Lessons From a Schizophrenic
Several months ago, a new neighbor moved into the empty unit in our apartment building two doors down from us. He was quirky, and a little more friendly at first than most people I've lived in the same apartment building with. He told me he was was a former UC Berkley football player, which didn't come as a huge surprise due to this foreboding build. But, my first impression of him was that he was a little naive, and not much else.
About a week later, he said something that struck me as very odd. "I need your opinion about something," he told me. "The people on television have been stealing my thoughts and twisting them around and saying them back to me. I don't know what to do about it." With raised eyebrows, I told him I didn't really have any good advice for him.
Later, the yelling started. Late at night, we heard him outside on our shared balcony, yelling obscenities into the night when no one else was around. He rambled a lot of nonsense, shouting angry strings of words that often went into racist and homophobic territory. This happened several different nights. The police showed up more than once.
A frequent visitor to his apartment, who turned out to be an old high school friend of his, once came over to talk to me, apologizing on his behalf. "You realize that he's a paranoid schizophrenic, right?" I told him that, yes, we had managed to figure that out from his behavior. His friend told me he had medication he was supposed to take, but he didn't like to take it because it was heavy stuff, and made him lazy and tired.
He moved out a few months later, after several of our other neighbors complained. Fortunately, he had his family to fall back on, so my guess is he's back with his parents. After the fact, I do feel sincerely sorry for people in his predicament. They see and hear things that aren't there. When I was younger, I often wondered if homeless people talk to themselves just because they're lonely, but it turns out, they're not. They're responding to an internal stimuli, which is a psychotic state.
On the long list of things we shouldn't take for granted, we can add the ability to perceive the world around us the way it really is.
About a week later, he said something that struck me as very odd. "I need your opinion about something," he told me. "The people on television have been stealing my thoughts and twisting them around and saying them back to me. I don't know what to do about it." With raised eyebrows, I told him I didn't really have any good advice for him.
Later, the yelling started. Late at night, we heard him outside on our shared balcony, yelling obscenities into the night when no one else was around. He rambled a lot of nonsense, shouting angry strings of words that often went into racist and homophobic territory. This happened several different nights. The police showed up more than once.
A frequent visitor to his apartment, who turned out to be an old high school friend of his, once came over to talk to me, apologizing on his behalf. "You realize that he's a paranoid schizophrenic, right?" I told him that, yes, we had managed to figure that out from his behavior. His friend told me he had medication he was supposed to take, but he didn't like to take it because it was heavy stuff, and made him lazy and tired.
He moved out a few months later, after several of our other neighbors complained. Fortunately, he had his family to fall back on, so my guess is he's back with his parents. After the fact, I do feel sincerely sorry for people in his predicament. They see and hear things that aren't there. When I was younger, I often wondered if homeless people talk to themselves just because they're lonely, but it turns out, they're not. They're responding to an internal stimuli, which is a psychotic state.
On the long list of things we shouldn't take for granted, we can add the ability to perceive the world around us the way it really is.