijuana often. One time, I ate too much and was knocked out for three days. My family admitted me to rehab in a psychiatric hospital in Abeokuta. My time in the ward was harrowing. I witnessed hospital staff regularly assault patients who didn’t do what they asked. I returned home after three months with a fear of psychiatric hospital wards.

***

I was alone in the house I shared with my brother, listening to music when my brother and sister came in to tell me they were taking me to a psychiatric hospital. Feeling like they were overreacting, I refused. The argument became heated, and I left to lock myself in my room. To my surprise, they broke down the door. I was worried about how violent the scenario was getting, so I tried to fend them off. My sister, who’s also a doctor, held me down alongside my brother and injected me with sedatives. I yelled weakly that I was fine and didn’t need to see a psychiatrist as I faded out of consciousness.

Sometime later, I became conscious again, groggy and with a heavy cloud in my head. My hands and feet were bound behind my back, bending my body in an uncomfortable position. I was in a car speeding through a busy road. A rage I have never felt before washed over me. I asked why the Bleep my hands were bound, yelling at them to untie me and take me home and insisted that I was fine. I jerked at the knots, but they were tight. They didn’t respond to my angry questions, driving on in silence along Lagos roads.

We arrived at the psychiatric ward of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. I was enraged and exhausted, but I thought it was wiser not to struggle in the presence of the hospital personnel to avoid making them think I was violent and getting sedated again. The doctor examined me and told my family that I seemed fine. However, because they mentioned that I used marijuana, he insisted I had to be admitted. That was the last time I saw my family for the next three months.

The daily routine at the ward went something like this: we were woken up at 5.30 a.m., we’d shower, get our vitals taken and then eat breakfast by 7 a.m. Morning pills were served at 10 a.m. After that, we watched TV or slept till 1 p.m., when lunch was served. You could hardly find someone to talk to because we were pumped full of medication that left us dull.

My drugs made me very sleepy and groggy throughout the day. I was unable to think properly and had an increased appetite, making me gain a lot of weight. After breakfast, I was resigned to staying in bed the whole day with no activity whatsoever. A lone TV constantly tuned to one channel droned above my bed. We were never allowed to step outside.

The sleeping conditions were another problem. Mosquitoes flew through the poorly installed net to sing in my ears every night as I tried to force myself to sleep in the sweltering ward. For some reason, there were no fans installed.

After some time, I decided to stop taking some of the medications I was prescribed because they always made me sleep through the day and night. I was feeling a lot less sharp and unable to do things I did easily, like songwriting or recalling things. I would put the drug under my tongue and spit it out as soon as the nurse left. The nurses began to notice that I was more active and alert. I became more interested in playing table tennis on the table in the recreation room by myself, and they suspected that I was no longer using my medication. They reported to the doctors, who decided to prescribe a much more powerful antipsychotic. I hated every minute of it. I’d seen them force-feed patients with tubes through their noses, and I didn’t want that to happen to me so I cooperated.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/man/family-forced-me-psychiatric-hospital/

Marijuana can inspire someone and can be so bad too. Nice write-ups, i guess the blunt did well on you.

Perhaps your family members and the medical team in the hospital must have observed something in you.