As a kid we had crazy living next door. Truth be known she was probably just a lonely old woman with her own issues, but she'd scare everyone to death with her antics sometimes. In the 50's hardly anyone had air conditioning. I remember once we were sitting in the living room with the windows open because it'd been hot that day. She walked up and scratched on the screen not two feet from where my dad was reading his newspaper. It's the only time I can recall seeing him wide-eyed and scared, that is, right before he got mad.

Maybe 12 years ago, I heard a ruckus outside of our condo. Neighbor's daughter was visiting her parents (I did not know any of them) and she was having quite a breakdown outside. She was probably mid-20s and her parents had called the PD for help.

Ambulance was on the way.

She lost it and was freaking out. Said they were not real cops and refusing to cooperate. LEOs were being very gentle, but she was getting pretty physical. She was getting loud and answering to other "voices." Went on for about five minutes, then she REALLY lost it. Swinging and punching and screaming she was being kidnapped. Said the badges were fake since they were not tin. (They just had patches at the time.)

I calmly walked up, somehow got eye contact and told her "this is Jeff ___ and this is Danny ____. They are cops here in town. I've known them for more than five years. The dog you're hearing in the back of the cop car ... his name is Nico."

She immediately shut down and was totally compliant. Like a light switch. I think she had been suffering with paranoid schizophrenia for quite some time and was out for a test weekend with her parents. Did not go well obviously.

Tough...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: steve495,

Town we lived in out west had a few of them. I can think of at least five. Three notables, only one was violent. The other two were entertaining. One, older female would start talking to herself. Once in the Safeway, I remember her suddenly spouting off about the "beautiful orange taffeta dress she wore once". She was pretty harmless, we never had any runs on her for EMS that I can remember.

Another one, probably in his twenties or thirties. Sparky was his name. One day he stopped in front of the main fire station and started talking about the "death ray" he was making to destroy the town as it was evil. That statement along with the look on his face kinda creeped me out but there was nothing that could be done, no threat against any specific person, just the whole town. He went missing a few months later. His body was found in the mountain just outside of town. Rumor he was found near what was described as a cement boat being made in the high desert. He would have had to carry the water and cement on his back up there, a pretty mean feat if I do say so myself.

One of the guys on the fire department made the remark "at least he didn't finish his death ray".

There was another older guy, always dressed in o.d. greens. He committed suicide and while I did not go on that run one of the things they found in the house he had rented, open grocery bags, facing up and empty, filling one bedroom
wall to wall. He was very well spoken, no outward signs just "different".

And one other, older black gentleman. Fedora hat,white shirt, tie and in a suit, carrying a briefcase and always wearing sunglasses. Always walked. The office manager at the car dealer I worked for said that he would once in a while come in and rent a car. He had a license. It would come back with maybe ten miles on it. Did this more that once from what I remember her telling me.

quote:

Do you remember the first time you saw genuine crazy in real life?

Yes, was July 1964, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Unfortunately, I eventually married her.

(Does that make me crazy, too?)

I was too young to fully understand how crazy it was, but Luckily my uncle told the story for me until I was old enough to understand how bat shit retard this guy really was.

My uncle had a friend who owned an Import car shop. His name was Tony and he hired this Italian guy that my uncle, Tony, and their friends all grew up knowing back in Italy. They would always laugh a little when they would talk about Peitro, the guys name was Peitro. There would always be a chuckle and a little laugh, just in mentioning him, and everyone would just sort of shake their head a little then move on to the next topic. I would smile and laugh along but I didn't know why, I only knew the guy in passing.

On one day my uncle took me to the import car shop where Tony and Peitro were working on a pinin farina. They were having some problems getting it running and you could see Tony was frustrated, cussing up a storm and throwing his tools around the place.

