Can Watching TV Be Therapeutic?

We’ve been watching In Treatment. An American TV series shot entirely within the confines of a therapist’s office. (The entire script is adapted from the Israeli show Be Tipul) It’s addictive and engrossing. J has even been glued to it, and he has no suspension of disbelief, meaning he normally hates any fictional drama series.

Throughout my life I’ve had friends in therapy. I felt like it was some sort of club I didn’t really need, had no clue how to join, but had a morbid curiousity about. I wondered whether there could truly be a formula where peoples’ lives could be spoken – like puzzle pieces poured onto a table - and with a therapist’s presence, reflecting the words back upon the wounded one like a mirror, the puzzle would fit together and the person would emerge cured…

In as much as a TV show reflects the reality of our lives, the series illustrates the fact that there is no secret at all. That therapists are not special nor gifted. That they have neuroses of their own, that they can be weak and impulsive and damaged. That they cannot see the patterns they theorize about, when it comes to their own lives. In essence, that they are just one of us. Normal in their imperfections.

This is depressing and elating at once.

At the end of the season 1, the hero, our therapist, decides finally to follow his heart, professing his love for a patient with whom the sexual tension has been palpable throughout the series. He visits her house, enters her bedroom and … has an anxiety attack on the edge of the bed. He begins to sweat uncontrollably and gasp for air. He flees.

I never believed in anxiety attacks when I was younger. I grew up with the impression that most psychological problems were just melodramatic self absorption. This was easy to believe. Easier than facing the possibility that life’s experiences could damage our minds, our hearts, our souls.

One day a few months after my six year old son died inexplicably in my arms, I found myself at the bottom of a pool of air, forgetting how to breath it in, how to stand, how to walk. I was gripped with panic at the thought of walking down the stairs, sipping water, living another moment. In my mind, I knew that something had to give. I would have to pass out or vomit or die.

I had an anxiety attack. I found myself on the side of the road in my car, on the streets of Accra, in a neighborhood I knew well. Lost, out of breath and terrified. I had to call a friend to come and save me.

I knew then that the mind was a delicate organ and I was so scared that mine was tipping into the uncontrollable. Turning against me. I have never been more frightened about my own sanity. I needed a miracle.

I wanted a therapist to soothe my shaking psyche. To talk me through my own mine field of experience. To make me better.

I came to realise that the choice was inside me. The strength to pull up and out of the abyss. Time is a healer, more than a $150 an hour psychotherapist.

Their theories and the incessant talking about memories and feelings are all stabs in the dark to help us, but in the end, futile without us. I have lost the naive belief in external cures. I am much more in awe of the human brain now though, and how it reacts to the blows of reality. I will never venture to judge again...

But my morbid curiousity is not abated. I have realised that watching the therapy dynamic is fascinating in it’s inaccuracy, interplay, and raw emotion. It makes brilliant television.

Ode to an Old Soul : For the Grand Mother who has gone

My grandmother died last night.

Most will send condolences and imagine the cordial service at a local church.

Some will picture her 93 year old frame, frail and dusty, giving in without resistance to the reaper’s grasp.

None will imagine her as the hero, bagging carrots in a factory until each finger bent irrevocably under the burden. Single handedly putting two boys through school on a pittance wage.

None will know how she loved Boy George later, his energy and crazy hair, and kept his poster on the back of her guest bedroom door in her tiny apartment with the slanted walls…

They will sit quietly at her funeral service, hands in their laps, listening to the generic words of the priest - not knowing that she was vibrant and alert, not so long before, and painfully aware of the limitations of her failing parts.

They won’t realise that she kept the family memories alive and well in her mind – she had the sharpest memory I’ve known. S at up in her hospital bed two months ago, head crusted with blood from where she’d fallen, body hunched and dry and so tiny… she said to me matter-of-factly:

“I’m 35 years old in here” (pointed at her heart)

“Getting old is annoying. People talk loudly to me. But I’m the same person I was at 35, just got stuck in this old body”


And it struck me.

