Griefing? or just madness?

May you buy a package of permanent Haircolor, after someone has switched the bottle for a shocking Red bottle and then after using a bleach or color remover, trying to get back to blonde, you end up with damaged, bright orange-pink hair for months.

It looks like the "mild inconveniences" are finally rebounding in the other direction

I hate rude testes.

May all your jeans shrink in the wash.

Sorry to bumb a "dead" thread, but my mind has somehow been "bothered" for too long now:





Is it supposed to be a fetish?

In a previous RL life as a cop I was talking to a guy who seemed really normal.

For a while.

It was when he started talking about people appearing out of the cushions on the couch that I got worried.

I got really worried when he said he liked talking to me because I 'understood'.

I (in the form of my RL alt) was at a restaurant which is known for exceptionally good chicken sandwiches yesterday. The only person ahead of me was a normal looking fellow who, from his movements, language, and the long-handled wheeled suitcase he was constantly holding on to, struck me as one of those "different" fellows. Fine with me.

After taking roughly 8 minutes to complete his order (the cashier had to ask him a few things several times), he happened to look toward the kitchen. The kids working back there were talking and joking, as kids do. Well, suddenly this gentleman angrily called for a manager and started strongly asserting that the kids in the kitchen were laughing at him. He threatened to call the police. Yes, that's right. It took no less than ten minutes for the manager to convince this guy that nobody was laughing at him (although they certainly would be as soon as he left, I thought to myself, and I wouldn't blame them). Of course, nobody could serve me while this nonsense was going on, so my planned 5 minutes in line turned into a roughly 20-minute adventure.

He got his food and wandered over to the napkin station with his rolly suitcase, muttering to himself. I ordered my food, got it in less than 3 minutes, and left.

So I'm in my car, getting ready to back out. You know how sometimes when you're backing out of your parking space, suddenly you see someone crossing behind your car and you brake quickly, and your car stops all dramatically? That's what happened. It was HIM. He walked past and then stood behind the next car as I continued backing up, his arms crossed, staring at me as if marking me for death. He pointed a couple of times and starting talking at me (my windows were up, couldn't hear him) and stood there in a showdown - him, my car, and his stupid rolly-suitcase. It was a wide parking lot so, without hesitating, I just drove around the idiot and left, quickly. I half-expected the guy to show up behind me in his car, chasing me down and hoping that I would stop long enough for him to come to my car and complain about almost getting hit, and how he was going to call the police.

I'm just posting this because, as I was driving away, the situation reminded me of the OP. I bet it was the same guy. Bastard. I HATE him.

spooky

Ooh, I'd almost forgot the Lukewarm Curse Thread...

May the dust bunnies under your beds decide to take a stroll down your hallway the morning your mother in law drops by for a visit.

I remember this guy. He had a thing going with the land radio jukebox, and greeted everyone with "Why don't you like me?"--which was rather more unsettling than one might expect.

In the OP case, however, I'm not sure if banning was the right approach. The guy could have become a regular attraction. But to ridicule the drunken and/or demented, just for the entertainment value, might be considered cruel, so perhaps Eject/Ban was the right step after all.

Wherever he is now, may he hear the theme song of an old sitcom playing over and over in his head for several hours.

"Come and knock on our door.....
We've been waiting for you......
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his,
Three's company too."

Damn you, Qie!

May you trip and almost fall!

i worry more that you were still sitting next to him AFTER he mentioned the people appearing out of the cushions.

/nods solemnly

Those cushion ghosts are way more prevalent than previously thought.

/takes a quick look behind me to see if the men in white coats with a butterfly net have caught up to me yet

Vicious, horrible woman!

I hope your pantyhose crotch won't stay pulled up.

Scary and sad. Mental illness is a frightening thing. Like everybody I get annoyed at these people, but when I think about it I'm grateful I'm relatively sane. To illustrate: several yers ago a friend's wife gradually went from normal to "quirky" to a full-blown psychosis in a little over a week's time. She became paranoid, saw and heard things that weren't there and became foul-mouthed and abusive. Imagine someone you know and love doing that out of the blue. Eventually she got better, OK even. I can't imagine what it was like for her to try to resume her normal life after being that way around people she knew.