He came over to smoke a cigarette and bullshit with my uncle and 10 or 15 minutes go buy where we aren't paying any attention to the car. Suddenly you can hear Peitro Yelling and grunting at the car. He's telling the car "you don't want to run you fuck, I fuck you you peice of fuck" and all sorts of craziness. We look over and all of a sudden my uncle and Tony are dying with laughter. Peitro was on the opposite side of teh car and you could see his head through the windshield and back window. You could see he was humping the car. So they go back there to see what this nut job is doing and Peitro has his manhood out and he's ramming it in and out of the 1.5 inch exhaust pipe on this tiny italian car. Yelling and screaming. He wasn't doing it as a joke or some perverse prank. He was unstable and had gotten it into his mind he was gonna fuck the car for fucking them over.

That is the first time I ever saw truly crazy.

I can't remember how young I was, but I can remember some of the crazy people who have shaped my life.

Some were actually crazy, but several I believe were helped along their course by drugs.

https://youtu.be/ixwGekSngmU

According to family lore, my father's mother was unstable. After learning more about my grandparents I am undecided if she was crazy or driven to irrational exasperation by her circumstances. She admitted to suffering electro-shock therapy but I never saw her being irrational when I was a child.

The commonly expressed symptoms of mental illness are visual and auditory hallucinations. But what about smelling smells that are not there? I once knew a woman that complained of being nearly suffocated by the aromas of burning wood, and burning plastic. The day was sunny and beautiful with clear skies and a ligbt breeze. In no way at all was there a fire near. Did she have olfactory delusions?

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. He was dead serious said he liked the taste of blood. The kid was wacked for sure.

And people wonder why I carry around a sharp wooden stake and a big hammer!

The first I can remember was a grown man walking around Leakey, Texas with a Teddybear under his arm.

Her name was Pat. We were 2nd graders at Tremont School. You could try to talk to Pat but the "conversation" seldom made much sense and her eyes seldom made contact with yours. Otherwise she looked normal.

1962 and sitting on the classroom floor watching a black and white TV that was showing an historical event we should watch. John Glenn and Friendship 7 coverage. Classmate sitting on the floor near Pat jumped up screaming, pointing at his trousers and yelling at Pat who was just calmly sitting on the floor with her hands in her lap ... and in a spreading puddle of pee.

Pat didn't finish elementary school. Think I lost track of her in the third or fourth grade. That was all the formal education she got. Didn't hear anything else about Pat until junior high.

Pat had a brother a year younger who was "normal". Word was that if you went over to his house, he would ask Pat to "entertain" you ... according to a couple of different guys.

Was a new guy in my sixth grade class. A smart kid. A freaking genius kid. Steady as she goes demeanor. Never any emotion. Always very factual and serious. Afternoon recess one day, the kid tells me he has permission from the teacher to go to his house to get something and come back but teacher said he had to have someone go with him ... that was me.

Got to his house not far from school and he asked me to wait for him. He's in and out of the house and we're walking back to school. No idea what he did inside the house ... or got.

By the time we got back to the school, recess had just ended, so we walked into class with everyone there and teacher standing in front. Come to find out she was just asking the class if anyone had seen me or the other guy. She hadn't given him permission to go home during recess and certainly didn't tell him to get someone to go with him.

Next year was the start of 7th grade and junior high. Everyone in my 6th grade class was now in the 7th ... except the smart kid. He was in the 9th grade. Genius acted like he didn't know me or anyone else he'd been in 6th grade with. I noticed no one ever hung out with him. In fact, he was avoided, had no friends but everyone knew he was a genius. A true freaking intellectual genius. He didn't even finish the 9th grade at that school. He just wasn't there anymore one day. Word was he was advanced to a higher grade and a different school around the middle of the school year. Dunno. Guy may have been smart but a little crazy and definitely listening to a different drummer.

