Patient 12A: A Memoir, by Lesedi Molefi

So here I am, at a psychiatric hospital, looking for myself in a building I’ve never been in before. A few nights ago, I was ready to rid myself of myself. I still am, only, in a different way. There is a promise written on the hospital’s walls: ‘You are the captain of your soul’. I'm alarmed they don't read 'On your 10th day here, you will be cured forever; or your money back.' Instead they appeal to us to 'Remember why you started.' But I don't know what is wrong with me, I never have. All I know is that my head is clouded with loud voices screaming in different frequencies; none of them making sense. With only a stony face to hide it all behind, and a pained smile to offer my friends and colleagues. I need a time-out.

Patient 12A is Lesedi Molefi’s absorbing memoir, reflecting on his time spent in a psychiatric clinic in 2016. With vulnerability and candour, Lesedi reflects on the moments, large and small, that led him here. It is at once a personal history, an observation of how childhood experiences can have a profound effect on the adults we become, and a commentary on how mental illness remains a difficult conversation in black families. More than anything, in Patient 12A Lesedi allows himself to filter out the noise in his head to find the truth, however
uncomfortable that may be.