I'm not chastising anyone for their reactions to mentally ill people, but it's such a sticky area when we're confronted with it and can't really do anthing about it but hope to get out of the situation quickly.

Now you're getting nasty.

Thank you for posting this, Bodhisatva, and so true.

I may have mentioned previously on the forums that I am a mental health professional and while in grad. school worked for the crisis hotline of a large hosptial's psychiatric program. Even amongst my co-workers, all of us having great compassion for those living with mental illness, once in awhile we couldn't help but get a chuckle from some of the comments a caller would make.

(One I remember vividly was a man calling to politely ask for my assistance. Compared to most of the calls I received, this man sounded the most (and I really hate this word but for lack of a better one...) "normal." In the course of the call, the gentleman relayed that a local radio station continued to broadcast "in his head" although he had repeatedly called and asked them not to. He thought that if I could call the radio station, they might finally quit doing that. I asked if he was currently taking any medications; his answer immediately confirmed my hunch that this man was being treated for schizophrenia. I told him the best thing to do was to contact his doctor and tell him everything he had just told me about the radio station. The caller warmly thanked me for my time and assistance.

However, mental illness is anything but a laughing matter. Our society has come a long way in the recognition of mental illness as a physical, biological condition, no different than say, diabetes, but the stigma still lingers to varying degrees.

Something that happened in the 1980's greatly affected the mental health community, especially those needing care the most. With psych meds becoming more effective, the government moved its funding away from state mental health hospitals and toward community mental health centers. A great many state hospitals closed their doors and patients who had lived there had to now receive their care from local outpatient centers. Those who had no family or other places to live, nor any means of support, were literally turned out on the street. It is estimated that a high percentage of street people are mentally ill with no place to go and no ability to earn a living. The man Dakota's RL alt encountered may have been one. (Then again he may not...just using that as a possible example.)

You're so right - living with mental illness is so very frightening; then compounded by it not being recognized by family/friends/acquaintances as a biological illness and the person being told to just "snap out of it" just deepens it.

Those who have supportive friends/family - good medical care, etc. are the fortunate ones.

There is also a positive correlation between mental illness and high intelligence/creativity. For just one form of mental illness - Bipolar Disorder - the following is an interesting list to peruse:

http://www.mental-health-today.com/bp/famous_people.htm

(For anyone who read this far, thank you. *smiles* My former post notwithstanding, this is an issue about which I am extremely passionate and when I saw Bodhisatva's post, I couldn't help but expanding on that.)

Absolutely. I'm not entirely certain whether or not he was ill. It occurred to me that he might've been, which is why I just ignored him and left. If it had been someone I was certain was just a jerk, I might've said something smart aleck-y, cuz I'm like that.

Mental illness is a serious thing; that's true. There's a LOT of people out there who are taking medication of some sort related to a mental condition; a lot more than I think many people realize. And I do agree that a lot of outpatient treatment facilities are strained having to deal with some fellows who really do deserve the sort of dedicated attention they would get at a hospital. Hospitals got something of a bad reputation a while back, which led to the whole deinstitutionalization thing. The people at the forefront of that movement did have a bit of a point - not all those people really -needed- to be kept in hospitals. But, some of them certainly did.

The strides made in diagnosing mental illnesses that have occurred in the 37 years I've been alive are truly monumental. I remember my grandmother passing away when I was a little girl in a City Facility,where she spent the last year or so of her life. It was terrifying visiting her there. Back then she was just a crazy drunk, but nowadays we know it was much more than that. And we now know these tendencies can be passed along, and I have had my own experiences with depression and it's treatments.

But it is also now being used as junk science to excuse all types of anti social and criminal behaviors by some people, some are misguided and mean well, yet others are manipulative, looking to further their own agendas. This we must be wary of, as it does a great disservice to all of us, especially those who are truly suffering through no fault of their own.

Excellent point! The genetic connection is now being pretty firmly established.



QFT! Especially the passing out of Ritalin (a very potent drug) just because certain school children are a bit on the fidgity side in class. Gosh...I'm sure I would have been diagnosed with ADD and put on Ritalin had that been around when I was a kid - I was always in motion.

And sometimes Ritalin IS needed...but not without proper diagnosis a bit more in depth than "Johnny won't sit still in class."