Ever been around any crazy people?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Yeah, sadly, a friend of ours. He acted strange a couple of times. Once he came over when my husband wasn’t there and said he just stopped by to see if anybody from the IRS or other governmental agency had been by asking for him. His behavior that day made me feel a little nervous, even though he was usually a good-time good-fun guy who would sit around and do card tricks for my kids. But this time, after asking his odd question, he left. I mentioned it to my husband–odd request, strange behavior–and he brushed it off saying the friend smoked a lot of dope. Well, I knew that. So maybe he was a little paranoid.

A few weeks after that we heard that he was in a mental institution.

But, he got out. He came over to visit with his guitar and a briefcase packed with “evidence” that the CIA was beaming him messages. He also described his visit in the crazy house and said he could see why they might have diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, but in his case, he actually was getting messages sent to him by the CIA, via tv shows, radio, and brain waves, and he had all the evidence right there, and he was on his way to the ACLU with it, because he wanted to retire from his covert mission but they wouldn’t let him and the ACLU was the one organization he knew that wasn’t on their side.

After he headed off to the ACLU (driving the van he lived in along with his dog) we called a couple of other friends to see if there was anything to be done, and everybody seemed to agree that yes, he was nuts, and no, he would never forgive anybody who was responsible for sending him back to the crazy house. (His word for it, by the way.) Nobody thought a confrontation would be anything but bad.

So, we did nothing. And a few weeks after we last saw him he killed himself and left a really crazy note. It was very sad but honestly, talking to him, we really didn’t feel at that point he was a danger to himself or others. Obviously we were wrong and if I ever see signs like that in one of my friends I will definitely do something (and I hope they would do the same for me).

Another friend of mine suddenly started accusing everybody of spiking her iced tea/soda/beer/Jello with LSD. She would just be sitting and talking and suddenly she would realize she was tripping so the drink must have been spiked. I was pretty sure none of those people would have any idea where to even get LSD and even if they did, they wouldn’t have slipped any into anybody’s drink. She was married to a psychiatrist:eek: She ended up on psychoactive drugs that held it off, but she turned into a totally different person. Her younger sister told me that a lot of people in her family ended up that way–medicated and stupid–and that she (the sister) was fighting off depression because it always hit around the mid-30s and she was heading straight there herself, and she was worried.

My mother was kind of a nut, and before she got full-blown dementia, she had this disorder where, for instance, she’d be at home, sitting in an antique chair that had been in the family for generations, and she’d say things like, “I used to have a chair just like this, but somebody stole it.”

“No, Mom, that’s actually your chair, nobody stole it, you’re sitting in it.”

“No, mine was just like this, but it was stolen.” And so on. She used to have a house just like this, a rose garden just like this, a knitted shawl just like this.

She went deaf, and she knew she was deaf, but she could hear people talking in the basement, despite the fact that she didn’t have a basement. She would call the police and complain about them. But then of course, even with her hearing aid in, she couldn’t hear the police either on the phone or in person–and you would sit her down and explain that as she was deaf, and couldn’t hear a damn thing once she took the hearing aids off (and not much with them, either), she wouldn’t be able to hear the Rolling Stones rehearsing in her basement at top volume (if she had a basement), and she would agree. And then she’d call the police saying someone was playing rock music in her basement. We finally had to get the phone taken out. (She used to have a phone just like that.)

Actually, she was kind of nutty my whole life. This shit does not get better.

Also a lot of bipolar in my family, which seemed to manifest itself earlier and earlier in each successive generation. A lot of bipolar musical geniuses. But with medication they are all okay.

These are hardcore diagnosed cases, though. (I forget what they called that thing my mother had, but she wasn’t quite old enough for dementia at the time.) But I do think anybody can behave crazily on occasion without being diagnosably mentally ill.

42

Avoid redheads.

43

And nurses. If they’re redheaded nurses, best just run for the hills.

44

My family (of origin) is batshit crazy.

My father would imagine we had done all sorts of things and then beat the living hell out of us for breaking his rules. Just as an example, I was woken up one night with him screaming at me why I had been in his room. I hadn’t and said so, which resulted in him picking me up by the hair and violently shaking me.

So, you had to learn how to play the game and tell him what he wanted to hear. The first guess or two never worked, but eventually something would. After beating me up until I figured out that I had been in his room to look at the clock, he said “Fine.” and was off back to bed.

Another time, he asked me why I was mad at him, (which I wasn’t, but that wouldn’t be the right answer). It turns out that the previous day he had gotten mad at me (which he hadn’t, of course) and I was really pissed at him for that, but really, he was just correcting me for my own benefit. That one took a while to figure out.

Then there was the time that I did something which I had always done and was beaten, the whole time my father was screaming that he had just told me that morning so why didn’t I listen. Naturally, he hadn’t said anything, but you couldn’t tell him that. You had to come up with a good reason for already forgetting something which he hadn’t said.

