Mental illness - do you care about your neighbour???

Hey guys. Earlier tonight I posted in Norwegian here on Kelitas Corner. My fingers were all so itchy and I just had so many feelings and things to say about the certain issue that I just had to “get it out”…however, in just a few hours I have received many positive comments about that certain posting as well as my dear non-Norwegian-blog-followers have been disappointed as you guys don’t understand that weird language. I am really sorry…but I am doing my best now to give you some background information on that certain posting. Please excuse my English on this one!

I woke up this morning to the horrible news that AGAIN a mentally ill person had murdered three people. There is no excuse for murdering people, however I do question not only the Norwegian way of dealing with mentally ill people, that is "the system", howver I also question myself. You. The neighbour. The parent. The teacher. The boss. “Us” who are not sick and can differ one shoe from the other. A mentally ill person often (not always, that is, but often) show irrational behaviour and it is possible to catch up on that on an early stage. I believe tragic murder cases such as this one in the Northern Norway last night, may be prevented. However, I also believe that the way the government deal with the issue of psychiatry in this country has to change…it has improve on certain areas, such as taking care of people while they need to be taken care of, not only after some very tragic incident…and it also has to be there for some time after treatment…we live in the year of 2009, the news daily debates about all sorts of issues, however mentally illness still seem to be a taboo issue… and it frightens me that many people seem to be “afraid” to care…hopefully I am all wrong about that one....

Kelita

SÅ SKJEDDE DET …IGJEN

(Sorry my dear friends & readers in Estonia, Australia, Mexico, Germany, Canada, the USA....this one is in Norwegian as I could never express myself this way in English...I promise I'll do my very best to write most in English!!)

Så våknet vi opp til det. Igjen. Jeg ble, som alltid når nyhetsoverskriftene er som i dag, fysisk kvalm. Det gjør så vondt å lese. Jeg kjenner verken gjerningsmann eller ofre, men jeg kjenner redselen og frykten på meg. Igjen har psykiatrien sviktet, tenker vi. For det er mange ofre i denne uendelig triste saken. Det er ikke bare de tre ofrene til gjerningsmannen, men også gjerningsmannen selv - samt familie og venner.

Igjen har en psykisk syk person begått brutale drap. Det er ikke første gang dette er nyhetsoverskrifter, og det vil dessverre ikke bli den siste. Jeg må spørre: hva kan gjøres for å se - eller hjelpe psykisk syke personer før det går så langt at drap blir begått? Er det bare psykiatriens feil? Man ønsker så inderlig en forklaring - og en syndebukk, og det er ikke til å legge under en stol at dette langstrakte landet vårt har en STOR jobb foran seg når det kommer til både forebygging og ettervern innenfor psykiatrien.

Det er så lett å si at vi må ta ansvar for vårt eget liv, at en selv må stå til ansvar for handlinger en gjør. Dette er også jeg enig i – men ikke uten moderasjoner. Eksempelvis har veldig mange opplevd å føle seg sliten, utafor og av den grunn kanskje har gjort irrelevante handlinger i forhold til den personen en ”egentlig” er. Jeg mener ikke at en som opplever å være litt utenfor seg selv en periode, nødvendigvis begår drap, men prøver derimot å gi et bilde av hvordan det kan føles å være i en tilstand hvor man ser betydningen av at andre stiller opp, sier i fra og tar i et tak nettopp fordi en selv ikke klarer dette på egenhånd. Tenke seg da til en psykisk ustabil person, som sannsynligvis over en periode har oppført seg på en måte hvor andre, du og jeg, merker eller kanskje tenker at personen muligens burde ha ”hjelp”. Mentalt ustabile mennesker kan si ting - og handle - på måter som du og jeg ville reagere på, det være seg at personen virker skremmende og kanskje snakker om å dø selv eller drepe andre eller ved å utagere og bli sint på hva ”vi” friske ville kalle bagateller. Det kan være småting, som over tid utvikler seg fordi ingen tar tak i personen eller problemet.

Har ikke vi som medmennesker et ansvar også? Jeg gjentar; jeg unnskylder på ingen måte drapene som har skjedd, tro du meg jeg vet litt om hva frykt innebærer, men jeg tenker at om man får en ”magefølelse” på at noe ikke er helt som det skal, selv om en ikke kan peke konkret på nøyaktig hva, burde en ikke da som medmenneske stille seg selv noen kritiske spørsmål? Jeg mener at flere av de grusomme drapene, som jeg synes skjer oftere og oftere, kunne vært unngått hvis vi som medmennesker ikke var så redde for å bry oss, si fra eller tenke oss om en ekstra gang, samtidig som at også psykiatrien gjør jobben sin og blir mye bedre på å både forebygging og ettervern.

The Pink Suitcase

You hear the word pink suitcase and let me guess...the first thing that probably comes to your mind is that I bought myself a pink suitcase (you guys who read this and know me well, however, wouldn't even imagine that I would ever do that as pink is not one of my favourite colours)....or that this is all about some girl who's got a pink suitcase...or perhaps it is about a pink suitcase that has been missing from a flight or something....you're right, it could be something like that. I am sure some woman out there has bought herself a pink suitcase today, or that someone's missing hers - or his -  for that sake. I am sure I could make up some stories like that if that was my intention...however, what I want is to tell you about is the Man with the Pink Suitcase.

It doesn't matter when it was. Or where. It happened, and it meant something to me, that is what matters to me. If you really wanna know, it was in a pretty big city one frezzy winters day. I was hurrying to get to work, like a bunch of other people. We hid our faces behind scarves, wore warm coats and hid our hands in warm woolen mittens. I suppose most people were in their own personal worlds thinking about what this day would be like and all the appointments of this and that which had to be kept. At least I was. I also recall that I was loooonging for a hot cuppa coffee, and that was my main mission for the next five minutes. 

Suddenly I was aware of two pretty young men who maybe looked kinda "worn out"...tired...wearing perhaps not the cleanest clothes one might imagine...I had seen them before. Street guys, most likely living as close to the street as one possibly can do in this supposed-to-be- rich country of mine...I had noticed them sitting silently by a corner with a cup made of cardboard wanting some coins. The young men seemed like they tried to get attention from the passers by. They looked kinda stressed. But no one stopped. Curious as I am, I stopped, because they didn't seem dangerous or scary at all. I asked what was the matter. Then I noticed a man lieing on the ground. One of the guys told me he wasn't breathing, that they needed someone to call an ambulance, but they had no money on their prepaid cards for their mobile phones to ring for. I checked the man's pulse...I couldn't feel much...I took off his scarf and anything that may help to make him breath easier...then another passers by stopped...I told him to do CPR if he knew how to as I realised I desperately needed a course to learn to do that...the man did and I managed to call for an ambulance. He got a tiny, tiny pulse...

The man's two friends thanked me and the other helper over and over for stopping, for trying to help. They began collecting the very ill man's stuff. Apparently the ill man had spent the night where he was lieing as his stuff was spread all over. That was when I noticed the Pink Suitcase. All of one man's belongings in one Pink Suitcase. There were some sorts of magazines, some clothes, a tooth brush and a charger for a mobile phone. That was all the man's belongings.

The ambulance arrived shortly after the man's two good friends had collected all of his stuff and closed the Pink Suitcase. We all made sure it came with him in the ambulance.

I don't know what happened to that man, if he is still alive to this  very day, however I do know there are many men - and women - like the Man with the Pink Suitcase and if YOU see him, say "hello" and don't be afraid to ask how he's doing.