So many are afraid of old people. They fear the fragility, as like a mirror, it fortells the future. It forces us to face our own mortality and the sickly smell of urine, warm and without dignity, that characterizes the demise into old age. It repells us.

We see them so often as already gone – mentally, physically. Many will not look for that flicker in their eye, that could reveal a person to relate to and understand. A person who has loved and been loved.

But it struck me when my gramma said this to me. I looked deep into her eyes, and there she was. Lover of shortbread cookies and the best baker of them in the world. A mother, a sister, a soul that I could relate to. It was a reminder that one day, this could be me.

I wanted to reach out to her, to hug her so tightly. But she’s never been the affectionate type. And her body had grown so skeletal (from the bad food, according to her), that I had to resist. To just be content to be in her presence. A woman who I’d grown up with. Who I had always loved, and who in that moment, I was so connected to.

And then I had to fly away, as I do, and the news came of her continued weakness.

The nurses hovering around her, a patient number on their rounds, chatting amongst themselves, lifting body parts and replacing them mechanically.

They didn’t know who she really was. I suppose they didn’t have time to look.

And as the talking around her got louder, she became quieter and more still. Her breathing got more shallow and her body started to shut down.

She slipped into a sleeping state. She was tired. I wasn’t there, but I know she was too tired to carry on. What with the annoying oxygen tube they put across her little face, and the sores on her legs refusing to give her a moment’s peace.

She decided to go, my grandmother did.

And as with everything in her life, she knew her own mind and she did what needed to be done.

But for us weaker ones left behind, I only hope we can do her legacy justice. Her soul escaped our world and left an emptiness we now hold.

Go well Gramma, we will remember you for the wonderful woman you were. No generic lip service from me. I love you forever.

Letters to Shiloh - the anatomy of loss

Forks stab through soft flesh at plates, wine stains lips…

The dinner conversation lulls. I invite you in. Bursting in my mind, you are up to your mischief, a perfect story for the crowd.

You dance behind my eyes, and flirt with the room. You are alive in my animation.
I recall your stubborn beauty, the countenance with which you revered no one and the world at once. You tell us all with such charisma what defines you.

Your brother hears you and he lights up. Ever so briefly. But then he resumes chewing. Eyes cast downward. He is worried about me. Worried that you might spill out and push over my glass of wine. Splattering red like a crime scene across the white expanse of the table.

The other guests are nervous. I want them to love your antics but they wonder at the mother. A woman who could unhinge in the whirlwind of what they think is a memory.

Everyone feels trapped. By your beauty and my sorrow that bubbles underneath.

You aren’t at the table and I am the only one who doesn’t know it. Cannot see the dust reflecting in the light where you would have peeked up from underneath. Your brown hand, soft, warm, quick is not pulling at the tablecloth, toppling the fragile china. There is no reprimand for you. Only a fleeting pity for the mother.

A woman who knows a crushing void that cannot be filled by dinner conversation or the best Shiraz. A woman who lies so still in the night, straining to hear your voice in the still counterexistence of darkness.

You have not quieted in your absence. Still playing with me – dragging me to the point of tears with ease, triggered by one line from your favourite song on the radio.

Your crimson spirit so sharp, so elusive you make me crave the fiery child you were, and the boundless essence you will always be.

But for now there is dessert to serve and I must reassure the guests. I have to let go of the kite strings for now. I slump slightly in my chair, my excitement abated. The conversation resumes and turns swiftly back to the weather.



Art piece from Strange Skeletons Abstract Art, piece called Overwhelming Grief

5 Years since you've been gone: on visiting the cemetery

It was so difficult those first couple years, arriving at Osu cemetery, full of dread and love sick for the want of you. Incredulous that this place, wedged between the football stadium and the conference centre, scene of so many funerals, where swarms of black and red clad mourners and hangers on gathered, and the traffic piled up – could house you, my baby, my son.

Each time we emerged from the car, we were swarmed by the gangs of cemetery boys who spend their days sleeping on the grave stones and smoking marijuana.

