One day we woke up and my mum was not in bed beside us. We went looking for her but couldn’t find her. This was seventeen years ago. My dad called my aunt and a search party was formed. Some people tried to find her through phone calls. Others also tried to find her by walking the streets. My younger brother started crying. I was also scared but I had to be strong for my brother. Hours of fear, and anxiety later, they found her and took her to her family’s home.

A few years before this incident happened, my mother started behaving strangely out of nowhere. She would babble about things that didn’t make sense. “Somebody wants to kill me,” she said sometimes. She moved from one prayer camp to another but nothing changed until she went missing that fateful morning. While all this was going on, I took on the role of a mother. I would prepare my younger for school and also went to school sometimes.

I would close from school at 4:00 PM and come home to meet foodstuffs which I would cook with. We had family from our father’s side but they never bothered to step in for my mum. My mother’s side didn’t live close but they made the effort to visit us once in a while.

For the past five years, this same thing that worried my mother is now disturbing my brother. He would leave home and roam places nobody knows. People would find him and bring him back but it would happen again. We have been to the police station several times because of him, to either file a missing person’s report or claim him after he had been found. So now we always keep him indoors.

He has never liked going to church from childhood so if this is a spiritual attack then it makes sense. I say this because, if my mum gets an attack today, my brother will get his tomorrow. My father and some of his siblings visited a spiritualist to find out the cause of their illnesses. They were told that it was a spiritual problem, caused by my mother’s side of the family.

What haven’t I done to alleviate this problem? If I heard of a powerful man of God, I would convince my mother to go with me. Whatever ritual or directions they instruct us to follow, we do it. We are willing to do whatever needs to be done to set her free. But so far, nothing we have tried has worked. It feels like we are casting seeds among rocks.

READ ALSO: He Was On His Way To Becoming A Catholic Priest When We Fell In Love

Today she would laugh with you, but tomorrow she would relapse and start saying heartbreaking things. She gets hallucinations among others. She was taken to the psychiatric clinic so she is currently on medication. We make sure she takes them daily to minimize the frequency of her episodes.

When it comes to the spiritual aspect, she has given up. She says she is tired of trying things that don’t work. I understand her. I am tired of those things too. But we can’t give up. There are things tormenting us. I believe a spirit sleeps with me. My mum too. She confessed it to me one day after an altercation between us. My dad also got into a terrible accident that almost took his life. These attacks have become so incessant that our livelihoods are affected. We want our freedom.

How To Marry A Woman From The Frafra Culture Of Ghana

Please, I need a prophet or someone who is deep in the things of the spirit to teach me what to do. I want to know how to set my family free from this bondage. Even if the person will give me guidance through a phone call, I wouldn’t mind.

—T.K

If you have a compelling story to share with us, you can email it to us at [email protected] or send us a voice note on WhatsApp number 0593290182.

#SB