Mental Illness Among Us

Quote of the day:
“You question authority, eh?”
“No. I annoy authority. More effect, less effort.”
--Darby Conley in Get Fuzzy.

As a result of the Virginia Tech tragedy, we seem to have entered a debate about how to deal with mentally ill people.

The main issue with this kind of conversation is that “mental illness” is not a pure condition. Virtually all of those who have psychiatric problems do not have them 100% of the time. There are moments of clarity and lucidity mixed in.

And sometimes people with psychiatric problems have a charming, interesting, or at least somewhat normal side to their personalities.

When I was the program director of KPBS radio, we would often get letters from interesting people. One who was quite memorable was the correspondent we came to call “Dog Man.”

Dog Man would write to me once or twice a month, and his letters would always begin engagingly and thoughtfully, as he responded to a news or feature item we had aired. But somewhere midway through each letter he would change course, and begin talking about the problem of dogs defecating in local parks.

Every letter we received from him ultimately was about this issue. I would always write back, thanking him for his thoughtfulness, though it was clear there was something going on with Dog Man that needed some attention.

I have to confess that it became quite an event for us when a letter from Dog Man arrived. We became quite curious about exactly how he was going to tie together the subject of his letter and his real obsession--dog feces in local parks.

Unfortunately, one day Dog Man went too far. We received a letter that not only had his usual complaint but also threatened the mayor. We called the police. After that, we never heard from Dog Man again.

I sometimes wonder what happened to him.