When Love Burns: Living Through the Fire of a Spouse’s Mental Breakdown

A haunting, heartfelt journey through psychosis, survival, and the vows that refuse to die.

Simon had reported and fairly settled in his new job. Bubbling with excitement. It was on a Friday. He had just enjoyed a sumptuous meal with his new colleagues. They had taken him to one of the restaurants they frequented for lunch.

As the Production Manager of a prestigious food manufacturing company, he held an enviable position. He tracked the processing of confectioneries from raw materials to their finished form. They were then ready for placement at their various client shopping malls and supermarket chains.

He had 20 years of experience in the food sector. He was well poised to help his employer reclaim his market niche. His employer faced a 2-year period of battling insolvency. There was also stiff competition from rival multinationals that had also pitched tent in Kenya.

His tasks ranged from quality assurance. He managed workflow. Working with various teams along the production process. Ensuring that daily, weekly, and monthly targets were reached or exceeded. Simon was on a high-pressured job.

On this Friday, a few hours into his busy schedule, he got a text from his neighbor Jane. She was famously known as Mama Mboga. Thanks to her fresh grocery shop. He had struck an instant friendship with her after moving into that neighborhood two months back.

That instant shone a glimpse into the cracks in their marriage. Work stress had worn Simon thin long before.

The text was capitalized and read, ‘PLEASE COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND DO NOT DELAY’. Jane wasn’t the kind that sent texts like the Gen Z of today.

Most times she would call Simon if she needed to communicate. She called him about issues ranging from school, where his two children and her two children studied. She also called to invite him for weddings, funds drives, or funerals.

Simon was in the middle of a verification process in the Production unit. He only managed to reach out to his phone after the beep. Checked the flash message and resumed to conduct his quality control tasks.

The content of the text message remained in his mind. He intended to call back as soon as he exited the unit.

He prepared to write his remarks on the daily register for the staff-in-charge. Suddenly, the office messenger came in quickly. Hurried over and whispered into his ear. Then, he left the same way he had arrived.

The HR Manager called Simon urgently. Telling him to leave everything he was handling and report to his office immediately.

It had only been two months since Simon joined the company. Was it a performance, disciplinary, or insubordination issue? What would warrant such HR quick summon? Was he being dismissed?

His mind ran wild with imaginations. He wondered why and how two people (the HR and Jane) would ask him to leave what he was doing. They didn’t know each other, at least as far as he knew. Both insisted he should not delay.

The HR Manager was a trained counsellor. A key asset in the company. Attending to staff performance, motivation and social issues with a gold touch. He clearly expected Simon to be in panic mode on arriving in his office. His first role was to calm Simon down.

‘So, Simon how’s your day so far’? ‘How’s your family’? ‘How are the kids and your wife’? Icebreaker questions that Simon was subjected to. But, he was too smart not to realize that the HR Manager was only buying time.

He was trying to find an emotional entry point. To un-glove his iron or velvet fist.

He was sure it would be an iron fist. That morning, the HR Manager received a call from Simon’s neighbor. The neighbor informed him that the neighbors were enraged with Simon’s wife. She had set ablaze their house. The fire spread into the neighborhood. There were 16 one-bedroom houses constructed with prefab technology. Two rows of 8 units each.

From the corner of his eye, he could see the radiant Production Manager shrink into a torso. As though life had just been snuffed out of him.

The hard truth was that 8 units were ablaze. No amount of jerry-can or hose-pipe water could drench the fury of the flames.

Simon’s heart sank low. It wasn’t because of the 8 housing units. Neither was it the enraged neighbors. Either way, they would sue or stigmatize him in that neighborhood. His past had hardened him to either options.

What worried him? This was the fourth time his wife had set their house ablaze. She did it this time on a grand scale.

Many times he arrived home in evening, exhausted. Just as any absorbed professional would. And sensed something was off. Meg, his wife, had begun to drift. Her vibrant spirit slipping into unrecognizable shadows.

Simon had kept his family and social affairs away from his professional life. He exuded the grit of a middle level and upwardly mobile career professional. His contribution was exceptional in quality assurance standards.

His impressive academic credentials from a prestigious higher education institution in India clothed his skeletons. Coupled with 20 years hands-on experience. He managed the production of a wide range of foods and drinks. From raw materials of wheat, maize, fruits and nuts.

His achievements masked the pain and struggles of a man.

Married to a wife suffering from severe mental disorder. Meg did odd things. Locked herself in the wardrobe. Erupted in verbal and physical violence. And consistently threatened self-harm. Simon kept it close.

