Just another Psychotic Sunday

I am back. Again, it is screwy font time on this type pad, but it has worked out in the past so I figure it will work out again. What is it about this Sunday in September that causes my path to cross with somebody who is mentally ill? If you recall last year (I could check the archives for veracity, but will only do so later) that as we came home from the WalMart (a bit of ethnic culture for us here, and I am not quite sure of the ethnicity, though) we saw the woman, in her Sunday finery, sashaying down the sidewalk with her fingers to her ears as if she were talking on a cell phone (there was none). When she caught my eye, she said to me "Fucking N***ers (I cannot bring myself to say it or write it as it could be taken out of context and I do not want that)! Fucking Jews! (I do not have a problem with that one as I could explain that one)" To which I caught myself before escalating the situation, and thought that she should have added "Fucking Mentally Ill!"

That was then and this is yesterday. I am sitting at home, minding my own business, when the phone rings. I answer (mistake?). It is a former customer who is mentally ill. She has been calling me for the last eleven years, sometimes more frequently than I can stand, but she cannot help herself. She calls and is all worried about being removed from the provincial health insurance plan, being arrested and going to jail. Can you say psychotic episode? Damn woman cannot help but listen to the voices in her head. Have they been correct yet? I would say "no" but listen to them she must. I am thinking she hears the voices 24/7, light or dark, but not being inside her head (I do not have the proper gear for that, though I think rubber hip waders would be a necessary item) I do not know for certain.

Now, I have to try to convince a psychotic with paranoid delusions that the voices she hears are the voices of an idiot. Again, I have to be brutally honest, so say nothing is certain and all is possible. I mean it is possible the voices she hears are correct and they are coming to take her away and "torture" her (her word not mine). The funniest part is that this is the story she always has and I have seen this play out over the past ten or so years. When I bring up that fact, I get that it is different this time. She thinks that she has been harrassing her doctors and that she has done some sociopathic things lately. Again, I am not there so all I can do is analyze the data that I am given.

First, can a psychotic be a sociopath? I think the break with reality makes it difficult to actually be aware of what you are doing and whether it is hurtful to somebody. In any event, I could be a great sociopath if I were so inclined and she does not even come to the meetings, so....

Second, as I analyze the situation, I cannot help be struck by the fact that somebody with paranoid delusions (fears asassination and government persecution, like she has state secrets, right she is fucking character in a Robert Ludlum novel)is trying to convince me that it is all real. I am sitting there thinking that I am supposed to take the word of somebody who has obvious difficulty in reality perception at her word. It just will not happen.

I tell her that explicitly. Then I get the old stand by "You don't understand" followed by "Do you understand what I am saying?" I reply with "light. frog. dish." She goes to contemplate that sudden and surreal turn of events. I then tell her that she probably will not be arrested and if she is, she is hospital bound. I then tell her that she is narcissistic, or at least the voices are, to think that people in public places are actually talking about her. That seems to calm her somewhat and she hangs up.

I get a second call, with the same insane loop. Like I cannot tell she is having a psychotic episode. I guess the psychiatrist was correct when he told me that if you can hold out the possibility that what you think or say is delusional, you are probably not delusional. I get the same loop of questions. Man, it is not like I do not have enough of this looped shit in my life, what with the wife, her father, her mother, my mother, etc. It is like living Groundhog Day, but the day fucking changes but the lessons are not heeded or learned. It is rerun city and I crave the novel.

I placate her. Two hours later, it is the same shit. The phone, the questions, my blunt answers. I then put my cards on the table and tell her I know she is psychotic and having an episode. I tell her I do not buy into her conclusions because I have heard this story so many times over the years and NOTHING has come of it (though time has marched on, she still apologizes for shit from eleven years ago, which I have told her to get over). I then get asked if I am angry. I answer no, but here is what I hear and what I see and what I have seen. I do not want any misinterpretation, though that is a futile want in the situation. Who cares what I want, it is all about what I do.

She has not called back since, but three calls in a three hour period is too much for my liking. Though she does have the full package...delusions, paranoia, hallucinations and an obsession with the past, and she is a heavy smoker in her 50s. Anybody want me to set them up? She may be lesbian, she told me that once and that my wife should not fear her as she is not after me. That is how I like my women, psychotic. It saves me the trouble of coming up with explainations for my behavior. I just put on the devil mask and string together a bunch of unrelated nouns. It leaves them silent, thinking and putting it all together.

I am an asshole. Anyway, that leads me to believe that this must be Psychotic Sunday. Maybe it has something to do with 9/11 (today is five years since), I just do not know. But damn, the mentally ill do seem to find me. Ciao!