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Starting writing on Patient 12A literally helped save Lesedi Molefi’s life.
“I began writing Patient 12A because I was looking for a therapeutic opportunity,” he tells City Press. “In my family, we have a tradition of keeping diaries, so writing down my thoughts was a key part of my healing process during my stay at Akeso in 2016. I decided to turn it into a memoir after leaving.”
Molefi’s decision to document his time as a 25-year-old black professional in the mental health clinic, and to share with readers coping mechanisms for healing from depression and addictive behaviour, has produced the added benefit of seeing the work short-listed for this year’s biennial City Press-Tafelberg Nonfiction Award.
The winner will secure a publishing contract with Tafelberg and R120 000 to help them take time out to write their book.
He is the last of our five finalists that we are introducing to readers, alongside Tyrone August, Sara Black, Harry Kalmer and Nandipha Gantsho.
Molefi’s letter of motivation for the coveted prize begins: “By the time you had read the third word in this letter, one person had attempted suicide. By the third sentence, someone else had already taken their own life. This would add to the 14 deaths that occur by way of suicide daily in South Africa.”
Patient 12A is as detached as it is intimate and frank, refusing to wander into the territory of caricature while shaping its narrative voice. It plays out with a cast of real-life characters in a mental health clinic over 21 chapters that signify 21 days inside, finding tools for healing.
The judges for this year’s prize agree that mental health is a pressing issue of our time and that Molefi’s story will resonate profoundly, especially with younger readers of nonfiction.
“I chose to go for therapy when my lifestyle habits became increasingly harmful to myself, someone very close to me and the people I love,” he says.
“Writing helped me see my own twisty subjective thoughts from a second, more objective, point of view later on ... In a society with notoriously low levels of access to quality mental healthcare and a high incidence of trauma, an awareness of those coping techniques should be made popular through art.”
Molefi’s book proposal is unflinching in refusing to take easy routes, and it exposes the most intimate realities of his life.
“I’m going public in defiance of the stigma attached to mental illness. Screw that,” he says.
“Shame haunted most of us during our stay at Akeso. It should not. I want to normalise and demystify the process of seeking out help for mental health. Depression isolates you from those you love. I want to hit back at that sad fact. Sometimes, you need a ‘timeout’. This is the story of mine.”
Born in Johannesburg and moving all over the country as a child, Molefi is a writer, videographer, content strategist and entrepreneur. He says that his editorial and video work has covered a range of current affairs, pop culture and arts topics.
But Patient 12A is a labour of love that has become central to his work. When asked how the writing has worked on a level of providing coping mechanisms, he says: “I’m still figuring it out. It’s a lifelong thing, I’ve learnt. Meditation. Writing. Journalling. Having a healthy support system is crucial, but can be tricky. You need to choose the people you turn to for support very carefully, and be mindful of how you interact with those who do and do not offer you support.”
His proposed book, which will be his literary debut, is dedicated to his mother, Portia Olga Sekgaphane-Tshibanda.
“My first encounter with depression was not my own – I saw it in my family. In my mother mostly,” confesses Molefi. “As I got older, I saw it in many of my peers. I have been the puzzled observer, too. This book is also for those with loved ones who suffer from depression and anxiety; it kills human relationships. Fight back.”
A lover of words and images, Molefi says he is inspired by the output of some of South Africa’s most famous literary outsiders. He cites books including The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga, Penumbra by Songeziwe Mahlangu and The Quiet Violence of Dreams by K Sello Duiker as inspirational.
“I love how those writers were able to draw from their own experiences, which I can relate to, to answer giant questions about who they are and the world they live in.