Each of these episodes sent Simon into a trance. He reflected on the turbulent journey that his marriage to his high school sweetheart had become.

Meg had lived through teenage hood without any signs of difficulty in concentration. She showed no burdensome anxiety. No unusual thoughts, or beliefs. No indications of anything that would typically characterize early stages of psychosis.

She was social. Charming. Radiant. Exuberant and extremely intelligent. Her performance in school was sterling. None of her teachers or learners ever raised any cases of truancy or indiscipline. Her parents prided themselves in a girl who excelled in every competition.

This included debates at her high school, zonal, and division levels.

Meg was flawless. Poised to be the best in Ngara Girls High School. The greatest and the queen of her world with every area of her talent and interest. She would stand in the hall of fame, someday.

Dating Simon was the perfect match, or so it appeared. Living in the same neighborhood since they were kids provided the right environment to attend the same primary school. Play the same games and share childhood friends.

It was while she was in her second year in campus that Simon asked for her hand in marriage.

He felt threatened by the insecurity of distance.

He feared that she would hobnob with the middle class from the up market suburbs.

They had plenty of fun. Jointly attending numerous social, family and church functions during college holidays. By the time they were announcing their plans for a wedding, it was not news. Even the birds at the Nairobi Arboretum knew it.

Right after their wedding Meg asked if she could be a stay-at-home wife. It first appeared strange to Simon. Caught up in the excitement, he was eager to please his young bride. He saw no harm in being the man who provides for the family.

In any case, in the patriarchal society that the Jews, Greeks, Hebrews and Pastoralists lived in, men were the hunters. Women were gatherers.

A year waned off. Nothing spectacular caught the attention of this newlywed couple. Even their close friends or family members noticed nothing remarkable.

However, Meg was slowly withdrawing from both family and friends. She was overly reactive to Simon. She became more determined to isolate herself. Forming a cocoon around herself. She started losing every emotional bond with her immediate family. Staying indoors most of the time.

In the highly competitive and pressurized work environment, Simon was knee-deep in his career. By the time he got home in the evenings, he was too dilapidated to have any meaningful conversation with Meg or notice her impaired and dysfunctional thought patterns

She was slowly, but actively losing contact with external reality. Sometimes she would sleep in the living room. Afraid that the roof in the bedroom would collapse in the night.

In the middle of this disconnection, they conceived their first child. And that pregnancy is not anything that Simon would like to remember.

The unborn infant seemed to be the double barrel. A trigger for all the wrong hormones and thoughts. Besides, a host of other risk-taking behavior that Simon had never imagined. He would at times find Meg locked up in the wardrobe. On being queried she would turn violent and threaten with abortion.

This was only in the second year of their marriage.

Simon felt like a man adrift in fog. Convinced of curses. Yet, fearful to speak with anyone. Lest they both get ostracized. He read many books on pregnancy. All the while preparing for parenting. After this, he thought the constellation of weird traits would be eliminated once the newborn arrived. 

Hoping the pregnancy’s end would heal her. Instead, Meg skipped antenatal visits, consuming little or only junk food, and shunned care that kept them safe. Rumours swirled of her eerie silence and altered behaviour.

Friends whispered. Neighbours stared. 

So, what does one do when their spouse stops functioning well? Who do you turn to? Given the stigma around mental disorders.

Like the father of Jesus, Simon hatched a plan to leave Meg secretly. Not once, but many times. His conscience would not allow him. He remember their marriage vows, ‘for better, for worse’ and ‘for richer, for poorer’.

‘In sickness and in health’. ‘Till death shall do us part’.

A man under siege surely needs an emotional vent. Perchance, he should be allowed to get another wife or a side relationship. But, would that really help?

They could no longer hide Meg’s irrational, impulsive and antisocial behaviour. Friends and family amplified their whispers and stares. Their silence, voices and otherworldly looks haunted him all the while.

Meg was quickly becoming physically aggressive. She would raise her voice in the middle of low-toned conversations. Embodying the character of isolation and frustration.

She broke all the glassware and chinaware that were given as wedding gifts.

At 4 a.m. came the songs.

Haunting refrains of death and nostalgia that rattled his sleep. Kitchen knives appeared in her trembling hands. Demanding oaths that Simon would never leave her. 

One day, fire erupted. The home they’d built together was ablaze, again. Glass shattered. Both heart and hearth scorched. Documents, electronics, certificates. Everything important, gone.

Simon became a ghost.

Countlessly, moving houses, neighborhoods, identities, and all. Trying to avoid the everyday explanation of why his wife had done this or that. Hiding the pain inflicted by the wife he (once) loved.

