The Editor-In-Chief on a recent trip to Abuja met a woman who has two sons and a daughter. She shared her touching story of her two beloved sons being mentally challenged and how it affected their lives especially while they were younger.

Read her story:

My name for the purpose of this story is Mrs. Grace Odidi. I am Berom from Plateau State but married to a wonderful Isoko man for close to four decades now. Our friends say we look like Siamese Twins as we are fondly called ‘I go die couple’ because of our undying love for each other which is waxing stronger by the day.

Marriage took me to Lagos which was then the political capital of Nigeria and we had our three wonderful children in quick succession. Two boys and a girl. The age difference is just two years each and we were a close-knit family showered with so much love.

Our nightmare started in 2003 when our second son finished from the secondary school. He was admitted to Yaba Left where he made wild claims of being a cocaine and heroin user. I and the father knew they were false because those hard drugs are very expensive and we don’t have the financial muscle to have him indulge in that destructive habit. He was initially admitted into the drug ward before his transfer out of it shortly after when he confessed that he didn’t really take drugs but did it to draw attention to the ‘lack of love’ that he suffered as a child. I wondered what he meant by lack of love as I and his father so showered him and his siblings with love that we ensured that they were all day students so as to spend more time with them and monitor their growing up closely. He was then diagnosed with schizophrenia and manic depression. He spent the next few years in various psychiatric hospitals across the country both private and public as his relapses were frequent. He managed despite the health challenge to go to a private University where he relapsed twice and graduated two years later than his mates. He managed to go for the National Youth Service Corps in Lagos but relapsed in the course of it as he unilaterally stopped taking his medication which made him lose his juicy place of primary assignment. He managed to finish and by that time his dad and I made the decision to relocate to Abuja. He joined us there and fit in well as he got a teaching job in a private school somewhere in Gwarimpa and to God be the Glory hasn’t relapsed in two years now and we hope it stays permanently that way.

My eldest child and son’s health challenge started in 2007 while he was a medical student. His grades were poor which was an adjustment shock as he was very brilliant in secondary school. He was admitted in the Government Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Abuja as he was studying close to the capital city and has had three more hospitalizations since then in different government hospitals and a private one as well. He ended up switching courses to bio-chemistry which he thoroughly enjoyed. He did his NYSC and has changed jobs several times carefully managing it despite two relapses since his graduation.

His last relapse was his fault then as he got too religious after joining a new generation church and stopped taking his medication but that was three years ago and he has been fine since then diligently taking it on a daily basis.

He has been fine and is doing very well at work. Their sister is married and has made me a grand mother of two and it is my hope that my sons find good girls to marry as marriage is indeed a very beautiful thing.

When asked how I coped with such a stigmatizing disease when it afflicted my two beloved sons, I told them that God was my staying power and it has made me more compassionate with other people. I have also been leading a quiet vanguard for the ending of the stigma against the mentally challenged as for many of them it is not their fault. Life is too short to spew out so much hate and the world would be a better place as sung by the legendary music star, Michaeal Jackson if we can only heal it.

SOURCE: https://africavoiceshq.com/2022/03/09/my-cross-two-of-my-beloved-sons-are-mentally-challenged/

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