I had always thought that my father had mixed me up with my brother or one of the other kids, but when I was talking to my mother a while back, she said that was how he was.

My younger brother also has severe issues. He’s homeless and refuses treatment. God talks to him, although I had always assumed god would be a little more coherent.

He’s written me emails saying that I killed my child, how I’ve ruined his life and other fun things. I keep blocking his email address and then he makes a new account and sends me more stuff.

He just sent an email saying that he has congestive heart disease and wants money from me, but I can’t handle him any more. My mother is sending him money monthly, anyway.

45

Whole maternal line is cray cray, don’t remember my maternal grandmother but she was…well eccentric at least by what she left behind.

Mom is crazy in a subtle way, she has no sense of objective reality everything warps in her mind to suit her and she is passive-aggressive nasty. Sister is the same way, 4 or 5 ex husbands all agree she was too crazy for them to deal with. Wow the last guy LOST a lot marrying her for a decade.

Niece recently told my sis, her mom, that she thinks she is cracking mentally, welcome to the club!

These people are an annoyance as an adult, as a child they are terrifying.

46

I came into the thread to answer: “No, not really.” And I find that I’m the odd one here. Is craziness really that prevalent? I’ve seen the occasional homeless person chanting to themselves or ranting (usually religious), but I haven’t had any friends or relatives that went off in the weeds.

Has this been found to be true (or maybe some other percentage)? I’m not challenging your recollection, but I’m astounded that it’s this high. I must be living in a bubble of some sort. I guess it’s due to spending my time mainly shuttling between my garage in the 'burbs, my guarded workplace, and the few marinas/restaurants I frequent. I almost never come into contact with people on the street/sidewalk.

This thread is kind of amazing for me…

47

My aunt, a very gentle woman and an artist, was picked up by the police for wandering around saying Reagan had been assassinated and replaced by a stuntman. She had always been a little odd but not outright psychotic so it was a surprise to me when she did this–I asked if it was possible that a stuntman had replaced Reagan but my mother said no one could play him.

She spent some time in a mental hospital and then lived the rest of her life as an outpatient in an apartment complex for mentally ill people, where she functioned adequately but never really regained her talent as an artist.

A friend of mine thought the CIA was following him and once took back a book on Russian history that he’d lent to me because he was afraid the CIA would come after me too. He also thought that just about every other male in town was gay and was lusting after him and making noise to harass him. Of course he was convinced he didn’t have any problems, it was all society’s fault for conspiring to make him miserable.

48

In my job, a ton. It really is sad and it’s one of the many many things they do not teach you about being a lawyer in law school.

After some experience, you figure out how to play along with the delusions and ask the right questions to get to homicidal or suicidal (reportable to mental health services). But it is a really fine line because you can’t act against a client’s interests.

Mental illness is scary and sad.

49

Yeah, quite a few, though I wouldn’t describe them as ‘crazy people’. A lot of people I know have depression - my mum and my BFF and a bunch of less close friends. One of my aunts is schizophrenic, and the only time I remember it being a big deal was one incident when I was twelve, where she left my uncle for a while because she thought he was trying to kill her. A friend of mine is bipolar, but she has a really good handle on it at this point and has for as long as I’ve known her; she’s really self-aware and is taking meds that work for her, I wouldn’t know she was ill if she weren’t so open about it. I used to be friends with a couple who went to my church who both had some sort of intellectual disability. And as a nursing student I’ve done pracs in several nursing homes (they all had at least a few residents whose impairments were mental as well as physical) and a community mental health service.

50

I know many people with disorders, but none of whom I would classify as hard-core mentally ill:

  • My wife has OCD, and never throws anything away. I have to throw away stuff when she’s not home, else she will get very upset.

  • I’m pretty certain one of the government engineers I work for has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Every decision he makes is carefully calculated in an effort to enhance his position & reputation. His entire professional career is based on the work of others. He knows nothing about engineering, yet his resume will say he has authored hundreds of technical papers; he slaps his name all over papers I (and others) have written, and gets away with it.

  • My cousin has been diagnosed with being bi-polar, though I believe she’s faking it. I just think she’s a conniving and lazy person, and wants to use mental illness as an excuse for her abhorrent behaviors. In other words, she’s bad, not crazy.

51

I posted recently about a friend who went off the rails pretty spectacularly. He confessed a lot of imaginary infidelities to his wife first, and then came to bunk with us for a week or so. At the time (about three years ago,) none of us realized that he was in his own world, but the depth of his disturbance started to become clear when he was convinced that the state investigation agency was following us as we trucked through the country to my mom’s Independence Day picnic. (Believe me: on those roads, I’d have noticed if someone were following me. No traffic.) Things continued to deteriorate, as he confessed imaginary crimes to the police. They wouldn’t hold him, but they are now - armed standoff, tear gas lobbed through the window, etc. He’s now in the secure lockup at the state hospital. Very sad.

