Coping With Crazy

Over the past few weeks I have found myself thinking a great deal about mental illness. I have two friends, one of whom is being stalked by a young man who has been in and out of mental institutions as well as jail, and the other, the boy’s mother. The situation has been extremely painful for all concerned. The women have even talked with one another, and commiserated about ‘the other side’ but neither really knows what to do. Last week the police came to tell the younger woman that the stalker was back in town and that she should ‘be careful.’ She took out a restraining order months ago, so really, what more can she do? What do the police expect? The young man is no longer a kid–he’s in his thirties–so there is nothing the parents can do about the situation. Even if he was younger, like the shooter in Newtown, what could they have done? They certainly never supplied him with weapons, but he could certainly get some if he was so inclined. What do we, as a society, offer any of the participants in this drama, including the young man? He has no job because he can’t hold one. Even if his parents could persuade him to get some counseling, who would pay for it? If they had the money, they could pay, but if they didn’t, then what? And if he is resistant to the very idea that he needs help, which he is, then what? Would court-ordered outpatient counseling be helpful? Probably not. In the meantime how does the younger woman ‘protect herself?’ Does she enlist friends with guns to stand outside her store in town, and her apartment? We certainly have a good idea about how that might go. This young man has four siblings. Why is he troubled, and the others fine? What makes one person in a family mentally ill, even at an early age, when no one else in the family seems disturbed? Where can parents go if they know there is a problem with one of their children? How does a victim who has been threatened by this ‘crazy person’ handle ‘he’s in town, he’s not in town’ and live a normal life? Where does the victim go for help, especially when the police are the ones who warned her to be careful? What other steps could they have taken or take? What makes someone crazy? I am beginning to think mental illness has a lot to do with brain chemistry, but Iknow that isn’t the only answer. And even if it was, what solutions does that suggest? I have no answers to any of these questions, but I find the whole situation very disturbing, and I worry about both women. They have very different problems, but our culture offers neither of them help, let alone solutions. What is wrong with us that we don’t?