Published in the Columbus, Georgia Ledger-Enquirer, Sunday, May 14, 2006, Section B: Voices, page B1.
My friend, Carol and I were talking today about the crisis in the mental health system in Georgia as well as around the country. Everywhere, funds are being slashed, services reduced, foci changed. While the thinking for some of these changes may be well intentioned, the big question remains, “What happens to all those who fall between the cracks in the system once all these changes are implemented?”
What happens to them? They are turned out to the streets. We see many of them daily, sleeping in cardboard boxes, pushing grocery carts along the street loaded with all their worldly possessions. They are turned out to the streets to use whatever manipulations they know or can learn to keep themselves afloat until they become too old to do what works for them in their youth and middle years.
Many we don’t see because they are behind bars in our prisons, locked away from our comfy little world, left to stagnate and die in six feet by six feet cells. Such is the case of Carol’s brother. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, living at home, minding his own business, he got caught up in a situation that was both not of his own making, yet he broke a law that no one realized was a law. He was not to possess “firearms”. And, he did not possess firearms. What he did possess were four pieces of ammunition for various types of guns that the federals consider “firearms”. Now, he is about to be sentenced to 15 years in a federal penitentiary, in a psychiatric ward…. For possession of four pieces of ammunition. That is all.
Of course, not all of them end up in such dreadful situations, at least not right away. I met a person (Mary; not her real name) the other day. She has stretched the patience, services and funds of many of our community services. Not anything that has been done for her is good enough. All of her life has been the worst possible scenario and she acknowledges no responsibility for anything that has happened to her (or what she has done to contribute to the overall outcomes). Life is unfair and has been particularly unfair to and for her.
In talking with Mary, a support group tried to find something positive for her to focus on. She would have nothing of it. The group tried to get her to relate to anything good in her life. But, no, her life is and has been is awful. Though she has family, her connections to them are becoming ragged. They don’t know what to do after years where everything is wrong, where nothing is good enough. If something doesn’t change (like her thinking and actions), she will be turned loose to use whatever wiles she can for now to get some of what she needs, but nothing of what she wants. I am not even sure she knows what she wants because even that changes from moment to moment. At what point might she become a “street person”?
Not far from my neighborhood lives such a man, a street person. Year round, he wears innumerable layers of clothing, and upon first glance, he appears well fed in all those layers. I wonder, though, if he shed all but the basic under and outerwear, would he look so heavy? How many pounds of skin does his body actually carry on his skeleton?
I see him and his cart loaded with lord-only-knows-what. He pushes it up and down the slopes of the streets, each step slow and methodical. Alternatively, he stands on the side of the road resting the upper half of his weary body across the child’s seat section of the cart. I am amazed that he can stand at all, much less nap in that position. I wonder, when night arrives, where does he lay his tired body down? Where does he bathe; does he bathe?
On days that I drive by him, like many other passers-by, I have a momentary pang of guilt, a certain sympathy for his plight. For a second moment, I think I’ll buy him something to eat from the nearest fast-food restaurant. However, someone told me he would refuse the food, so I choose not to bother. Why would he refuse the offering? My guess is that even in the direst of circumstances, this man still has dignity. (On the other hand, perhaps he doesn’t like particular fast-food chains.) He might even prefer a steak or fried chicken, baked potato or macaroni and cheese, and salad or coleslaw at a regular restaurant where he might sit down, use fork, knife and spoon. (Oh, and yes, there is the standard quick response: maybe he’d just prefer a pint of whisky or a liter of wine.) Once out of my sight, I dismiss him and direct myself to other thoughts.
Today, as I think about him and others like him, more thoughts cross my mind. What is his story? What happened to his family of origin? Did he have a wife and children and do they know where he is? Did he serve our country in a war? What is his favorite color? What did he like to do before he became a street person? Did he hold down a job, get laid off or fired? How did he lose his possessions? Does he have a psychiatric diagnosis? Should any of us be scared of him? Who is he and how did he get from “there” (wherever there was) to “here”?
“Here” is where those with a psychiatric diagnosis, too sick or too difficult to treat long-term and too indigent, fall into a crack. “Here” is under the bridge, the corners of our streets, or worse yet, our city jails and our state and federal prisons. “Here” is where all hope is lost, where the cracks widen, more people fall in and are forever lost. (End.)
© Linda Farmer Ames, May 10, 2006
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