I guess I was nine or ten. My dad had this friend named Charles. I liked listening to his stories because he had been in Korea. It was damn interesting to me to hear about firing machine guns so much that the barrels glowed cherry red and drooped from gravity. He talked about being in combat. It wasn't like war movies. It was very interesting.
I never said much in his presence but he gave me a hard time, calling me girls names and speaking to others about me like I wasn't there. My dad's other friends didn't act this way towards me. I guess I just accepted it about the guy because I found him interesting. It's kinda screwed up when you think about it. Maybe he was unhappy. Who knows.
I do recall that he gave me a nice Christmas present- a folding saw, and I used that sucker, too.

Well, ol' Charles had a wife. I don't remember too much about her, except this one night. Charles and his wife were visiting my parents house. We were all in the living room (They had no kids of their own), business as usual, small talk, coffee, etc.
Come time to leave, they say their goodbyes and walk out to get into their car. Just a few seconds later, Charles' wife comes back with this odd smile on her face. She's looking at my dad. He laughs and says "What?" She smiles even more, grinning ear to ear. Again, my dad says "What?" He's uncomfortable but trying to be polite.
She says something like "I know you're that little kid."

Again "What?"

"You're that little kid, down in the dirt and his nose is runny. Come on, you know. You know!"

By this time, she's grinning like the Joker. I can't take my eyes off of her. The next thing I know, my mom is taking me out of the room. Here comes Charles passing us in the hallway to gather up his wife. I heard him saying to my dad "I'm so sorry."
After that, we didn't see either of them for a long time.

In terms of the insanity of the world, this is nothing, but it was rather remarkable at that age to witness someone having some sort of psychotic episode, and at the drop of a hat, no less.

Plenty of crazy stuff growing up. I did not realize how insane until I was older. Growing up in a large metro area, saw plenty of people laying on benches and talking to themselves. I was about five and asked my Dad if that guy was dead because he was not moving. He said he was probably passed out and told me to move along.

In my teen years, my friends mom went to the state hospital for psychotic episodes on a monthly basis. His father killed himself one day in the garage. I just thought all that was normal.

I was sorta sheltered growing up. I was 40 before I saw genuine diagnosable crazy in the wild. We were doing the memorials and museums rounds in DC when we passed a homeless woman having an argument on a cellphone that wasn't there. "That was my paycheck motherfucker!"

I was 20 and working in a jail. There was a guy in solitary confinement, who was polite enough every time I saw him, and he called every deputy captain. He thought he was on a ship and he also thought he was Adolph Hitler.

There was a guy in highschool named Randy that claimed to be a vampire, wore a cape to school every day. He was dead serious said he liked the taste of blood. The kid was wacked for sure.

Yes. A couple of very close relatives suffer from schizophrenia. They're both on and off the street, it's very sad. I remember being VERY frightened as a child. Her mother got hauled off to the state mental institution in St. Joseph, MO. Then her father committed suicide. Very depressing.

quote:

Originally posted by Butch 2340:
There was a guy in highschool named Randy that claimed to be a vampire, wore a cape to school every day.

Randy the Vampire. Oddly, I feel no fear.

I was likely 9 or 10 as well. My grandparents took my brother and I to Kings Island (an amusement park just north of Cincinnati)and we were riding the tram from the parking lot to the front gate. You know the open air cars that had maybe 4 or 5 benches per car that sat 4 across. With the tractor and likely 5 cars. It was a full day so you are talking around 100 people on the tram total.
We were smack in the middle of the tram and all of the sudden the guy in his 30s behind us just starts yelling "Fuck You Old Man!!" directed at my grandfather.
Not once did my grandfather acknowledged the guy not once. I looked over his shoulder once just see what was going on. The guy just kept yelling "Fuck You Old Man!!" and got more agitated as my grandfather ignored him. He then began to rip off his clothes and throw them at people waiting at tram stops. He continued to yell and curse.
Finally the tram stopped and some folks not sure if it was security or police tried to snatch a hold of the guy and bit of a tussle ensued.
Knowing what I know know he was probably high. As a kid I had no idea about drugs really and no idea what was going on.
I also had no understanding why my grandfather ignored the guy. I presume now my grandfather was well aware it was only words that the fella would be spewing and much easier to deal with. I have no doubt if the fella would have tried to grab a hold of my grandmother, my brother, or me that the fella would have been wishing the police had gotten to him before my grandfather.
I can only imagine without a doubt the country ass whooping my grandfather would have unleashed on this guy. But my grandfather kept it cool.

Since then I have seen so many sorts of crazy somethings I still don't believe myself.

Back when I was young, real young, we had a shortcut to get to the store. It involved going over the back fence, cutting through some apartments, and then crossing the next road and through FiFi Carpenters side yard. FiFi was a piece of work. Middle age, not particularly good looking to any of us, except she was nekkid. If you wanted to see what a real nekkid woman looked like, there she was. Certifiably crazy with a resume to prove it. And she was once an attorney. She also ran for President a few times, but only locally.

She did have a daughter who was good looking, but embarrassed about her mother. Understandably. She didn't date much because she didn't want a guy to pick her up at home.