His conscience wrangled with duty. At this point, their marriage vows were unhelpful. He lived in constant fear. For their yet-unborn child… and himself. 

The worst was when she was accused of throwing a dead cat into the community water tank. Simon was summoned by the area chief and mercilessly reprimanded. He was instructed to restrain his wife or face undisclosed disciplinary measures.

After this humiliating incident, Meg set their house on fire. She then stood at a distance to watch as their property went up in flames. It was strange. A very strange sight to behold.

So, on this day the HR Manager summoned him to his office.

Simon went into a trance. He couldn’t hear any word after he mentioned the ordeal of another fire at his house.

He remembered how he had lost every important document during those repetitive events. These included his national ID, wedding certificate, academic certificates, and job awards for best performance. He also lost the only land title he had managed to purchase.

This was besides the all-too-expensive electronic gadgets that he had bought over time. He knew too well, the cycle of events that follow such losses. Getting police abstracts. Moving houses. Taking Meg for another stab of rehabilitation at a mental health facility. Besides the emotional agony of handling their two children.

It had been close to 30 minutes of unabated speech by the HR Manager. His intent was to calm Simon’s nerves. However, his own nerves were frayed. He imagined the reception awaiting Simon at home.

The HR Manager offered comforting and hopeful words. However, the small print of the company’s home insurance policy clustered ‘works of arsonists’ together with ‘works of God/nature’. Both men knew that the company”s support would be limited.

Simon excused himself. Asking to leave work for the day to attend to the emergency. As he went home, the company assigned a security guard to him. This was in case he needed protection.

He opted to ride in a matatu.

Driving home would put him at the risk of losing his remaining asset. It was a quiet mid-morning as he alighted at the matatu-stage. He spotted one or two queer looks from the corner of his eyes.

From a distance, he saw the smoke billowing. Masses of humanity (mostly his neighbours) ferrying jerry cans of water. Doing the best firefighting they mustered within the circumstances.

Everything looked disorganized. Paper and burnt clothes were strewn everywhere. Some were probably his notebooks, work related literature or recently acquired outfits. He dreaded to spot any familiar items among the clutter.

So, he avoided gazing at anything for too long.

Jane was at hand to ‘receive’ him and ran him through a quick update of the events. Simon zoned out as he cast his eyes across the ruins in search of his wife and children. His heart craved for the company of his nuclear family.

Jane was still blubbering despite Simon’s attention being elsewhere. They walked past the smouldering clothes and iron sheets that were half salvaged. The smell and stench of burning wood, plastic and fabric rented the air.

Jane finally caught his attention as she cautiously turned to him.

Breaking the news, ‘Your wife and children can’t be traced. We’ve been trying to remove everything from the house. All in futility’. Simon paused. So did his accompanying security personnel whose bloodshot eyes hid his own confusion.

Before he turned his eyes and ears to Jane, sirens blasted the air. One of the neighbours had called the police. The inferno had reduced the neighbour’s house to ashes.

As if on cue, a loud female scream was heard from inside Simon’s smouldering house. Two other women joined the screaming. And in that moment, Simon’s fears were confirmed.

They had found one of his children, Muruga.

A six-month old child lying on a half-burnt mattress. It had been doused with paraffin. No time to think or reconstruct the story of what happened.

Muruga had sustained fourth degree burns. Pervading the full skin thickness. Touching deeper body tissues. Simon didn’t cry as his child was rushed into the waiting police car. His heart shredded into pieces.

Silently watching as Jane jumped into the police car that sped away.

Finding Muruga‘s charred body raised fears. Everyone was afraid of stumbling across another child or their mother in the burning debris. The police sirens went silent. Everything appeared to come to a standstill.

Whispers grew louder. Everyone scrutinizing Simon’s reaction to the whole ordeal. He ignored them. Then headed for the living room, where he once relaxed with his family over a meal or light conversation.

No more life in the charred structures and water-soaked floors and walls. He noticed that opportunistic pickets had helped themselves to salvageable goods. But, left an artistic impression of his wedding portrait.

He momentarily admired its resilience, as it stubbornly hung on the wall despite being partially darkened by the smoke.

Hours passed by. Simon looked around the room that was once a refuge from the chaotic world outside. Meg’s nervous breakdown had imploded their safe haven, literally.

It was getting dark. People retreated into their homes. Leaving Simon and his security man to sort out the rest of the mess. His younger brother, had been informed of the incident. He joined them. Taking Simon in for the night.

Simon was numb in the absolute sense. His thoughts remained transfixed on the events of that day. His brother assumed responsibility of communicating with Jane. She later informed him that Muruga had succumbed to the burns.