As a young adult 1974/75, there was the time about 2 in the morning at my apartment downtown on 1st Ave in Columbus Georgia when I rolled over on the couch and noticed the station had gone off air and TV was blaring static before I noticed a middle aged woman I'd never seen before in my life sitting in a chair and "watching TV". Said she knew me and she was supposed to be there. I had awoke because my neighbor had just gotten off work and was knocking on my door to see if I wanted to have a beer or two. He thought she was my grandmother visiting or something. We found her purse and shoes on my porch. I had her collect them and sent her down the street. Every few steps she'd stop turn and glare at me. On the way to work next morning, I heard on the radio that a woman had been found dead on a downtown street corner with no ID and no immediate cause of death ... I have always wondered.

I've been around some eccentric folks off and on all my life, and working in a downtown area for a few decades, I've encountered some genuinely wacked out nut jobs on the streets.

One time, though, I had just returned from an appointment and parked on one of the middle levels of my parking garage. As I was walking to the elevator, I noticed a lady walking several car rows away, but thought nothing of it.

While I was waiting for the elevator, she came up to me. She was an attractive, smallish lady, in a nice, professional dress. At that point, it hit me. What had failed to register before, but was now quite obvious, was that she was carrying an umbrella - up and deployed.

It was a bright, sunny day and we were inside of a parking garage and this lady had her umbrella up like it was raining.

Then she very politely but very earnestly - intensely, in fact - addressed me, "Sir, there have been some people causing me problems. And I've noticed that it is typically associated with the colors red, blue, and green."

Happily, I wasn't wearing any of those colors.

"Ma'am," I replied carefully, "I'm not one of those people, and I don't know anything about them, but there's a security guard in the office right over there. Perhaps you should go and report this to him."

She looked in the direction I was pointing, then back at me, carefully appraised me for a while, and eventually replied, "Perhaps I will."
She walked away and I got on the elevator. (There's no way I would've gotten in there with her.) I got off on the next level, sprinted to a stairway in a different section of the garage, ran back down to the level I parked on, slipped over to my vehicle (keeping an eye on the umbrella moving through the garage) so she couldn't see me, and moved my vehicle to another level.

I figured if she had seen what vehicle I got out of, there was no telling what she might do to it, since she had somehow imprinted on me.

Danvers State Hospital in ma it freaked me out i was there to fix a coffee machine. it was bad lol
people should go to jail the way they were treating human beings

In high school, there was some hubbub in an otherwise quiet moment in the band hall, which was a separate building from the school. Some other kids said there was some trouble in the girl's bathroom. We went in, and a girl had cut herself (not too dangerously as it turned out) and there was blood smeared on the yellow tile walls and she was sitting in the corner. We all ran out not really knowing what do, and grown-ups soon arrived.

Born in Berzerkeley in '74 and been here most of my life so it would be really difficult to pick the first genuine crazy that was anything beyond what's almost normal here.

My parents would have my siblings and me to believe that the big fat man in a red suit who's lap we'd sat upon after Thanksgiving at Tepper's Department Store, was going to slip into our house with gifts sometime between Christmas eve and Christmas day. I knew my parents were crazy. I'd seen on TV that the big guy always came down a chimney. We didn't have a chimney. I was okay with the gifts regardless though. The Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy seemed more reasonable but still crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by side_shot:
Danvers State Hospital in ma it freaked me out i was there to fix a coffee machine. it was bad lol
people should go to jail the way they were treating human beings

Do you have any stories you can share? I've always been fascinated with that place.

This was a real tough one. In about 1968 or 1969 I had to go to the VA hospital to visit my brother. I was not aware that this was the building for vets with psychological issues, going from the current Viet Nam AO back to guys from WWII. At the front desk I was told to walk up the stairs to the 3rd floor. The heavy screen door was opened and I climbed the screened-in stairs to the appropriate floor. There I stopped and pushed a button to summon an attendant with a key to allow me to enter that floor. I then was escorted to a staff room where I asked to visit the patient. I was taken to a visiting room which they unlocked, and told to wait. A few minutes later my brother was escorted into the room and left with me. He was glassy eyed and I could barely understand his speech. He had also put on over 100 pounds in the last year and a half since I had seen him ship overseas.

