Madman In An Italian Train Station

I was just trying to read a book, but I became distracted from the story. I remembered something that happened when my daughter and I were in Italy last year, and I began to weep. Unfortunately I suffered from an unending migraine headache and nausea for most of our trip so I was pretty fragile. I didn't know that I could have just gone to an Italian hospital for help. Silly American.

We were in the lobby of a train station that had lots of people buying tickets, sitting, waiting, rushing around and there was an old, unkempt, obviously mentally ill man, standing in the center of this place. He was waving his arms and franticly talking non-stop in Italian, a language I don't know. He was hoarse, and had obviously been there for a long time, maybe he did this every day. No one was looking at him. They were ignoring him, tolerating him, annoyed by him... What I saw was my son.

I moved to within a few feet of him and did not take my eyes off of him. Schizophrenics frequently do not want to be touched, but they do want to feel that they have been heard. My daughter, I think, felt I was being rude to stare at him, and was a bit embarrassed by what I was doing. As I listened to him, tears began to roll down my face. To me he was a lost child. He did not look at my eyes, but began to slowly turn around toward me, and direct his speech to me.

A young man had seen the two of us and he joined me in directing his full attention to listening to the old man. The old man would look into the face of the young man next to me, and I could feel the pace of his speech slow a bit. The young man was shaking his head, yes, yes. I could feel the old man become a little more calm, and he reached out and took the hand of the young man. I still had tears streaming down my face, and took a step toward them and clasped their hands, so that all three of us were touching. I may have startled the old man by touching him. But he nodded his head in farewell and left slowly down a hallway; still talking, but slowly, more softly, as he went out of view.

I know there are street people who try weird stuff to get money from tourists, but this was no act. I was crying and overwhelmed with sadness for those among us that must bear burdens they don't deserve, and that they are sometimes made invisible by the way we ignore them, because of our fear. Sometimes the fear is from not knowing whether our reaction will be considered rude, and not wanting to hurt them even more. My rule of thumb is that an expression of caring is probably always OK.

I'm sure it was upsetting for my daughter to watch, and when she was trying to get me to leave him, I could hear her worried voice saying, "Mom?". All I could say was, "That is my son."

POST SCRIPT:
I need to make a clear distinction between the behavior, and mental normalness, of medicated versus non-medicated mentally ill people.

Idiot Like A Savant usually functions well when he has not forgotten to take his medication. The man in the train station was obviously unmedicated for a very long time.

The listening to him, in my story was not meant to be rude gawking. It was a silent 'you are not alone' that I hoped might calm him. Focusing on him, to let him know the message he was transmitting was important to at least one other person. His message was so important to him, that he was shouting it to all who could hear.

He didn't know I couldn't understand a word he said. You, sometimes, can't understand a word of what an English speaking, non-medicated, mentally ill person is trying to tell you either. So the words become moot in any language. Reasoning with someone who has been unmedicated for a long time is useless. They are in a very different mental and physical landscape. What looks like 'crazy' to us, is really their valiant struggle to live in that landscape.