I was floored as we battled our way through the crowd of them, jostling, each fighting for the tip they’d get to show us ‘our grave’.

I stumbled along the muddy path, blurry eyed, deep into the forest, serenaded by swooping moths and with the street-fight banter of the boys behind us, urging us onward.

John’s hand, a warm reassurance, tugged at me ever so slightly to the left, off the main path, toward your grave.

I was dizzy with grief and the pungent smell of weed, as the smoke wafted up in tufts, swirling through the green green forest roof, captive like us, under the oppressive heat. The rot of leaves and bodies left a stain inside me. Even now I can conjure up the smell, the sound…

A few boys would run ahead of the others, shouting your tribal name, “Kpakpo!”, and the others, “Kpakpo Mingle!”. “Madam, this way-o, follow me, I will show you.”

We clambered over other people’s graves, some smooth polished, others caved in completely, the name barely visible.

The boys would jump, triumphant when they found you. They tore rabidly at the wild vines that had smothered the site, ripping them from their roots in a frenzy to please me, to ensure a good ‘dash’.

I was too weak to argue, to shout, “GET AWAY FROM ME, FROM US! HOW DARE YOU INVADE MY SPACE AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!” Instead, I blinked away tears and nodded. Docile, non-present.

And then I would be faced with a terrazzo block, rectangular, with a raised panel, it had your name, misspelled though it was, written across the front in bold black letters. And below it, “6 YEARS OLD”. And each time I see it, even in my mind’s eye, I weep.

6 years old, yet gone. And I could not find you there at all. I sat at the edge of the cool stone, above the earth that houses your body below. And I felt nothing. And I knew you were not there. Not dumped into the hungry ground, part of a chain of decay and growth.

You, being the soul that dazzled my days, and the light that screamed out from your eyes – this earth cannot hold you.

And I looked up, through the maze of branches and saw a glimpse of sky. Through the tears I saw you in not seeing you at all. My baby, you shine down now.



And after John mechanically took out his camera and recorded the event, I stood and walked numbly back, staring at the red mud under my feet, even as he negotiated with the boys who hovered close by, how much each would get, who helped most, who was most aggressive.

I needed to protect the fragility of my mind and my bleeding heart. I flew up above and left my walking shell, the robot below to make its way back to the waiting car.

And since then I visit rarely. No reason to feed the boys; to tear at the eager vines. Leave them rather, to their lives, to that cycle of decay and growth.

You and I, we are out of that circle. We are free now. You above, and me here for now – meeting in dreams and in the laugh of children. Meeting as we do in the aisles of the supermarket through memories. You remind me of the times we chose which face on the hair dye boxes we would be, and of course which one was John, and we’d laugh – and there I stand with a knowing smile on my mouth, in my eyes, you shine.

Shiloh Nights

In the hours where night blurs the lines of day, and the laws of physics and form are soft and pliable, I often float to you.

I call out and find you, elusive and ageless. The energy of your smile dazzles and carries me into a new place where you comfort me with your presence. You take the form I know, the soft downy boy’s body I crave and adore, you come back to spend some time with me and fill my heart with just enough, so I can keep going in the day, when you’ve gone.

This is my secret – our night meetings where I give you your favourite biscuits and watch the crumbs on your tiny lips. Where your laughter is pure sunshine and your voice is an angel’s. My angel.

Last night you were three. All the memories of you then, so little, came flooding back...
And though it was such a short visit, and you slept in another room, I needed you and you came. I held your tiny warm hand. I draw around your fingernails with my mind. The rough skin at the edge of each round nail, the soft pad of your palms. I breathed you in and held my breath. Though I dreamt a regular dream, somehow we both knew that you had come to help. That I needed your eyes, your skin, your little soul.

And days that hold a silence and a dull gray emptiness, I find myself alone in the car, your song will tease me from the radio, “I will go down with this ship, and I won’t put my hands up and surrendah” I hear your proud little voice singing along. But it is only a memory and the reality of day pierces my senses. Tears roll down my helpless face.