My uncle is mostly harmless crazy, but also a hoarder of the first order. Every time he fills up a house, he just buys a new mobile home and installs it at his farm. Ditto cars: he fills them with junk until they’re undriveable, and then parks them in the yard and buys another car. He doesn’t park old cars in the barn or car shed, because those are full. So are both campers and two or three utility trailers. Aside from his hoarding, the best example of his mindset: several years ago, he asked me to go online to obtain an internet ordination, because ministers don’t have to pay tolls on bridges in Duvall County. Mind you, he probably hasn’t been to Jacksonville in 20 years, but just in case…

Grandmother is probably bipolar, and mean (and now suffering from dementia,) but only the latter is an official diagnosis. Her doctor of 40+ years was a pill pusher, and prescribed a lot of psychoactive drugs, tranquilizers, mood enhancers, etc. just because she said she needed them. If I didn’t have reliable witnesses to attest that the woman was crazy without the medications, I’d think that she suffered from chemical induced problems, but no. She’s crazy. And mean.

My former sister-in-law hoarded (“rescued”) animals, to the point that the house was unliveable. Real animal rescues finally refused to work with her, after the third litter of puppies died of parvovirus, while she completely denied that there was a problem. For my brother’s sake, my mom went to help gut the house when it became a medical emergency for him - she, my SIL’s father, and a friend of my brother’s spent two weeks ripping up flooring, hauling upholstered furniture to the landfill, etc., because my brother had to sleep at his office after developing cluster headaches that sent him to the ER a dozen times in a month. I went up there a few weeks after the gut job to help finish installing floors and stuff. There were already more than 20 dogs and four cats back in the house. To this day, ex-SIL doesn’t accept that she has a problem.

My baby sister committed suicide. Depression runs in the family. Fortunately, mine is mostly under control.

52

Lots; never mind the DSM4, as the women I see are mostly diagnosed and mostly on meds. What I call crazy are the people who are not medicated, and who are a danger, as in the many described. There’s a young man with pretty bad Tourette’s locally who is not a danger- when asked a direct question he can focus, answer briefly, and then resume his tic behaviors. I used to see him in the laundromat when my girls were small. They remember him well. I’m pretty sure he heard voices, too, looking at the ceiling and shouting FFFFFFFbeauty EVERYWHERE.
Knew a pleasant Asian woman who was put on risperidol after she mentioned her daily conversations with God. After a while she went off the meds, but when I asked her if God still spoke to her, she said, “Yes, of course, but I can’t tell any doctors that or they make me take those horrible pills”. She had no other schizoid attributes and was completely functional. I did not argue.
Some “crazy” behaviors are meth or other drug induced. Those scare the bejesus out of me. Glad I got out of critical care decades ago. Glad there are those willing and able to deal with them.

53

Yes. I worked for a couple of years as the database administrator for a mental health hospital.

54

Ditto that, 23 years’ worth.

55

There’s special kind of work hell when you’re micromanaged by a bi-polar alcoholic off her meds. Life is too short to work for crazy people.

56

Yes, indeed I have. I think narcissists are one of the worst people with personality disorders/mental illness. They seem to like to start trouble, then turn it around and blame it on the other person(s). If it is a family situation, they can discredit an innocent family member, and spread lies about the innocent person to other family members. It can be especially hard when the narcissists tell lies to relatives that live out of state, because those relatives don’t see the full picture. I’ve never understood if narcissists are just spoiled, or truly have a mental disorder, because I’ve read that they can back off if legal action is taken. I know a narcissist personally who is extremely well educated and if you looked at his website you would be very impressed, yet this person was caught trying to steal a large amount of money, and he blamed it on someone else. In addition, narcissists are very critical of other people, yet extremely sensitive when they are criticized. My advice is to stay away from narcissists.

57

So, how does he finance this whole enterprise? :confused:

58

I worked in rental property management for a company that would rent to anyone if the government paid their rent. Yes, I had to deal with drug users and a lot of crazy people.

My absolute favorite story: One woman was convinced her phone was being tapped and she was getting obscene phone calls day and night. The fourth time the phone company came out to check up on it, they came into our office. I told the guy she did this all the time because she was crazy. He thought a minute and then asked “Did she use to live on (Blank) Street?”

Yes, she had. I totally lost it, laughing for five minutes.

59

Little_Pig View Post
Avoid redheads.

23 Years? Man, you’re destined for saint hood.

60

I think the worst I’ve seen is someone that had a brain injury–he was reduced to the state of an infant mentally but physically in his early 20s. He would usually writhe around on his bed bawling when he needed something, like food or a change. He was mute, otherwise. Then there was this guy who would routinely shit himself and then want to wrestle when you went to change him. I haven’t really met any people with interesting mental illnesses. Plenty of depressing people, though. There was one guy who others said was a schizophrenic, but I made friends with him and he just seemed like an alcoholic with substance abuse problems to me.