Needless to say, I was in shock. My chest trembled, and I could barely keep from breaking down myself. He asked me for a smoke, and I said “sure man, here”, and lit one for him. A few minutes later, other vets started to follow the smoke and came in for cigarettes. I was floored, all
these men, young and old. Some scarred, some not able to speak, many talking at the same time. Some thanked me as they wandered out. All of them wore clothes no one would wear in public; ill fitting, torn, full of holes. Pants held up by strings and ropes and suspenders.

After about an hour of visiting I hugged him and said I would be back soon. I cried all the way home, seeing the fate of my own brother and all these men who responded to the call of their nation, and sacrificed their productive lives and families.

I kept my word and for years I would drive 3 hours each way once or twice a month to deliver some cigarettes and snacks, and to put some money in the patients’ account. Eventually, he passed away and was finally at peace.

How did this effect me? I am shaking right now and barely containing my tears. The depression from those times and visits still resides inside of me. Some times I think about those days and my wife or children ask me what’s wrong, and I just say “nothing”

Gotta go now.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: greco,

First I recall was in our nations capitol, Washington D.C. I was a kid walking down the street with family, and this scruffy, obese dude dressed in clothes two sizes two small comes prancing down the sidewalk, stopping to hide behind each bench, sign, and lamp post...not that anyone was chasing him. He proudly proclaimed, “the girls are chasing me!” And we just kept walking.

My most memorable though was in college. My school had its fair share of brilliant but odd folks, but this one guy was just a bit too detached from reality to function. When he was on his meds, he was...tolerable. However, he wasn’t often on his meds. The dude didn’t really see the need for legs. Yes, legs. So, he would tuck his legs up into his man-dresses, did I mention he made is own Theodore-of-Alvin-and-the-chipmunks-style dresses out of sheets or curtains? Anyway, he would tuck his legs up into his man dress and wobble around the campus on his hands and butt. Once, he weeble-wobbled his way out to the middle of the frozen lake in the middle of campus in the dead of winter. I remember the RA was really pissed about having to go out there after about half an hour to make sure he didn’t freeze to death. He also had a home-made wizard hat. Wore it most days.

That dude? He was crazy. Ive met other crazies since, but the no-need-for-legs thing is still probably the most memorable.

Greco -- I just don't know what to say. My heart hurts for what you went through.

The first time I saw real, genuine crazy was 1974. I was dating the gorgeous woman who was silly enough to marry me, all those years ago, and who still shares my life.

We were having dinner in a small neighborhood restaurant in Chicago. The restaurant owner had gone face to face with Richard Daley, "da mare." Harley, the restaurant owner, had refused to sell his location for an urban renewal / gentrification project. He maintained that he provided good food to neighborhood residents at reasonable prices, and he was NOT going to sell out.

Mayor Daley got Harley's liquor license revoked, so the restaurant became a "bring your own" for adult beverages to accompany your meal. There was a liquor store just a few steps away, so it was not really an inconvenience.

Back to the narrative: My wife-to-be and I were eating, it was a slow night, mid-week, and by the time we were almost finished with our dinners, we were the only customers.

We looked up and there was Harley, the restaurant owner, standing near the register counter, slowly and methodically taking his clothes off.

Our waitress freaked. It was her first week on the job. We told her to get herself a cup of coffee and sit with us at our table.

A couple of local cops showed up. They were patrons of the restaurant, they knew and liked Harley, and they were able to talk him into getting dressed again.

What Harley told them was that Mayor Daley had called in some FBI agents to evict him. The agents were waiting outside the restaurant, and they would shoot and kill him if he had a weapon, so he was getting naked so that the FBI agents would be able to see that he did not have a concealed weapon.

As far as I know, this was a one-time incident. The restaurant remained one of our favorites, really good food at very reasonable prices.