It is only our secret nights where ‘real’ is weak and love is stronger, that I am strengthened. Your power my boy, is bigger than I and this shallow world that you have left.

I love you like my baby and respect you far beyond. At once you are gone and yet you haven’t left me.

When my brave face laughs and I feel the happiness of love, the joy of good friends and good food and the tickle of a gentle breeze, you are the one I cling to inside.

I know in a way that only mystery can answer, that we have traded places. I took care of you here, I wiped your tears away and cuddled you at night, and now you take care of me – soothing my fears and cuddling me in that special place where night blurs the lines of day.

Eleven years ago today Shiloh came into this world.

...sequel to yesterday's post...

I had gathered all my things the afternoon before, and made the two minute walk (or waddle in my case at the time), down the road to the back entrance of the hospital. All the kids from the compound were in tow, each carrying something, quite proud and happy to be part of the event and journey. At the hospital gate the guard tried to shoo them all away, but a few were allowed to follow me inside.

After the formalities of paying for everything, from bed space to intravenous bags, my Canadian friend and confidante, T and I were led to a fairly clean, private room.



We sat on the bed and chatted. We imagined what the baby would be like, what the birth would be like. My nerves ebbed and flowed.

In the evening my husband brought Kobi (Q) down the road to be with me. We all sat, we chatted. I hugged my boy. The nurse came and told me visiting hours were over. This was it. I was to be alone until the next day, after by baby was born.

I felt instantly terrified and sentimental. I wanted my family back. Aunty Maude! My mom. I’m sure I curled as much as I could into a ball and cried myself to sleep, hugging my belly and gathering the strength and bond the two of us needed for the next day.

In the morning I was wheeled down to the surgery ward, past the busy lobby, through the morning prayer being observed by all, made the obligatory stop and then proceeded to a smaller quieter lobby with a few people lying and sitting somberly on the hard benches.

The waiting ensued. I was supposed to be scheduled for 9am surgery, but on GMT (Ghana Maybe Time), I knew this was to be far later.

I was uncharacteristically calm. Serene. Baby thumped now and then to say hello and comfort me, in light of the dangerous events that we were about to submit ourselves to.

There was gathering momentum around the surgery as the time got closer, with nurses and other uniformed strangers moved in and out of the worn swinging doors. I was acutely aware of the dusty floors and hand marks on the walls and doors. Would they use sterile equipment? Would they handle any crisis that might arise with level headed expertise? Would they treat my baby with love and care while I lay there in a drug induced sleep?

The time came, the big white hospital wall clock showed five past ten, and a nurse came to collect my receipts. She pointed to a rickety wheelchair. “Get in”. I obeyed.

The room was blindingly bright. The light drowned out the dirt in the corners, and reassured me. It looked like a real surgery room.

I was heaved up onto a cold table while people shuffled around me. Soon I was connected to an IV and I remember asking semi-frantic questions about how long the procedure would take, where I’d wake up, did they promise to take care of my baby. I was largely ignored.

I looked around for my doctor, who appeared seconds before they injected the sleeping serum. His smile gave me an instant sense of calm. He was cool and collected and had an air of much needed authority. The curdled nervous mess of my insides became a smooth silky pudding. I slipped away while staring right into his eyes. All a mother’s trust thrown across the cold room in a glance that faded away with me.

I woke up dazed, with a heavy thudding pain in my middle. My eyes seemed crusty and my mouth was a harsh unforgiving desert. As I became aware of my surroundings I realized I was in a hospital room. There were three other people to my left. One groaned loudly. This sound was probably what brought me around from the groggy underworld. I wondered in a panic whether I’d been in an accident, what was wrong, why was I here?
Then as my mind caught up with my panic, I remembered everything and it all came rushing to me and up through my throat and formed into a frog-like yelp, “My baby!”
I’d apparently disturbed my bed-mates. One turned to me and talked loudly, as if I were deaf or a small child,

“You are in a hospital. You are fine. People are sick here, please do not shout.”

