Here are some good examples of what life is like in Africa for people with schizophrenia. @gainesms I find it hard to believe that things are better there than here:
Abandoned by governments, forgotten by the aid community, neglected and abused by entire societies. Africans with mental illness in regions in crisis are resigned to the dark corners of churches, chained to rusted hospital beds, locked away to live behind the bars of filthy prisons.
Some have suffered trauma leading to illness. Others were born with mental disability. In countries where infrastructure has collapsed and mental health professionals have fled, treatment is often the same – a life in chains.
I started documenting the lives of the mentally ill in African countries in crisis in an attempt to raise awareness of their plight. I travelled to war ravaged areas of Congo, South Sudan, Mogadishu and Uganda. I spent time with the displaced in refugee camps in Somalia and Dadaab. In Nigeria I went to see the impacts of corruption on facilities for the mentally ill.
Even despite the chains, ropes and magic voodoo, their prognosis is still better than yours or mine, or anyone else on this website, for that matter. And that is a tragedy. Personally I have trouble understanding how anyone can question the validity of one of the most prestigious institutes in the world (the WHO) and trust Eli Lilly.
So you’d be ok if someone chained you and left you in a small shack with the overpowering smell of your own excrement? That would be better for you than antipsychotic treatment?
Wrong, I have been in the modern equivalent ie a single room with no furniture , a mattress on the floor and stripped of anything potentially harmful. There was no chaining and certainly no wallowing in excrement
i’ve never been in a padded room before and my mind is not chained,
i think if i was to describe my medication in that way i would call it my mental crutches , i remember a while back i called them chains and said that they were too tight bc i was over medicated but not now.
There’s a big difference between not living in the lap of luxury and being bound and/or chained. Even in a hovel if unbound/unchained there is freedom of movement.
I think you might not have read the captions under the photos:
Severely mentally disabled men and women are shackled and locked away in Juba Central Prison for years on end.
Abdi Rahman Shukri Ali, 26, has lived in a locked tin shack for two years.
This 14 year old boy has been tied up for six years. His mother refuses to have him admitted to Gulu Hospital which is only two kilometers away.
This relative would often beat, tie up and drag the patient when she did not obey his instructions.
They begged the photographer for food - they say they are only fed once a day, sometimes only once every 3 days.
A mentally ill woman is shackled to an engine part in Juba Central Prison. Juba, Sudan
Some are chained throughout their time there. In regions where both fortune and sickness are attributed to the spirit world, mental illness is considered a curse. Spiritual remedies are often sought, and chains regularly used as restraints
For 10 years he has been tied to a stick under the tarpaulin of a tent in a camp for Internally Displaced People in Galkay
…
How anyone can make out being bound and chained for days on end ,often wallowing in your own excrement,for simply being mentally ill, is a good thing and preferable to treatment with antipsychotics beggars belief.
at least they’ve got better weather though but i guess its nothing without freedom