I first met Sy at Buffalo General Hospital. I was only twenty. Sy was approaching middle age. When I looked at him, he seemed to be doing well for the most part. He appeared as healthy mentally as anyone else in the place, he had a distinct personality. I believed he'd be one of those who makes it. I've seen others go down but I thought Sy was alright. I perceived that he'd be alright.
Years later, I saw Sy at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, the dreaded Big House, the state hospital. I delivered sandwiches from the local restaurant, a part time job, and that brought me to the BPC quite often. Sy was worse. Every time I saw him, he seemed to have lost more of his personality and some of himself. Still, I believed he had potential and hope.
A substantial period of time passed, and I found myself again at the state hospital, as I went with a group from the Mental Health Association, a patient advocacy group. Sy was outside sitting on the deck with other patients. He looked so frail and thin you could knock him over with one breath. He didn't recognize me anymore. There was little left of Sy. His personality had deteriorated to the point that you could say it hardly existed. Heavy medication over countless years had numbed him and robbed him of his sense of reality. He was a shell, who, on the inside, had abandoned itself, a soul that was lost and beyond recovery. He had suffered years and years of oppression and repression at the BPC, and there was no more fight in him. All that remained were traces of mental illness, which, in themselves, were barely existent, wiped out along with the man he used to be.
I myself might have found myself in Sy's shoes. But I was very young and tough, full of anger and rebellion, I did not give up my fight. There are so many others like Sy, thin, weak, and blank. Now, thirty years later, Sy is dead. I know he died without family and friends. Every time I remember the Sy I met at Buffalo General, I want to cry.
Thank you for this wonderful story. It is very sad, but all too common. I have had my round in the mental health system and, like yourself, I was very determined to not make it a habit! Very sad, but also with your own life successes shared, tells a story of hope as well. I appreciate that you've had the courage and the trust to share this with others. It is a story that needs telling. Corrine
Thanks, Ron. It doesn't sound as though your exposure to mental illness has been all that meager. I have only one thought, and that is: why would people who are "behaving abnormally" be insulted when treated as "normal?" Respect, to the mentally ill, I have seen, is like a rare jewel, so hard to find, and one of the qualities most needed and lacking.
There are the severe, or major mental illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) and illnesses like the neuroses (obsessive compulsive, hysteria) from what I understand, and the differences are only a matter of degree.
Reviewed by Ronald Hull
6/18/2021
You are showing your sensitive soul. Particularly towards those who have mental illness.
My exposure to mental illness has been meager. Throughout my life I have sought to treat people as normal, even if they experienced abnormal behavior. I gave them that, but some treated me as though it were an insult by my being simply straight with them.
When I was in the state University Hospital at 21, supposedly rehabilitating for five weeks from spinal cord injury and surgery, I was put in a welfare ward and given the task of overseeing two younger ward inmates, like many were. The 16-year-old was an alcoholic who started drinking at Oktoberfest and never stopped. The 15-year-old was growing breasts and was there to have them removed. Unfortunately, I didn't help them. We just ran the hospital looking for cute nurses and other girls. We found one to talk to, a 14-year-old girl who seemed to have some real "daddy" issues. She may have been sexually abused.
My ex-wife's medical doctor father was in a Veteran's home/hospital when I saw him once in 1981. A World War I veteran and wealthy doctor for major companies in Dayton Ohio Like National Cash Register and Kettering, he had a breakdown and became incompetent in 1955, taking his wife and two girls to live with his mother in my hometown. Eventually, he was in a nursing home until his status as a veteran allowed him to be in the VA hospital for free.
When I saw the man, in his 80s, he seemed to be very sane and even competent. But I didn't see him very long. My wife told me that he didn't like any of the other veterans… They were beneath him. He lived there until he died around 96 years old. I don't know if his mind got worse or not.
Aside from some of the women I dated, I encountered few with mental problems until my last working days when I was given a young man who seemed selfish and would not straightforwardly follow my need for getting work done, but catered to almost everyone who would give him an assignment that he liked. Robert and I were fired at the same time. But I had retired before my firing. Robert, a student at the University who became a worker from being a student worker, was nowhere near retirement age. But his behavior and his work record made it difficult for him to move on. Within a year after he left work he sent me an email stating that his name was now Rachyl. After asking me for money that I did not give him/her, I lost track of her. Later, I learned of his early tragic life that may have contributed problems. But he never told me anything about himself so that I could have helped like I may have helped others when I was their professor.
Join me as we travel together on the road called "Aging." I will be sharing my personal experiences with you and offer ideas on how we can better navigate the complex byways of our older years. Grief, healing, generations, ancestors, and more.
She never felt safe at home as a young girl, and didn't understand why when she finally escaped she wasn't safe in the big wide world either ...effectively jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!