“Someone call the nurse that the obruni (white person) has woken up.”

Me: “But where is my baby? Where is my baby? I want to see my baby!” I was quite emotional, demanding, frantic. I feared the worst. What if I’d made it and the baby hadn’t? Why was I in a room with sick people? Why not the maternity ward?!

A nurse eventually appeared in the doorway, slouching against the doorframe, she looked at me with heavy lidded eyes. “Madam, you have to stop shouting! You will pull your stitches.” Her voice came across flat, monotone, slightly annoyed.

I was incredulous that no one would respond to my question. I started to cry. No one reacted. One of the other patients made a point of loudly turning over to face away from me. I was sure the baby was gone and that this was the dawning of the worst day of my life.

The nurse left the room and walked slowly down the hallway, her slothly footsteps becoming quieter and quieter, until they were gone. I was so alone, so afraid, so helpless. I considered getting up to go and ask someone in charge. I tried to move but was instantly overcome by shooting pains as my body attempted to twist. That was not going to be possible. There was nothing I could do but wait.

I called through my tears to each person who passed the room. No one was willing to help. Maybe they thought I was crazy. Maybe I was. I began to wonder. Where was my husband and my Kobi? Why wouldn’t they visit me? I checked the clock and it was after 1pm.

This was easily the most lonely I’ve felt ever, and it was the deepest, despairing emptiness that I shudder to recall it at all.

Then an angel appeared. A Canadian friend called G. I heard her sharp accent in the hallway and my anticipation of her arrival at the door was palpable. She appeared in the doorway, her face alive and bright, a huge basket with balloons and gifts and sweets in her arms. She looked so out of place in this dismal ward.

Her expression turned instantly dark once she saw my tear stained face and looked around the room. Still she came to me, dumped the basket and hugged me. Despite the pain, I grabbed onto her and the warmth of her embrace filled me to the brim. Definitely one of the best hugs I’ve ever had. I drank her in. Then she got to business and I was beyond grateful.

“Where is the baby?!” “why are you in here?”

All I could do was shake my head as more tears welled up and spilled, hot and frustrated down my puffy cheeks.

She squeezed my hand and assured me she’d go sort out everything and she ran down the hall.

I could hear her firm and then raised voice as she questioned the lethargic nurses down the hall. She was demanding, shouting now. And then silence. I bit my lip and waited some more.

An indescribably long time after that, she reappeared. Still alone but with a smile that gave me hope for the first time since I’d awoken.

“Well my dear, you are the proud mother of a healthy baby boy!”

I could have kissed her face off. My eyes lit up, by heart soared.

Me: “Where is he?”

G: “The nurses are just washing him and will have him up here in just a couple minutes, or I’ll go straight back down there and get him myself”.

She then went to work to gather up the shattered pieces of my sanity and cleaned me up, in anticipation for the arrival of my little king, Shiloh.

Three nurses came padding much faster than usual up the passage way and I heaved myself up into sitting position. I was gripped with both childlike wonder and a violent maternal desire to protect her young. Bring me that baby!!

And there he was! Wrapped all tight in a soft cotton blanket. His chubby tan face shining out the top. My baby! I devoured him. Grabbed the bundle of him and smothered him with a thousand kisses.

I felt in a bubble. I could hear nothing. The world was just me and my news.
I was at once amazed, frightened, ecstatic and numb. My baby boy had arrived!



They wheeled in a clear plastic bassinet for him to sleep beside me but I had no intention of letting him go again.

G had a mobile phone and we were able to call my mother. I barely said a word, and just managed to blurt out that the baby was a boy and that he was so sweet. I cried and smiled and blubbered. She did the same on the other end of the line…

I wanted to feed him right away but was informed by ‘nurse wretched’ that it wasn’t necessary as they’d given him a bottle of glucose syrup. I was furious. But at least he was with me.

