They are amongst us. They are here and we must stop allowing them to be invisible. I'm talking about the mentally ill. Yesterday I took a friend into town for groceries and thrift shopping. He knew where some thrift shops were in Las Vegas where I didn't so and also I needed groceries so it was a win win. I have always thought of Doug (not his real name) as strange, eccentric possibly different. I spent the entire day with him and it went from amusing rantings to full blown hysteria.
I'm open to all types of people however I got a look at full blown view of how a person can look normal and even sound normal but just listen and you will here the rantings of a paranoid personality. Let me take you on the journey. It started with the fact he said someone is coming in his room at night bothering his stuff. He shares a room with another man who has a drinking issue so okay I can believed that can happen in a dorm style living situation. From this part it just goes down hill. I went from laughing to I hope I get back home in one piece. He talked about he was leaving in February going to South America and staying. I kept bringing the subject back to his trip anytime he got agitated screaming in a loud voice. The next thing I listened to was that someone came in his room and put a defibrillator on his back and tried to kill him. I am qualified First Aid and also on the defibrillator. If someone tried to shock a healthy person with one of these devices they would know. You don't sleep through electrical shock. The rantings went beyond pale with chips implanted by the United Nations to Warren Buffet trying to kill him, news anchors sending him messages over the television; there was even a melt down in the thrift shop because he couldn't find sweat pants in his size.
The reason for this turned out to be that a satellite was trained on him by the military and they called ahead to the thrift stores to take all the size 34 men's pants off the racks. At this point I'm not laughing just trying to maintain myself and get him back to his place and me free of the situation. I didn't know this was going to be my day. I thought Doug was just a nerd like myself who is different. Dough is mentally ill and desires to do harm to people who are out to get him. He thinks everyone including strangers who are minding their business are all apart of the conspiracy to kill him. Doug is smart. He is highly functioning clean cut articulate man. He has fell through the cracks like an abandon house left standing alone out in the open that slowly falls to decay with time and weather. We see it but we keep going thinking nothing is wrong its just an abandon house falling apart. Doug is more than a train wreck or hot mess, he is a person who needs medical attention now. This country has nothing to offer him in support. There is nothing I can do either. He hasn't committed a crime or done harm to anyone.
I can't hang out with Doug anymore. The drive home was just rantings of delusions about President Obama, Oprah and the billionaire group that is tracking him because he crossed them twelve years ago. These aren't talks of someone caught up in the conspiracy theory tales, this is a man who believes corporations in Hawaii, the late Senator Daniel Inouye tried to have him killed. Doug believes this only because the senator visited the same college center he did a week after him. To you and me this makes no sense and isn't even logical. When I think of how do I support or help Doug get help I can't think of any resources to turn to. He isn't a relative, we work for two different companies and I've only know him for six months.
Mental illness in the black community is real. It is the one thing we shun and don't desire to talk about yet it affects many. I can only pray that the help Doug needs he will get soon. This lesson I got yesterday will stay with me forever. I will not call sane people crazy anymore as a joke. Mental illness is no joke. Wake up America lets not leave these people out in the cold any longer.
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