I know the vast majority of people with mental illnesses- like the vast majority of people without- aren’t going to stab me. So I am feeling quite guilty that this morning, while in the reception area of my local CMHT, I seriously thought I was going to get knifed by someone sitting opposite me. They were staring at me very intently with an air of hostility, and the intensity of the stare frightened me. I found myself busying myself in a boring way, to show how uninteresting and also unthreatening I was. I nibbled a bit of the Tesco fruit salad I had in my bag. (I ended up not sleeping. Thought fruit would perk me up). I pulled my hat down over my ears. Sauntering up to the desk I forced myself to look cool and unbothered. Then I legged it.
Of course I wasn’t in any danger. And they could have been staring at me because I looked like an idiot (I did). And I’ve been the starer in the past. I’m used to strange behaviour. I’m often a strange behavee. I’m wondering if this is a case of Mentally Ill Dominos, in which a circle of people with mental health problems act in ways which are innocuous but which feed into the mentalism of the other people in the room. In this case, my ever-present paranoia. Would I have felt the same in ANY waiting room? Or am I indeed just a stinking hypocrite who’s afraid of people with mental illness? Or am I just afraid of everyone?
Edit: Aha, showing your own prejudices there! It was a woman.
Filed under: Bipolar Disorder
Stumble It!
Was he black?
Was he wearing a hoodie? Coz you know, they’re the really dangerous ones.
… you might be like me, blessed/cursed with “over-expressive eyes”.
Women are the scariest – trust me – I’m not one
Oh god. Every time I go to therapy I hate sitting in the fucking waiting room because I am convinced that I’m going to get stabbed. If there’s not a corner to sit in I end up having a massive panic attack and spending half of my session wheezing and the other half sobbing and talking about my fears of men and masculinity….
x
Naw, you’re not a hypocrite. Just being careful. It’s better to be alert than and notice people staring, even if they are harmless. I’d be paranoid, too. (of course I’m bipolar too, so who knows?)
He he..just my little joke.
The secret is not to look them in the eye , and if you do don’t look back to see if they are still looking because they always are.
I think people with mental illness are scary. I can remember being put in a ward with three mental patients and protesting that no sane person would sleep in such a place. I did so I guess it confirmed their diagnosis.
Female mentalists are certainly the worst. I have been on the ward (makes me seem like a ward bird which isn’t the case) when a young woman kicked off and it is certainly the scariest thing I have ever witnessed.
Your title of “hypocrite” is needlessly self-punitive. No one is obligated to feel carefree and relaxed in a waiting room full of people who are there by virtue of having a problem and who are (presumably) not happy about it.
Reason through substitution: if you got “bad vibes” from a non-disabled person, would it provoke soul-searching and guilt? I’m guessing no. In our efforts to fight marginalizing kinds of prejudice, we need not make the parallel mistake of feeling obligated to apply a positive prejudice.
Be calm.
I recall arriving at a railway station in Lanarkshire which served the local “Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane” and at the time being too lost in my own mentalness to be particularly bothered about the man opposite me in the waiting room. He was sitting between two men with a newspaper on his lap. I proceeded to eat a dairy milk whilst waiting for my (late again) boyfriend and was only slightly bemused by the fact that the man in the middle chewed every bit of chocolate with me. Then licked his lips like a salivating alsation. It was only when a train drew up in the station that I realised the man in the middle was handcuffed and ankle chained to the man on either side of him.
Years ago when I saw my (one and only) psychiatrist, I never felt threatened by anyone in the waiting room, but, to my shame, I did play ‘Guess what mental illness that person has’. I actually had no way of verifying my guesses so it was a game I always won
Seriously, though, I think the only one I might have got right was anorexia – one woman who always sat opposite me, young, fidgety and skeletal. Of course she might equally have had a physical condition that made her thin, so…
I once had a bloke come in to the waiting room and claim me as his girlfriend (despite the fact that both of his parents were there with him). He then refused to go into his psych appointment because he wanted to be with me so his poor mum was sent in on her own whilst his dad kept watch of us both in the corner. I didn’t know what to do or where to look expect for at my feet. I sprinted into my appointment when my CPN appeared lol.
Sometimes the waiting room is a scary place to be. x
Leave “Guess what mental illness that person has ” to the professionals in the next room.
Its you that’s prejudiced Seaneen.
I know! Hence the entire point of this post!
I thought you were seeking a second opinion.
Isn’t everyone?
I don’t think it’s so much being judgmental or prejudice. The truth of the matter is that we never know what the person next to us might do, be he/she mentally ill or not.
My brother used to work in the state hospital and a kid with autism once took a chunk out of a co-worker’s face. (Yes, with his teeth.) I’m in no way prejudiced against autistic people (my son is autistic) or mentally ill people (I’m bipolar I, rapid cycling, with the occasional psychotic episode), but I don’t tend to trust the people around me. I’m wary. And this stems from past incidents wherein I should’ve been more observant.
Who knows? If you hadn’t “legged it” maybe that woman would have taken a shot at you. Maybe not. But the point is–we can’t know what others might do. And there are fierce creatures among us. We can’t know who they are sometimes till they do something threatening.
My best friend’s kiddo was taking dance lessons from a woman and today it’s splashed all over the news: This thirty-three year old dance instructor was having an affair with a thirteen-year-old boy. A predator among us? I’m sure the boy’s parents think so.
I found a program that can heal most disease and my son, Jesse, age 16, and I are testimonials. I published Jesse’s story in Ezine Articles and the website, http://www.cureadhdbipolar.net. Jesse was cured of bipolar, schizophrenia and ADHD and I had several medical problems myself.
Fatima
pah hahaha thats in reply to Fatima’s Reply!
Fatima, I’m glad you have found something that works for you, but I don’t believe your claims or your website and don’t accept that mentalism has a “cure” in the way you suggest.
I believe that you can manage mentalism as you can manage physical illness; I believe lifestyle can contribute to mentalism as it can to physical illness and I do actually believe that mentalism will eventually be found to have a biological cause, but please don’t try to peddle your wares in a forum such as this.
Albert Camus