Comments | zenithblue: good fences

zenithblue

good fences

Mar 18, 2007 11:19

The two women that live to the left of me are sisters. The house they live in is the house they were born in. They are middle-aged, one fat and one bone-thin with a long grey braid down her back. The thin one with the braid works every day. She drives a pick-up truck and exudes that brusque competency that middle-aged pickup-diving women tend to. ( Read more... )

neighbors, mental health

Comments 8

scarredbyitall March 18 2007, 19:18:31 UTC

That is sad and disturbing. Did the working sister say who had called the police? It's possible she did because her sister had done something or said something suicidal or particularly dangerous. But perhaps a neighbor, freaked out by things she'd said, did it.

I don't like the thought of the police simply showing up and taking someone away.

zenithblue March 19 2007, 07:13:32 UTC

I'm just weirded out that it was the cops. Don't we usually have less intimidating social services for things like this? How monstrous is it, to send scary cops to run interference with someone who already has paranoid delusions? Ugh.

lagizma March 23 2007, 14:02:56 UTC

The more people on my f-list who have need for social services, the more I see just how monstrous it really is.

Scary cops...you are so right. Says the girl who rode two hours in a cop car and they were "nice" and took the handcuffs off.

(The comment has been removed)

zenithblue March 19 2007, 07:15:23 UTC

I hadn't seen her in a while before this, so I'm honestly not sure if she's maintaining right this minute. She always seemed tenuously fine, but maybe lately she's been faltering. Still, the cops? Why not, say, a social services lady? Nothing per se against law enforcement, but this seems 1) a waste of their time and 2) really scary for a woman who is already afraid of plenty.

kiwikat March 18 2007, 23:00:19 UTC

that's sad. the way the mentally ill are treated in general is disturbing but it's hard to know what to do to help. i just try to treat everyone like a fellow human being and hope for the best? i hope she's okay.

zenithblue March 19 2007, 07:16:43 UTC

Paranoid schizophrenia is such an isolating disease, and I'm totally with you that the best thing you can do as a neighbor or relative stranger is just to try for a little decency. I hope she's okay too. I dug up some dandelions off her lawn today so they wouldn't take over while she's gone.

punkybrister69 March 19 2007, 22:58:36 UTC

Totally unrelated, but, from Powell's Blog...

Just for the Ladies: The Portland Women Writers Community, which publishes the VoiceCatcher anthology, is accepting submissions for their second anthology of writing by Portland women, both poetry and prose. [...] Deadline is April 4th, so start writing!

http://www.pdxwomenwriters.com/voicecatcher/submit.html

zenithblue March 20 2007, 05:07:37 UTC

Whoo, thanks for this! I usually read Powell's blog but haven't of late (since my head has been on a bit backwards) so I would have missed it.

I'm not sure what I have to submit right now but I'll open up the old "portfolio" icon on my desktop and see if there might be anything suitable.

Thanks!