9:21 p.m. | 2003-03-01 My Tears Fall On The Shattered Pieces Of My Heart. I�ve been very introspective for the last couple of days namely due to several different situations that have left me to ponder things that have occurred in my life. Good and bad. This resulted in my mind being so fragmented I couldn�t really settle on any one particular thread of thought. My mind kept leaping from this to that, down and around and kept ending up swirling into a mixture of thoughts and emotions. Hence, no updates. No attention span for the outside world. And, a lot of blank stares fronting my little brain full of scattered and very deep thoughts. I was snapped out of it very quickly tonight by an unexpected phone call from a lady I used to work with at a prior place of employment. I hadn�t talked to her since I�d left there but I�ve thought of her often. I�ll call her Hope since she�s always had a lot of that. It was wonderful to hear her voice and I was quite ready to catch up on her life. She had a lot to say. A lot. A bunch of disjointed, paranoid, bizarre snippets tumbled uncontrollably, and in a disorderly fashion, from her tongue. A jump to here and then over there and then somewhere else. I recognized it instantly. I see it in the letters I review on a regular basis at work. Dozens of pages of intense scribblings that have that chaotic quality with hidden meanings. The letters that I receive from people who are paranoid schizophrenic (PS) who reach out so desperately for help, justice and resolution that we can�t provide. Very early on in my conversation, I made a tentative armchair diagnosis of PS, based on stories of a circle of devil worshipers who were handling her first daughter (now 14) right after birth while Hope was in a coma, chalky white people who appear out of nowhere and try to steal her children, buses that are so warm they make the children sleep so they can steal them and brainwashing that happened in grammar school when the teachers would turn off the lights and then speak to the children as they rested their heads on their desks. Still I was hoping with all my heart that I was wrong. Then, this happened. (Hope:) Remember the midwives (where we worked) and how they�d put those cold steel things (speculums) in the women (patients)? (CI:) Yes. (Hope:) What�d we have (unintelligible as she was talking so fast)? (CI:) Say again. (Hope:) What�d we have (unintelligible)? (CI:) I can�t understand what you�re saying. Slow down and ask me again. (Hope:) What�d we have? Eggs or sperm? (CI:) We have eggs. (Hope:) Yeah, eggs. That�s how they get the eggs. They extract them with those cold metal things they shove up you. They steal the eggs and make babies in test tubes and those people from the test tubes� you can see them everywhere. I had to bite my lip to stop it from quivering. Here�s a woman, a little older than me, who has three daughters and she�s asking me if women have eggs or sperm. A very intelligent woman who was fully functional and competent when I worked with her. A dedicated mom who has beautiful, gifted and well-mannered children. And, the devil worshipers? I wasn�t all that surprised to discover that they consisted of women who we worked with who she, as well as I, became somewhat disappointed with during our course of employment. She was mad at them when she left there. Their story is that she started writing company checks to herself and they ended up having her committed to county mental health (a story I didn�t originally believe), and her story is that she �remembered� that they were the devil worshipers who were present at her first child�s birth more than a decade previous. And they are pure evil. Hope�s gonna call Johnny Cochran and file a class action. She�s turning to Johnny because no other attorney will take the case. I not only worked with her, I hired her and she was my employee. I was the agency administrator of African-American nonprofit community-based organization that provided prenatal care to poor pregnant teens and mothers in an attempt to lower the infant mortality rate amongst African-Americans which is still double the rate of whites and other groups. She was my assistant. And, she was smart, dedicated, funny, competent, trustworthy, dependable and had accomplished a lot after enduring many, many hardships. We connected. She has a mixed heritage, like most of us do. She�s Scottish, Native American, African-American and some other nationalities I no longer remember. Interestingly, she spent her childhood in the Philippines (her father was in the service), so she grew up with a different viewpoint about race relations. When we worked together, she was pulling her life together and was headed in a really good direction. We used to talk a lot. She remembers that. She�s spent a year tracking my phone number down because she wanted to talk to me because she always felt that we connected. That I understood her. And, I did. Not so much anymore. But, I do understand that life is based on how we, as individuals, perceive things. What�s real to one person may not be real to someone else. Most of us experience this as a case of misunderstanding. A person says something, you have hurt feelings, you hash it out and realize that whatever was said or done wasn�t meant to hurt. Things along those lines. All of us have impressions that someone else can refute, but that doesn�t invalidate our impressions. If we have them, they�re real to us. Keeping that in mind, I just listened to her and provided generic responses. A lot of �well, that must be very scary to have people looking in your windows all the time� and such. All while my heart was shattering and I was keeping the tears at bay. For years, I�ve always been grateful that I�m not schizophrenic because I think it�s one of the worst things that can happen to a person. And, to their loved ones. It�s such a tragic condition. Like most schizophrenics, she doesn�t like to take her medication. She lamented about that and about how her family members often remark, �you�re not taking your medications are you�? She says they make her feel homicidal. They make her want to hurt her children. THAT scares her because her daughters are the most precious things in her life. She�d rather go it alone without the meds. I did get the impression that she�s living with a relative, so I feel better about that for her sake and the sake of her children. I�m glad she called and I�m not glad she called. It was great to hear from her and I�m sure that, now that she has my number, I�ll be hearing from her a lot. Because people with PS need to connect with people to relay their messages and most people don�t want to hear it. I understand that. It�s a helpless and scary feeling knowing that you can�t alleviate their troubles and their troubles sometimes cause harm. But, I�m willing to provide an ear if it�s a comfort to her. I presume that it is as she went to great lengths to contact me and she told me that she called because she always felt a connection with me. I could feel my heart shatter as I spoke with her. All the goals and dreams she had now ramble about in a disjointed and confused mind. Her heart stricken every moment with panic and fear about the safety of her children from the plots of the random evil people. Her tears over not being understood and admonished frequently for her odd behavior. I rang off feeling very much snapped out of my introspections, yet she now adds to them. I was grateful for the call that came in mere seconds after I hung up. That is that. (CI:) Hello? (BG:) Hi! How are you? (CI:) Uh� I�m tripping. (BG:) What�s up? (CI:) I just received a really odd call but it�s a very long story so what�s up with you? (BG:) In that case, tell me about your call on Tuesday (we�ll see each other then). For now, I just need to know where the History Museum is. (CI:) Oh, okay. You know where this is so just go here from there and you�ll run right into it. It�s a great museum. And, you can get a Rosie the Riveter magnet there to put on your frig! (BG:) Who�s Rosie the Riveter? (CI:) Oh, for gods sakes child. (BG:) I�m sorry. I know. (CI:) During World War II chicks had to go to work in factories and shit. Rosie�s the chick in the blue shirt with her fist held up in the air. You�ll recognize her. (BG:) Oh yeah, I know what you�re talking about now. I just didn�t know she had a name. (CI:) Go! Have fun! You�ll love the museum. (BG:) Thanks! Tell me your story on Tuesday. Sometimes, a little bit of sanity goes a long way. your thoughts? seed flower