the lost mind

Named after the great physician,philosopher and scholar,the

tunisian psychiatric hospital , namely El Razi, was believed to be a place which holds a glimpse of hope for those suffering from mental illnesses. Yet, this image soon disappeared to become a fading memory, soon replaced by bleak reality, that of madness. It saddens me to hear of those, who not only suffers from self-estrangement, but they are also met with much indifference by people who are expected to understand them the most. A visit to that hospital would give you a better insight into their bitter life. I was shocked to learn from one of my friends who is a medicine student, that psychiatry is not only the less desired branch by med students, but is also the one where students with the lowest scores, in other words who were not accepted by other medical branches, are sent to. Imagine this! People who have the least interest in such a field are thrown into this chaos. I do not want to overgeneralize or judge. I do have respect for doctors who are out there spending their time and energy trying to fix what a life-time of pain and injustice have ruined. Yet, I cannot help but to express my outrage and disgust. Surprisingly, the tales of this hospital and its dwellers have been used as material of moral lessons or even worse of jokes. Over the years, their tales never ceased to awaken my thoughts. Over the years, I learnt how to forget or was it that I chose to? However, there are two moments kidnapped from the lives two patients, that I cannot forget. The first is about a suicidal patient who was often held in a solitary room since he could not be trusted around any sharp objects or other people. He was put all alone, isolated from others. Yet, they served him food with metal forks. He managed to hide a couple, which he used days later to cut the thin wire netting of the window and jump from a height that caused him immediate death. How can they be so ignorant? Metal forks? Another man climbed into those ventilating systems, and fell on his head. He remained there for a month before being found a rotten corpse. Sadly, it was the smell that made them find the dead body. It seems that they did not notice that a human being, a life was missing. Now, that I am not that child anymore, the physician El Razi crosses my way every day on my early morning bus ride. There, the philosopher, El razi stands with the pain of the lost mind, musing upon the failure of world that worships sanity. El Razi, the human being inside of you, I salute you for all chaos you have brought to make us believe in our insanity as part of being human.