While snailing across the mouth of Windsor Loop, there popped a Toyota Hiace drone, full lights beaming into my car, driving out of the junction and keyed up to join my lane. It had been speeding on that uphill and suddenly came to a tyre-screeching.
The people who manned the dreaded van seemed to have been from kidnapping someone and rushing him or her to the dungeons for torture. That is how they drive, like mad men. The driver seemed to have an exaggerated sense of confidence. All the windows were tinted except the windshield. I recognized that a similar car had picked me from my home, not once, and on that remembrance, my heart shook.
The gear shifter wasn’t in parking, and I had only halted the car with my foot on the brake pedal. I do not remember the indescribable speed with which I ran out of my own car, maybe like a bat out of hell, but by the time of being conscious, the car had self-moved and knocked the one which I was following.
The motorists swiftly came to my rescue from the other side of the road where I had taken cover. Those who saw the frightening drone and later recognized me were there to console me.
That was the turning point. That was when I realized that I was seated on a time bomb, which was about to explode. I had been triggered many times but I hadn’t taken it seriously until that time.
Another day I was standing on the rooftop of Cavendish Law School talking on phone and a military vehicle drove through Bukoto street, speeding with shrieking sirens with no regard of the narrowness of the road. I almost fell from the rooftop due to fear. I thought that the army had located me and had come to bundle me and drive me away for another tirade of abuse.
Later that evening, while walking to where I had parked my car on the same street, two armed men in Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) uniform were casually maundering by. Upon seeing them, I almost rammed into an electric pole while attempting to run away from them, yet they were going about their business.
The fear of military vehicles, personnel and among other stuff related to my tormentors was reflex. My body would just react without consulting my brain. And just like that, I would have fallen from the rooftop or rammed into an overspeeding car and possibly died without knowing that I was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Oftentimes I would become a somnambulist; just in the middle of the night I begin sleep-fighting and walking around the house—fighting gunmen encased in Special Forces Command (SFC) uniform. I was nearing that stage of walking out of the house and running on the streets naked.
I remember planning a weekend to Entebbe to rest, and upon arriving, I was welcomed by billboards of Gen Yoweri Museveni everywhere. The feeling after seeing a man on whose orders I have suffered greatly, stimulated deep distressing memories. I made a U-turn and drove back to Kampala.
That despicable situation was being handled and by the time I was re-arrested in December 2021, I had been meeting the psychologist, who had given his whole expertise to make sure that I become a normal human again, bereft of mental and emotional stress.
The situation became worse when I fled into exile. This time it was not triggered by the presence of the military on the streets or convoys because in Europe you hardly see any; but by my scarred body and incessant nightmares.
One time, I covered all the mirrors in the house in order to avoid seeing myself, especially in the bathroom and laundry room. I became addicted to sex, sacred drinks (alcohol) spacecakes to sedate me to sleep and also self-medicate the pain because I dislike pharmaceutical sedatives.
I got extricated from such a dangerous situation in which I was wholly immersed when I was introduced to an Italian aficionado psychologist, Dr Mauro D’Ascanio, in Berlin, who professionally took me through series of psychotherapy until when everything began to move well with me, especially concentration and sleep disorder.
I now no longer get irritated or angered easily by people around me like before when I lost a basket of friends because they couldn’t put up with my new weird behaviour, contrary to the natural charisma to which they had been used.
However much I am advised to forgive my tormentors and move on, it is very difficult to do as long as they are still alive.
The people who man these torture chambers also have children, wives, siblings and relatives. Some victims come back and decide to keep quiet forever. I believe that blowing off steam through writing about it is another form of therapy. Even in death, that is if I outlive them, I will jubilate and rejoice, aware that justice was denied to me while they lived but their expiry has now released me from the bondage of helplessness.
The writer is a Ugandan activist who lives in exile.
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