How Crazy is Crazy

There was a woman who existed in one of the cities where I worked. Everyone called her Crazy Sally.  She usually lived in refrigerator boxes.  She would walk up and down the streets in the street downtown and wipe off the windshields of cars that would stop at red traffic lights with her slip that she had removed. She would crawl on all fours chest on top with her legs spread wide open wearing no panties giving everyone “beaver shots.” up and down the aisles of the local movie theatre. It was frustrating for everyone from the business owners, the police, and the residents of the city.  We usually couldn’t arrest her because people didn’t want to file a complaint; they just wanted her “out of their hair.”  Subsequently we would tell her to move and she would occupy herself doing something else. After a couple of days she would be yet somewhere else doing something bizarre and annoying and the businesses or people would complain.

She would get bad enough the local hospital, or the local social service agency would send her to the state mental hospital. Once she was on medicine for a couple of days she acted as normal as anyone. The state mental hospital would release her and send her back. On her own, she would not take her meds and get more bizarre each day.

It was sad. she was an intelligent woman, had a masters degree in history I think. What allegedly made her “crazy” went this way.  She worked during the day and had a drinking problem at night. One night she passed out on the couch. The mobile home she lived in caught on fire and her two little girls died in the fire.

I’ve done some work at mental heath facilities and they are not so bad. Not that I would want to be there, but the living conditions there seem better than those of the folks who don’t take their medication when they are out on their own and live on the streets or in boxes. It’s become a problem for many Sheriff departments. I’m aware of a county jail in which over 50% of the population is on some type of mental health drug or drugs.  The county pays for the drugs of the inmates. Some persons with mental health issues do better within the structure of a hospital type environment, but the big thing was to get them out of the hospitals into the community.  That would work if the communities had the budgets to hire enough people to more closely monitor their out patients. Morally we have a responsibility to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves. Are we doing a good job with those who have serious mental health problems?

Until Tomorrow,

Sally S