Read: @17 Days: Gone Too Soon, Loved Forever.

No one could muster the courage to break the news to Simon.

The following day’s search for his family began in hospitals and mortuaries. At the hospitals, Simon was subjected to screening recently admitted patients in the Casualty and Emergency wards. In the morgues, the morticians led him to the cold room. Where fresh corpses were stacked and tagged.

This was Simon’s routine for the next 3 days. His younger brother suggested placing an advert in the newspapers and radio. Simon resisted the idea.

Another call came, two nights before Muruga’s burial. Meg had been admitted to a mental health facility. She was there with the children. The facility conditions were extremely deplorable.

Simon was consoled. Though, he felt shattered seeing her so vulnerable. Locked up in single units with barbed wire fences and roofed cages.

On earlier visits Simon often saw her being treated as though she had leprosy. Or some other inexplicable, communicable disease. He observed how well-meaning, but severely under-staffed facilities treated mentally ill patients.

The professionals were under-resourced. Patients were often outcasts in their own families.

On that call, Simon recalled the many times that women had to cover his wife at the market place. She would go there to sing. None of the traders cared to give her attention.

To catch their eyes, she occasionally undressed.

His two school-going children had always asked him not to send their mum for parents’ meeting at school. It always turned out to be an embarrassment among their peers.

Meg’s condition was seasonal and fluctuating. At one moment, she was the best mother that her children ever asked for. Other times, she was the most bizarre and dysfunctional.

Taking her to a mental facility wasn’t by choice. It was lack of it. A horrible routine. During the foregoing years of their marriage, Meg would check into Mathari mental hospital once a year. Sometimes, she was forcefully checked in. Or depending on escalation of her ‘abnormal behavior’.

Simon snapped back into reality. The caller repeated that Meg had checked herself into the facility the night before. She had come with two children.

During admission, she was violent. It took more than 5 hours for a team of 2 doctors and 3 nurses to confine and immobilize her. They used drugs that put her in a comatose-like state.

The news was great relief to Simon.

But, the thought of seeing her in that state wouldn’t be. Simon and his brother rushed to the mental facility to check on Meg and pick the two children.

Seeing his wife, he rushed to her side. Only to collapse when he sensed their children’s trauma more acutely than his own.

The sight of his two kids was unbearable. Esther and Dan wore hollowed-out eyes. Haunted glances and survivors of years of emotional firestorms. 

This was one of the rare occasions when emotions took a toll on him. He had seen it all. Four instances of his house going up in flames.

A dead child awaiting burial. Two severely traumatized children. And his wife lying in a vegetative state at the mental hospital. Human beings have a limit to how much pain they can bear.

The next morning he woke up to the doctor’s updates. His wife and childhood sweetheart, was diagnosed with advanced psychosis. Schizophrenia that would demand months of hospitalization. Strong medication and constant observation.

It felt like a horror story rewritten in real life.

Simon staggered out of that ward. Burdened by lifelong vows. The care of two children. And trembling with grief for the woman he (had) loved.

He faced a choice: hire a house help, burden his brother, or entrust his children to an orphanage. There were no perfect answers. Only ones that hurt less. In that nominal space, he clung to the threads of faith.

He held tightly to family and the promise. He believed. This too, someday will be a story of survival and resilience. His father had survived the bush. During Mau Mau’s Uprising in Kenya’s pre-independence struggle (in 1952).

It was his turn to wrestle with and upstage his personal chaos.

*****

This story is dedicated to my dad, Bishop David K. Mungai. You survived my mom’s mental depression during your 33 years of marriage.

To my late mum, Hellen Wangeci. In ways we will never know. You braved recurrent bouts of bipolar, psychosis, and depression. In the final straw, succumbed to senile dementia.

Finally, to my late small bro, Simon Muruga. You didn’t survive the last inferno at our home. You choked with smoke. All rescue efforts were a little too late, for a six-month old infant.

What would you have been today, if you lived to your teenage or adult years? I pause at my writing to grieve. Acknowledging that all the bits of this jig-saw puzzle haven’t been revealed. It’s all a mystery.

This blog was initially published on Facebook, LinkedIn and AFREADA as ‘Plight of the Psychotic Spouse‘ on 3rd February 2016.

Comment Prompt:

🗣️ Have you or someone you know ever had to care for a loved one experiencing a mental health crisis? How did it affect your perspective on love, commitment, or faith? Share your story or reflections below. Your voice matters. 💬👇

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Joseph Ngaara is inspired to write from people’s life experiences. For him, writing isn’t just a hobby, but a lifestyle. Email: j.mungai@hotmail.co.uk