Dogs diagnose crazy and don't like it. My dog Spot took a lot of walks with me. We'd often stop and talk with friends. One day we were in a guys front yard and Ole Spot started going crazy himself. Very unlike him. But then I saw the reason. A crazy woman was dancing up the middle of the street and singing. There is no doubt in my mind that had I let him go, he would have attacked her. He was about as mad as I've ever seen him, and we spent most of 13 years together. He sensed she wasn't right and didn't like it a bit.

Who is to say crazy, or merely odd?

We had some people in town who acted odd, erratic, over boisterous sometimes, saying peculiar things about events. They didn't seem to be a danger to themselves or anyone else.

There was one fellow, a youth worker at the church. He disappeared, without trace or mention ever again, reputedly after being caught outside some lady's window.

I wondered about a couple of guys in college. They had some strange ideas about how things worked or not.

I was a participant in a group of middle aged athletes, runners, triathletes who ran together at lunch in Balboa Park. There was a gym where there were dressing rooms, showers which we used nearly everyday after the run. We were very often joined by one or another of the homeless people. One fellow we named "Bubbles" because he would stand under a shower for a very long time, soaping all up, then rinsing, and repeat, over and over. Another guy carried on rather involved conversations in the shower, with himself. His name was "Monologue." Attempts to join the conversation were repulsed.

One fellow who threatened to kill me I thought might be crazy. It happened that I was representing a psychiatrist at the time, in an unrelated matter. I talked with him. From my description of this fellows antics, the shrink thought he was probably asocial, a personality disorder that can range from very mild to acute requiring professional intervention.

I'm not sure I have ever encountered a mental meltdown.

We had a woman in town when I was a kid up through high school who we used to call Walkie Talkie. Because she'd walk around town all day long puffing a cigarette and talking to herself.

Other than that I didn't see much until I started working in public safety, in particular EMS in various cities. You see all kinds of crazy doing that.

My birth mom is mean as a rattlesnake and bipolar. I didn't realize how crazy all that was until later. You wouldn't believe half of it. I'm thankful I can't remember all of it. I was able to get away from it in 7th grade and got my sister out a year later.

It must be 30 years ago but the episode I had was trying to help a neighbor who was a bit bent by his experiences in Vietnam. There were 3-4 couples living in the apartments who were social, and the wife got scared when she learned her husband was changing for the worse and started sleeping with a sword under his pillow.

We tried to help, so we listened and coaxed some stories from him. started when his best friend was killed in front of him. He hated so much he enjoyed his job too much. The part that widened my eyes was when he said he felt killing was better than sex for him. He was getting lost in his crazy. At the time I was LIVING for sex. The juxtaposed views were both unnerving and motivating for me to help. I got to thinking he felt he was broken and evil. I did my best to let him know while I was not there, I also could not judge him for when he was there. Tried to find a positive message forward that he should forgive his wartime self and do his best to see what stateside life was offering him.

I/ we all asked him to say these thing to the VA therapist he was seeing as well. Moved away short time later but we can all hope he found his way.

At age 6, I accompanied my Dad to a downtown building in Houston. While waiting in the car for him to complete his business, I observed a bum like creature standing in front of a pawn shop window watching 3 golden balls randomly move in a circle for at least an hour.

I asked my Dad what he was doing. He only said stay away from people who are enraptured by repetition. No good can come from it.

I saw it before I realized what crazy was, probably around 12 years old.

My friend's mother was bi-polar and schizophrenia and could shift gears faster than you could keep up. She did not bring people home often because of her mother. We were close so I was around more often but the more I was around the more she would ask me to meet her down the street as her mother would use me as a tool against her in her emotional head games.

I learned much more about it years later when we were adults.

My grandmother had a major stroke when I was very young. We tried to care for her at home, but it was too much. Eventually we had to put her in a facility where she could get dedicated care. Yep, a nursing home.

Visiting there to see her, was like visiting an asylum. One lady I will never forget, would just silently sit there and slowly and repeatedly bang her head against the wall. All I ever saw her do. They had her in a football helmet.

Oddly, this wasn't entirely.... novel. Just more concentrated.

You grow up in the big city, you see things.

One time, I was maybe 5 or 6, I was going to a store on the avenue with my dad. Walking towards us down the avenue was some old man who didn't look quite right. He had a strange look on his face while walking. Then he slightly paused, did a little shake, slightly lifted one of his pant legs, and a turd fell out. Full size. (At this point he's less than 10 feet from us.) He said not a word and resumed walking toward us.

My dad just ignored it, so so did I. Stepped around the turd.

quote:

Originally posted by EasyFire:
He only said stay away from people who are enraptured by repetition. No good can come from it.

Far out

I grew up with several sick relatives. I knew crazy before I knew normal.

My crazy was more the squalor "Hoarders" type.

I was working USPS part time college job, & drove around the shire for several hours nearly daily. I would see this gaunt old man wandering about, usually in a suit coat & some raggedy pants, and always bare-foot regardless of season or weather.

My group had tried to determine who/what he was doing, but never came up with any definite conclusion.

I had my head deep into a large corner-parcel pick up box (yes, poor situation awareness) and was startled to hear some kind of gibberish from just over my exposed shoulder.

Recovering position discovered it was 'him' and he had managed to launch into some full throated and basic incomprehensible string of words that had no meaningful structure or content relationship. He did *see* me but was not responsive to any verbal or eventually physical response I made to his brief pauses in his own narrative.

Finally I just thru my mail sack in the van & drove away. A lot of the wonderful theories we had considered of metaphysical savant was discarded that day.