Then G told me about her experience with the nurses downstairs. She had wandered around the surgeries and eventually found Shiloh, alone and unwashed, lying in a cold plastic bassinet. She was appalled and ran out calling wildly to the nurses. They were in a lunchroom, greedily pawing kenkey, fresh pepper and fish from a shared eating bowl. When she asked why the baby had not been cleaned and brought to his mother they casually explained it was lunchtime. I was beyond furious at the story, but at least he was with me.



I mentioned to G that I was sad and concerned my husband and Kobi had not come in yet to visit, she told me that they were refusing all visitors since it was not yet official visiting hours. I was furious, but at least Shi was with me.

Then G went to the nurses, now that she’d quickly developed a reputation as a no-nonsense obruni, and she demanded to know why I was placed in a room with sick patients. Apparently there was no room in the other ward. I couldn’t believe it! The man beside me had a rotting foot. My ailing roommates resented my eventual flow of visitors and Shiloh’s deep newborn cry. I was upset, but at least Shi was with me.

And when, in the night I had to call for the nurses help to use a bedpan, with the man beside me gawking, the nurse annoyed and unhelpful, my stitches pulling and stretching with excruciating pain, I was embarrassed and fuming inside, but at least I had my Shiloh with me.



Happy Birthday Shiloh. 11 years ago you arrived, causing me turmoil, crushing me with worry that I wouldn’t see you, and filling my life with more than a mother could ever ask, once you came. Beautiful, boisterous, ‘bad boy’. You charmed me from that first moment, and had me entranced every day thereafter. I only wish, more than a mother could imagine, that I had you here with me today.
>>>>>>>>>
Shiloh Devon Nii Kpakpo Mingle – January 9th, 1999 – June 22, 2005.
We miss you ‘like harmattan paw paw’. Every moment since you left us here without you.

Happy Birthday Shiloh

My amazing boy Shiloh died 4 years ago at 6 years old. What a statement, yet it's true. Today he would have been 10 years old. I can barely believe it.

I am crushed at times by the bitter sadness of not having him around us everyday.

But there's nothing better than celebrating those you love, and today I send all my love out to the universe for Shiloh.

A very special person sent me some words to live by today, that I share below:

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ~From a headstone in Ireland

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran

Grief is eternal but love is stronger

Today is a tough day. I sit at my desk, busying myself with the unimportant, while the undercurrent within me threatens to surge, up through my pounding heart,through my tight throat that fights back with jolted swallows - all the way up into my face, overflowing - my eyes, the tiny openings through which all the feelings will brim over.

Tomorrow marks exactly three years since Shiloh left us. Since I have not held his warm hand or fallen into the warm dark pool of his shining eyes. Of course it is unfathomable not to have my son here with me. It is the stuff of nightmares, and horror films pale in comparison. To even put in black and white the word 'death' - it is so difficult. So very unnatural.

So the only way to approach the reality that faces me is to remember. To celebrate the short time we had. To laugh and smile and hug those who are still here. We all miss him. We all will remember. Always.

I've dragged out an old poem because it is my best tribute to my amazing Shiloh.


For Shiloh

If you were a farmer you’d plant pumpkins

Huge orange nuclear blast pumpkins!

If you were a singer you would wear a white suit and carry a shiny ebony walking stick

You’d have a purple satin handkerchief in your pocket on display

And you’d wear a fedora to match the suit

You would tip the hat forward and wink at all the ladies as you took over the stage…

If you were a bird you would soar higher than happiness

And deeper than 6 oceans

You would grace the sky of my mind with indigo paint brush wings

Touch my cheek so briefly and float on past

Making speed look like a breeze

If you were pink candy floss

You would melt and still be crunchy in my teeth

Fresh and warm and comforting

But you would disappear if I tried to hold you

On my tongue

I would be left with the remnants of u

You cannot be held

You are more than man and mountains below u are small

Though I can’t see u

I feel your red sports car energy

With a yellow lightning stripe down your soul that can only be glimpsed as you

Pass in an instant...