Thursday, September 13, 2007

City Life

We were enjoying our leisurely Sunday afternoon this past week at a downtown coffee shop on a busy street having a good time. The crowd was bustling by and the patio of the coffee shop was pretty busy, when "Get out of my way, pedophile" could be heard over the din.

We swiveled around and saw a somewhat greasy looking woman with a backpack and sunglasses on, looking like an overgrown child, walking fairly quickly down the street. She was looking at the ground and completely by herself, yelling for this 'pedophile' to leave her alone. "I'm going to call the police, pedophile, leave me alone, pedophile!"

My first reaction was to watch what she was going to do and kind of chuckle about the situation, it was pretty funny. The other patrons were nervously laughing and one chick was relaying the sitch over the phone to her friend. Then it dawned on me that she, as someone was obviously mentally ill, or an actor, whatever, really believed that a pedophile was chasing her. That was kind of scary.

I can't imagine how this woman must get through life on a daily basis, filled with fear and seeing and hearing things that aren't real. No one to help her, but just laugh as she passes by. It made me sad that there wasn't a place for her to go, people to look after her.
Granted, I know damn well that there are services out there, but if there's one part of healthcare that is underfunded, in my opinion, its mental health services. Fuck the senior's discount, that money should go to help this lady get away from her demons.

Maybe I do have a soul, weird.

1 comment:

Tracey said...

It's hard to see people in real pain and usually the feling you have is relief. Relief that you don't have their problems.

You do have a soul, like it or not. And that makes you a real person, not good, not bad, just real.

Now, I'm gonna go drink just a little bit of Bleach :-)