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The White-Knuckle Crowd
What Poverty Does to Mental Illness
Maybe you’ve seen the looks a homeless man on the corner gets as he converses animatedly with the voices in his head. Or witnessed stares and nervous laughter on a city bus when a woman won’t stop yelling about the government’s plot to take away her millions.
The behaviors that accompany serious mental illness don’t phase me much because I’ve known and worked with plenty of mentally ill people — or as I sometimes like to call them, people.
My mom is a retired social worker who worked to keep elderly adults, many of whom suffered from mental illness, independent and in their own homes. The office was casual, so my mom was able to bring her kids to work with her or have us visit her there fairly often. For me, it was an invaluable education.
From the time I was 8 or 9 years old, I had interactions with hoarders and people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and those who were too depressed even to lift their heads to look at me.
I can’t say I was never intimidated or afraid, but the people I met all had one very important thing in common: they were human beings. And they were hurting.
