Last week my 61 year old brother John was admitted to hospital in Johannesburg, paranoid and delusional. His shoulder bones were poking through his clothes and his ribs were clearly visible. He had no identity documents and was convinced he was someone else.
Like millions of his fellow South Africans he had no medical aid. A private hospital would have charged R50,000 (£2,500) to admit him so the friend I'd enlisted to find John took him under police escort to a state hospital where he was kept tied to a trolley in Casualty for three days before a bed became available in the acute psychiatric ward where he is still being assessed.
His situation is made worse by the fact that he will be homeless on his release, as his landlord has evicted him, and he has given his bank card and pin number to some unknown person who has emptied his bank account. It is almost impossible to absorb the enormity of the devastation that has ripped his world apart. A sudden mental-health breakdown has come like a thief in the night and struck him to pieces.
It wasn't always like this. I'd last spoken to my brother ten days previously, concerned that he'd begun to miss our Sunday phonecalls, and his regular email contact was becoming patchy. I knew that he'd lost the job he loved and excelled at - teaching art and design in a busy school - and was grieving the death of both his housemate from cancer as well as our mother, who died very suddenly last year, and that he'd fallen out with his oldest friend whom he usually saw every week.
All these losses plus isolation, money worries and unspoken fears seem to have tipped him out of normal reality into a parallel, distorted void in which he is now trapped. The diagnoses in his first ten days of confinement are equally terrifying: paranoid schizophrenia, toxic psychosis, delusional disorder.
I am all that's left of his nuclear family and I'm absolutely desperate and determined to fly out from England, where I live, to help him get the treatment and support he needs.
I can afford to fund my own airfare and absence from work until Christmas but cannot hope to cover the costs of my brother's recovery and rehabilitation. Public healthcare in South Africa is almost non-existent, very basic and hopelessly oversubscribed so his care will have to be funded by me. After much deliberation and soul-searching I'm making this crowdfunding appeal and asking for your support.
Every penny of the money raised will be spent on:
- emergency accommodation for John
- psychiatric treatment and ongoing therapeutic support
- living expenses until he stabilises and can support himself again (as he has done his whole working life)
- replacing missing property and identity paperwork
- reimbursing the friend who has paid for cleaning, clearing, moving and storing belongings, and his lost paid work due to constant liaison between John, the hospital and myself in the U.K.
My brother is no-one special. But he's my big brother and I've loved him since the day I was born. In all my 59 years we've never once fought or fallen out.
He was always my champion and my protector. He taught me to ride a skateboard and drive a car. He is intelligent, kind, funny and extremely talented. Is, not was.
Now he has no-one left to carry him except me. He ain't heavy, he's my brother. All I want to do is hug him so tight that all his broken pieces stick back together again, then help him get back on his feet and on with his life.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
- Nelson Mandela
Could you please help us by donating only an amount you can afford, and by forwarding this appeal to others?
I need it to reach as many people as possible through the ripple-effect of friends and helpful contacts and social media. We all know good people and if you have contacts in the arts, education or mental health worlds please, please forward this to them as well. Thank you so much.
This FundRazr crowdfunding site is 100% trustworthy and secure and you can donate an anonymous sum and/or remain anonymous yourself. Even the price of a cuppa will count. If you are unable to help, I completely understand: please hug someone in your family tight instead. Prayers, positive thoughts for John, healing and Reiki also very welcome.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart
Susanna Grace
