Each of us are probably dealing/struggling with our own mental heath right now. I know that during the lockdown I felt a sense of sadness. I wouldn’t say it was depression, but I would say its was not my normal state. I dont think Im alone in this new struggle.
I think the lockdown revealed an often overlooked section of our communities. It was safely hidden in the shadows and the virus has brought it rushing to the forefront. Let me share two examples of the bazar occurrences, that I have seen. You could say the were random, but would they have happened if we weren’t in this pandemic?
Right after the lockdown, my mom fell and was hospitalized for a short period. It was evident that she may need some help when she was released from the hospital. I was packing my truck to go up to bring her home from the hospital and possibly stay with her for an extended period if needed. Thankfully, that was not the case but I packed for the possibility that I may be saying for a month. When I say packing, I took EVERYTHING i thought i could possibly need. My mom has been downsizing for the last several years and in some case she has over downsized which means normal things like a large pan are long gone. I filled the truck with a huge cooler of frozen and perishable food from my refrigerator, enough dog food for a month as well and cleaning supplies that could occupy my time. I grew up in a very rural area and even today cable is not available. So happy satellite TV was invented, or they would still have spotty antenna reception of the three channels. I was also giving up internet, although I could still struggle and fumble browsing via my iPhone.
Up until that trip, I had not been in public for almost a month. I had groceries delivered and had no reason to venture out. At that time, there was little, credible information. I knew it was highly contagious, and I knew that I didn’t want to contract it. I avoided everyone.
I was just about ready to lock up the house and leave, when there was a knock at the door. I looked though the peep hole and saw a woman standing there. I am sometimes, trusting to a fault, and this time was no exception to that rule. I opened the door.
What I hadn’t seen through the peephole, was that the woman had already opened the storm door. My little dog Bode scampered though the open door on to my porch. I quickly grad him as the stranger stood there saying “I wont move, I wont move”. Getting the dog would have been a lot easier if she took a step back, or had not opened the screen door in the first place. Im still a little embarrassed that I didn’t take not of the storm door being open or closed. I would have ignored the knock if I had noticed that.
Im not sure if she thought he would bite, or what, but it made it more difficult to get my little guy back under my control. I thought it was odd that she would open my storm door especially under the lock down. She states that I probably dont recognize her, but she is my neighbor.
“I know ALL of my close neighbors,
and she is not one of them.”
She was knocking because she wanted to know about recycling. She said she had put her recycling out and her niece or granddaughter accidentally set her prescription bag on the recycling bin. The truck came and took her prescription while she was standing there. She wanted to know where the truck would take everything. I happened to know the name of the recycling center but she was not happy with my answer. She stressed how badly she need this prescription, and didn’t seem to accept my answer. I was really uncomfortable, being face to face with this woman. She had no mask on, and was less then 2 feet away form me.
I suggested to her that she should contact our Borough. They would know exactly who collects our recycling and where they take it. They may even be able to contact the center and expedite the search.
She flatly states that she has already been to the borough and they were no help at all. She said they wouldn’t even let her inside. I had a sudden envy for them, wishing I had never opened the door. I was a little stunned that the borough wouldn’t help. We are a pretty small borough and they have always been super-helpful every time Ive needed information. I told her that its not like them to not want to help a resident.
She then states that the Borough actually called the police and the police made her leave. CLICK…, on crap…, for the Borough to call the police and have her removed is a HUGE RED FLAG.
My toned changed from a guy trying to help his (maybe neighbor) to a guy helpful but not-as-willing as I was 5 minutes ago.
I told her that if the borough couldn’t help her, what expectation did she have that I could help? She started she story all over again, about her granddaughter putting her prescription on the recycling container. I suggested calling to get a replacement and she ignored that suggestion.
All the while I am thinking that she might have Covid and with each second I spend with her the greater chance she is spreading it to me. I in turn am going to spread it as I journey North to my mom’s. I realize, that Im certainly not her first stop, she said she was driving around all morning. She demanded that she needed the recycling center to return her items. I told her that they all mixed together in teh truck and then at the center. Even if they tried they would probably never find the medication.
She said that of they could easily see it because t was still in the prescription bag.
I told the that honestly if that was the case, they probably thought it was trash and discarded it.
She then fired back that its illegal to discard because it is a controlled substance. They would be arrested if they threw her drugs away. I told her that they would probably never know, they would just throw away a bag of what they thought was trash.
OK, took me that long to figure out this was not normal medication. This was a narcotic, possibly Oxycontin or something similar. The truth is that its more likely that she is an addict and already took all the pills and is now fabricating a story to get more. Immediate sadness as I realized these were not her lifesaving medications… the cops figured it out, unfortunately it took me a little longer. She was obviously manic, possibly a side affect of the drug, or possibly a side affect of being without it.
I was sad for her, its clear that Oxy can quickly turn a person from productive member of society to ADDICT in a very short period of time. I have no idea what the her prescription was for. Im making a general assumption that it was abused.
I was still trying to be nice, however got a lot more stern. If the borough and cops couldn’t help her, WHAT was she expecting that I could do? I wished her well and again politely said there is nothing I can do, and not to be rude, it was time for her to leave.
She did leave, but only made it to my front yard. She confronted another of my neighbors. I stood at the door, now concerned for the safety of my real neighbor. I tried to get her attention, to alert her, but she didn’t understand my signs until she was already sucked into the same conversation that i had. She is a great neighbor and I wanted to save her from this stranger, but how?
