The miserable situation of a 90-year-old woman raising a mentally ill son

Anyone who has visited Mr. Tam (also known as Mr. Kien) next to the Gia Hoi hamlet cultural house, Thanh Tien commune, cannot help but feel sad when seeing the family situation of the mother and son. In the dilapidated 3-room wooden house, the inner room has a small bed for Mr. Kien to lie on, the two outer rooms are empty, where Mr. Nguyen Van Tai (46 years old) - the son of Mr. Tam is chained to the house pillar.

Mr. Kien said: Before, this middle room was the place to worship ancestors, but since Tai got seriously ill, when he had a seizure he often broke everything, so the altar had to be moved to the eldest son's house.

Mr. Kien and his mentally ill son. Photo: Huy Thu

On a burnt-out mat spread out in the middle of the house, a shirtless man, eyes half-closed, lay curled up, occasionally shouting a few words: “Give me some water”; “Give me some cigarette”… At times like that, Mr. Kien would rush to get water and medicine for his son. Mr. Tai often held a cigarette to write and draw on the floor, muttering, sometimes letting the cigarette burn the mat.

Mr. Kien said: That year, after finishing 9th grade for a few months, he noticed that his son had changed his personality, laughing and talking erratically. His family took him to many hospitals for treatment. The doctors diagnosed him with mental illness, but the more he took medicine, the worse his condition did not improve, but became worse.

In the early years of his illness, Mr. Tai was still healthy, walking normally, and sometimes he went home while being treated in the hospital. Around 1995-1996, he became seriously ill and was no longer aware of his surroundings. In the following years, he began to wander around, and when he had a fit, he became violent, destroying everything, destroying houses, beds, and stabbing people in the neighborhood with knives...

Unable to deal with their son's illness, Mr. Kien's family had to use iron chains to chain their son's legs to the house pillars to prevent him from moving around, especially from destroying things and disturbing the neighborhood.

Mr. Kien's son has had his hands and feet chained to a house pillar for more than ten years. Photo: Huy Thu

For more than ten years, Mr. Kien has been taking care of his bedridden son. Every day, he has to worry about food, water, bathing, cleaning, laundry... His son has lived like a soulless person, unable to control his own activities. In the two outer rooms, the mat for Mr. Tai to lie on is moved around the house pillar, wherever it gets wet it is moved to a dry place.

According to Mr. Kien, before he let his son lie on the bed, but when he had a fit, Tai broke the bed, used the bed bolt to break the door, and poked the tiles, so he had to be put on a mat. At first, his left leg was chained, then his right leg. Because of the long chaining, his ankles often blistered and ulcerated, so he had to be chained by hand, and so on, alternating between hand and foot chaining.

Mr. Kien loves his son, but now he can only swallow his tears. Photo: Huy Thu

On sunny days, Mr. Tai often had fits of screaming and breaking out. One day, when Mr. Kien brought food and water, he was knocked over, even pushed down in the middle of the house. On cold, rainy nights, the poor son would curl up in a corner of the house, and after being coaxed to put on clothes, he would search for a blanket to cover him.

He even personally cut his son’s hair and shaved his beard. “My son is sick like this, and even if he can’t be cured, we have to accept it. We can’t do anything else. As long as we’re alive, we have to take care of him,” Mr. Kien shared.

According to Mr. Kien, he and his wife had 5 children, except for Mr. Tai who was sick, the rest had their own families, most of them lived in the commune, but conditions were still difficult. Many times, out of pity for their mother, the children and grandchildren asked him to come live with them, but he could not leave his youngest son in the house and go live somewhere else.

Seeing the 90-year-old mother struggling to carry a basin of water from the yard to bathe her son chained to a pillar, many people could not help but feel sympathy for her family situation and admiration for the motherly love she has for her son.

Every day, she has to cook, clean, and do laundry for her children herself. Photo: Huy Thu

Mr. Tran Dinh Son - Head of Gia Hoi hamlet, Thanh Tien commune said: Mrs. Kien's family is in a particularly difficult situation, a long-time poor household in the hamlet. Now she is old but still has to take care of her mentally ill child who is bedridden. The situation of mother and child is in great need of the community's help.