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.

Didn't You Want to Be Indiana Jones Too?

Savant got a summer job. Working for an archaeologist. Some of the friends he met at school are working there, and got him to call for a job there. And by wonderful chance the office is only a mile or two from our house. So he gets to spend the summer with his friends! They meet at the office in the morning and are driven to the dig site.

I'm reminded of the children's story where you tell part of it and ask the kids, "Isn't that bad?" and of course it is, but then you hear the next part of the story, and it turns out that if this bad thing hadn't happened, the good thing that came next would have never happened, and the story goes back and forth that way many times. No summer classes turned out to be a good thing!

I want to get on the crew when they go back to school! I had Indiana Jones (Mary Leakey) dreams too.

P.S. See "Not Quite Mr. Buckley" for the truth about this "archiological dig".

Savant Is Coming Home

Savant had planned to stay at school, and take classes, but because of a few SNAFUs and persistent mental illness, he found himself without housing for this summer. He just assumed he could stay in his on-campus apartment. He got an apartment, instead of a dorm room, because, though he had only completed two semesters of college, he had enough credits to make him a Junior; and upper-class men get perks. As of yesterday he completed two more classes.

He was fairly delusional earlier in the semester, he had to drop all but two classes, to survive. He had to repay his loans and grants, because they are only for students who are taking a full load of classes. His psychiatrist, Vocational Rehab, the Disabled Students Office, etc., may have been able to intervene, but I don't know if that would have helped him keep any of the funding in place for just two classes.

Last week, I tried to get specific answers from him about whether he had made arrangements with the housing office. Had he gotten the bill for it paid, etc.. He had not signed up for classes in the first summer session, but didn't think that mattered... It mattered.
He had not checked into it!
I called the housing office to see if I could rush over with a check, before the semester ended (yesterday was the date to be out of your on-campus housing). I was told that the on-campus apartments he lives in, were closing for demolition and remodeling!

*(Anyone who has read some of my old entries knows that, (Idiot Like a) Savant is schizophrenic, but on medication, many medications over the years, none of which have given him back normal sanity. Before he became ill, when he was in high school, he earned the highest SAT scores in the school (only missed 5 answers), and was also the only Merit Scholar. Was accepted to a private university in Massachusetts when he was 16, but even with the scholarship he was offered, we couldn't come up with the remaining tuition, etc. Picture the amount a small house costs. So he stayed in high school for his senior year and added to his cache of college credit courses. The story gets way too long here and you'll have to check past entries if you want to hear the rest of it.)

*I'm going to have to start using links to this, as an explanation for any reader who doesn't want to read the whole freaking blog archive, to figure out what I'm talking about. I always feel annoying, like Hyacinth Bucket, when she describes her sister Violet, as the one with a pool, a sauna, and room for a pony, in every episode.

The point is, this disease impairs your judgment even if you are on meds, and have an awesome I.Q. Add whiskey and pot and cough syrup for fun, and you become retarded in some areas of your brain. That is why I have begun to be less supportive when he has poisoned himself with that shit. The first 50 times it scares you to death. And nothing I have done or said has changed his behavior a bit. So, I'm going to try to be nice when it happens again, because I adore him, but I need to brush up on my non-enabler skills.

Anyway, summer school isn't going to happen this year. I'm really sorry things got so screwed up, because he has made some friends there, which is a huge benefit to his happiness. And he likes living on his own, even though he is "transportation impaired". His dad and I think it would be great if he could buy a condo near the school; but we are assuming that the payments would probably exceed his disability stipend. He gets so bored at our house, and I understand that. What 21 year old wants to be stuck in the country with Mom & Dad?

Welcome home Darlin'.