I needed to get on the road, but I also didn’t want to leave my neighbor with this woman. I paced and waited, looking out every few minutes. About 15 or 20 minutes later, I grabbed a can from my kitchen and barreled out into my yard shouting to my neighbor that I had the drink mix that she asked to borrow. That broke up their conversation enough for me to invite my neighbor in to finish our project. Their was no project, but she was grateful for the excuse to end the madness.
She came in for a few minutes until we were sure the recycling lady had moved on. She presented the same story to my neighbor. Neither of us had ever seen this woman that insisted she was our neighbor. Im still unclear why, or what she thought she would gain. MAYBE, she thought that someone would offer some our own prescription supply, I’m not sure. Maybe she was just manic form not having the drug she needed. She was certainly in distress. I felt a certain amount of sadness for her and her situation, but also didn’t want to encourage her to come back, ever!
Told my neighbor I was leaving for a few days and asked her to keep an eye on things, especially in light of what just happened. I did one final check of the house. As I did, I kept thinking, that this woman could be a super spreader of Covid. She could be infected right now and spreading the virus that everyone. Worst of all, if I caught it, the only description I could give was “a crazy stranger at my door”.
As I left my house, I decided to do a quick drive through the neighborhood. I also considered calling the police. A person ranting door-to-door, in the middle of a pandemic is a health emergency! Isn’t it? As I drove around the block, there she was. It appeared she would stop if she saw anyone outside, anyone that would listen. I went around the block one more time, and this time had my phone ready. I snapped a picture of her car and license plate. Pondered for a few minutes, if I should now go directly to the police. I decided against it. I didn’t want to expose myself to even more people at the station and to be honest, as crazy as I thought she was behaving, she didn’t break any law. I felt a little more at ease knowing that if I did contact Covid from her, I could at least provide the license number.
On my 2 hour drive to my mom’s I kept thinking about this woman, hoping she was ok, but realizing that there were probably many underlying factors that could contribute to her mental state.
As we went though lockdown the mental illness in our community bubbled to the surface. It was always there we just ignored it or didn’t notice because our lives were so busy. Once the world slowed we began to open our eyes…seeing a lot that we had previously overlooked. About a month after this event I did find out that this woman, did live, in my neighborhood. She is about a block away. I spotted her car, it had a distinguishing scratch. I hope that she is ok.
The second very odd thing happened just a couple weeks ago
I live on a corner lot in my borough. Corner lots have some great benefits, but also some disadvantages. My house is positioned towards the very back of the lot, so there is no backyard. I have a fence the separates the neighbors behind and to the left, so the only access is from the front.
This particular day I was in the kitchen grabbing something to eat. Movement outside captures my attention and I see a little girl in my yard. Its city living, so its not uncommon to see children in your yard. This was different. She was maybe 3 years old. She still had the gate of a toddler. I was expecting her to turn back to an adult, or to see an adult sweep into the yard to get her. No one did.
I looked to see if there was an adult on the sidewalk, and there was none. She turn and started towards the street, no adult in sight.
I was sure someone must be near but figured I better act on the side of caution. I ran out the door to find no adult in my yard. The little toddler went past my fence starting down the sidewalk. As I walk into my yard, a car quickly pulls to the sidewalk. A woman jumps out, and I yell, “Is that your little girl?”
She says “No” as I meet her on the sidewalk. She yells “LITTLE GIRL” but of course the girl doesn’t turn or stop. We both start down the sidewalk, towards the girl. She suddenly steps between cars and into the street headed towards a very busy main street of our borough. She starts running. Im probably 25 yards behind her but I start running, barefoot, clenching my uneaten yogurt and spoon in one hand, and doing my best sprint. I yell back to the woman, to call 911! My chances of catching this fast little girl are slim as she heads towards the busy intersection. Luckily, another neighbor saw me running and he was much closer, he darts out and sweeps her up into his arms.
The little girl never cried or even made a fuss. He brings her back to me and said “I think this is yours?”
I tell him that I have never seen this kid before and that we have no idea who she belongs too.
I bring the kid back to the woman who was still on with 911, they are still trying to determine what street we are on. I give them my address and they continue asking her questions. We now have about 6 adults gathered. None of us are the parent, and none of us have ever seen this kid before.
Now, you would think that someone would be frantically looking for this baby, but there we stood. The little girl still not upset that she is now surrounded by 6 or more strangers.
A few minutes later a woman comes walking up the street. When i say walking, she was walking, in no hurry, as if out for a stroll. She was the child’s aunt. She offered no explanation of how the child escaped their house. Also, no acknowledgment to the group of people that had just saved the kids life. An older woman also pulled up in a car, Im guessing she was the grandmother. They both seemed very oblivious to the severity of the missing child almost as if she had forgotten a sock at the laundromat.
I thought surely the police would arrive and want to question them.
How does a toddler leave a residence unnoticed and venture so far that you have to get in the car to go out looking, My fellow rescuer, the woman, was still on with the 911 operator who basically said alls well that ends well and ended the call
Who knows how this relates to Covid, if it even does. But its never happen before.
Im wondering if the Mom even knew what had happened that day. Did the Aunt tell her she had temporarily lost her child?
You may ask how is this related to mental health and Im not sure it does. I question the mental state of the Aunt/babysitter. I dont even want to think about what would have happened if we weren’t there. Thanks to Covid, traffic on my street was light and there were a more than normal amount of people around to notice a little lost girl.
I still find myself shaking-my-head when I picture the aunt. She was not the least bit concerned and here I am weeks later still concerned.
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