spent some time today with a colleague to kind of cheer her up. today she had to take her elderly mother to a psychiatric hospital. her mum spent three months there a couple of years ago because of severe depression and is now being tested as, in short, she is just acting crazier and crazier by the day.
personally - while i must confess i still have a hard time accepting the self indulgent and pathetic overuse of therapy now so in vogue in the west...i have an endless respect for real mental illness and its multifolded nature.
mental illness is sad. at times, for close family members it is even sadder. i have yet to figure out how mentally ill people are treated in this country -- especially considering you see many of them roaming around town, screaming, wearing funny outfits or banging their heads on the concrete pavements. i see three or four of them every day -- they are all homeless and the state of poverty and dirt they live in is appaling to say the least.
my colleague is finding it hard to cope. to the point she feels guilty about her mum's condition and gets frustrated by her mood swings and constant telling wacky stories.
"she is just somewhere else" she said to me today, on the way back from the psychiatric hospital --
"we were in the car and as i was driving she started going on about that puppets story again". "what story is that?" i asked, half out of sincere empathy - yet half out of genuine curiosity (mad people think and feel in fascinating ways, i find).
so she told me..."ha. for quite some time now - she has been telling people she has some creatures...like...puppets...swimming and growing in her stomach. she says they move around and tell her stuff..." -
which prompted me to immediately say, pulling a stupid face - "but, I SWEAR! i do that ALL - THE - TI-MEEE....! see?" and pointed at my pregnant stomach. "there you go... you should not worry after all. she is about as nuts as i am, i promise"
which had her in stitches for a couple of minutes.
and it was kind of heartening to see her amusement - and to join in laughing for a bit.
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