How Do We Deal With Troubled Minds?

With the terrible slaughter in Virginia, the country is, at this moment at least, focused on mental health issues. It is a HIGHLY complex subject in which there are no quick or easy fixes. After all, we all have our eccentricities, and if we were to be locked up in some asylum for every little peculiarity (by whose definition?), there wouldn't be anyone to treat us. To me, the problem centers around the more obvious cases, such as what at least "seems" to be the case with this young man in Virginia.

Unfortunately, I've had more than enough experiences with people who suffer from more than just eccentricities. About 25 years ago, my phone rang one night, and it was my neighbor. She said, "Why did you put snakes in my house?" Well, my first thought was that she'd had a few too many, but the more she talked, it became much more obvious that she had more than a drinking problem. She insisted that I had put poisonous snakes in her house. Well, perhaps a year passed without any further calls from her. I had been out of town for about a week, and upon my return, my dad told me that the police had been to the house that day (he got my mail for me when I was gone). He said that the neighbor had called the police claiming that I'd been out back firing a gun. The police confided to my dad that they felt that the neighbor had "problems." I went and knocked at her door. When she opened the door, she said, "What do you want?" She proceeded to display a large butcher knife. She ranted that I had dug tunnels under her house, was tapped into her utilities, stole her mail, fired a gun at her house, ah... you get the drift. Well, it was a few days later, and the police came out of her house. I knew them, and they said that she took them to her basement to show them how I had tunneled under her house and tapped into her utilities. Of course, they chuckled, but then the one said, "You're going to have to deal with this, as her husband just hides out when she get all wound up." Other officers came by later and told me what I should do. I had to file a complaint about her mental competence, and then there would be a hearing in which I'd have to testify. I did as instructed, and I got a call from one of the hospitals that there would be a hearing at such and such a time. I went to the hearing, and maybe I should have known better, but the mental health authorities had appointed an attorney to represent the lady, and here I was all by myself. Naturally, her attorney proceeded to say that I had some vendetta against his client and that the real bad guy here was Randy. Luckily, when given the opportunity to speak, I mentioned the tunnels, the utilities, etc, and my neighbor erupted into a tirade about all of these things, including a statement that I came into her house all of the time and took her vacuum cleaner and gave it to everyone in the neighborhood to use, and returned it without even cleaning it out. (Hey, I'm not making this up!) It turned out that the Post Office had also alerted the police at some point, as the neighbor had taken that butcher knife and flashed it at the mailman, claiming that he opened all of her mail and passed her mail around the neighborhood for everyone to read ("The neighbors all know my bills before I do!" she exclaimed.). Well, the mental health person (this wasn't a judge, but someone from the mental health department) issued a ruling that my neighbor would have to be admitted to the mental health ward for up to six weeks for treatment. I never had another problem with her.

Later, I managed apartments and I won't go into every case, as it would pretty much require a book, but just a couple of things. One middle-aged man in a wheel chair had a fixation with a guy who didn't even live on his floor of the building. He claimed that the guy was entering his apartment to poison his food. When I asked how the man entered the apartment, he told me that he came down through the ceiling (the building was a high rise with 10 inch reinforced concrete between floors). On one occasion, the man in the wheel chair chased the other man around the laundry room! (Hey, again, I'm not making this stuff up!) The management company had a law firm, but even they were tentative about going after this guy.

A young man, in his 20s, claimed that other tenants kept going into his apartment to poison his mayonnaise. Another tenant lived near the trash chute on his floor, and he claimed that all the tenants on his floor were watching his apartment. Another guy lived near the elevator, and he claimed that people always stood outside of his apartment saying bad things about him. Then we had another middle-aged guy who claimed to be God himself. When authorities came to pick him up (after he had been hanging out the 8th Floor window) he told them "I am the true one!"

OK, you get the idea here. The question is, how do we deal with mental health problems? On one extreme, you have those who'd like to go back to the time when mental patients were chained to the basement walls and kept there. On the other extreme, you have those who argue that this is a free country, you can't make people take medications or go to a mental health facility if they don't want to. These "advocates," as I call them, are very aggressive and vocal. A former columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer did some columns about homeless folks and the mental health issues frequently associated with homelessness. She called for some stricter codes, and they picketed the Plain Dealer and left nasty and threatening calls on her voice mail.
One of her columns had to do with one of the churches (Catholic), where the parishioners and the priest had said that the homeless folks had been relieving themselves near the church entrance, and that the smell of urine and excrement were so bad, that people didn't want to attend church there. The "advocates" said that for a church to want the homeless kept from near their property was an outrage. That religion should seek to help the homeless. Of course, they conveniently forgot the meal program the church had to help feed homeless and less fortunate folks. Anyway, what do you think about this issue?