Lessons From Joe the Schizo

Sensitive content warning: Mental Health, Suicide and Self-harm

“They say I have the Schizophrenia again.” He said when she asked what he was in for as though they were in a prison rather than a medical facility.

Joe is a handsome young man. He’s roughly 6-feet tall with blonde hair, brown eyes and a soft, pleasant face.

He spends day after day, his waking hours and others’ sleeping time, walking the community space of the short-term crisis center in circles talking to himself.

The conversations with himself often seem to be complete comments with genuine reactive responses. Sometimes one of the respondents replies with an excessively cheerful Irish accent that strikes a mental image of the Lucky Charms leprechaun.

Two days ago he went into a fit when a loud woman who yelled at everyone about anything passed through the doors. She bragged loudly about how much she loved meth. The staff attempted to comfort the patients with assurances the woman was in some kind of  methamphetamine-induced psychosis and she wouldn't be here long. Don’t do drugs, kids.

The loud woman would violently scream about people trying to harm or touch her. About being tortured. She’d holler about needing more meds or being cold. Everything was a big angry to-do with that lady as her shouts would startle people awake. She had a pixie style short hair cut and sores on her face. She likely was once a genuine beauty and would regain a lively glow if only she could conquer her addiction.

The Crisis Center is intended to be a short-term solution for mental health crises of all sorts. Some behaviors are more strange than an average citizen has personally experienced. The accommodations distinctly lack any Yoga-like, GOOP-y peaceful, or wholesome vibe. Scattered about haphazardly are vinyl pieces of furniture in varying condition from new to shredded like an ancient diner’s booth. They’re something of a recliner-meets-bed style for all-day and all-night coed comfort. One patient will come through and line all the pastel blue bed-like-chairs into neat, organized rows, only to be followed by another patient with the opposite intent.

The community area where everyone sleeps and spends their day is lined with transparent offices that look into the space constantly. They have glass walls and security locked doors. Patients simply pick a staff to tap on the door to request a restroom visit, water, medication or other need. Patients, confined to this space, are often blown off and instructed to “wait” while the staff appear to conclude their social-catching up type conversation – in direct view of the patient waiting to urinate.

As the angry woman yelled, she agitated nearly everybody – especially Joe. In his confusion induced rage he flung the art supplies off the large table that also served as the “group” meeting place, dining hall and rec center. He threw a chair and subsequently had to be medicated to calm him down as he was subdued for well over a day. Once the yelling lady went wherever she needed to be for her treatment, or consequences, he once again resumed his methodical circle-walking.

She sat in her blue vinyl chair-bed with the thought of how she doesn’t belong here feeding the pity-party of her mind. She refused to participate in group therapy sessions. “These people are crazy! All I did was kill myself,” she thought as the dread of facing the shame upon release began to take hold.

Joe maintained a sense of empathy despite his own bleak circumstances. He would bring someone who was crying a snack, retrieve an extra blanket because another patient appeared cold and knew all the staff by first name.

Joe has been in this short term crisis facility for over two months. Confined to the community space without the privacy, nor consideration, to so much as dream.

She had bruised rings around her neck and darkness around her eyes from her suicide. Her weeping was nearly constant. Joe came to sit near her. At first he mumbled a bit in his unaccounted-for Irish accent as he began to share some of his story.

He used to live with his Grandmother and when he stopped taking his medications that controlled the mental illness he became too much and too dangerous for her to properly care for. He was a danger to himself and others.

Joe asked the girl with bruises around her neck what she likes to do and she replied that she has something of a green thumb and likes plants. He smiled and then frowned. “I don’t know how to draw that,” he lamented.

Having caught on to the kind gesture he was considering, she suggested he simply draw a thumb and color it green. His face lit up as he charged to the table with the art supplies and worksheets from the previous group therapy session.

It was some time later he came back proud to hand over his gift and a bit distraught that he didn’t quite get it just right, but it was close. He presented a page largely full of a series of angles and formulas representing her “Green Thumb.”

She admired his art and appreciated his kindness and his face turned sad. She asked him what was wrong.

Joe, in a moment of lucid thought, explained his lengthy time there and that he was waiting for a permanent place. He had failed in a group home setting and he desperately didn’t want to be locked up in a place like this for the rest of his life.

“I will never kiss a girl,” he confessed. 

Joe stood up just then, seeming to begin his customary walking pattern. Unpredicatably he screamed the loudest, most hopeless and helpless, “FUCK!!!” that has ever been shouted into the void.

He collapsed to the cold institutional floor in a pile of the deepest sort of human despair. Each and every staff in their security glass offices took note, stood in their doorways and coldly observed the young man’s justifiable torment. Offering no support, they simply stood at the ready to respond with medications, or restraints, as needed.

The life-giving epiphany hit her just then. In that powerful moment the gravity of which was fully appreciated by a single soul in all the cosmos – hers. “It’s all my fault,” her inner voice acknowledged.

She sits there with her self-inflicted wounds as countless others have no choice in their existence. They have no say in where they sleep or even how upset they’re allowed to be. They cannot choose any path for their life. Some people, by the nature of their illness, are certain they will be passed up at every opportunity to share intimacy with another human being. A most basic desire for each and every one of us.

There she sits in this community room of people who did not choose to be there. A fact that sets her apart. She’s the only person who is to blame for her position. What a fresh shame that is. How embarrassing.

Opportunity began to seep into her thoughts. Considerations of goals and experiences unimagined began to warm her. Her crying ceased. That evening she wrote a list of what she was grateful for on the worksheet in the group therapy session.

She left that place with a lesson in her heart.