Dec 26 2008
Ghost of Christmas past revisited
Yesterday was going fairly well - feline distractions as previously described notwithstanding - until shortly before dinner was ready and a series of taps came at the door, These were ignored but followed by the neighbour’s door slamming and almost being taken off its hinges in thr process. A few minutes passed and the arhymthic knocking resumed, so I answered the door.
Standing outside was my neighbour, looking somewhat at odds with reality. He asked why my wife had been “saying things about him” and that I had been ignoring him. I explained that paranoia is one of the main hallmarks of BPD and that might go some way to explain why I closed myself off into my own little world when I went out and so any perceived slight was not intended as I would not have seen him. Although this is the case, to some extent, I did have to exaggerate in order to explain away a set of circumstances that only he seemed to have experienced. He then announced that wanted a transfer and was receiving no support and that he would complain to the Housing Association that he was in some way being harassed or the victim of prejudice.
What really pissed me off was his assertion that Sarah had been in some way bad-mouthing him. I explained that, as well as being my wife, Sarah is also my carer and, as such, was sympathetic to his plight but in no way to blame. He seems to have formed some fixation about her as he always makes reference to her age and race; presumably confusing her with someone else, the subject of some transference.
Christmas, which had been sailing along in a relatively pleasant low-impact manner, had by now been well and truly ruined. As has been today; we had to cancel a prior arrangement to see friends in Richmond for the afternoon, as we could not be certain what this man in an unbalanced state might do in the unobserved interim - the prospect of going across south west London and fitfully chewing our collective finger nails all the time whilst wondering what was happening at home would make us poor company.
So, complain we did - to the Housing Association and to our Member of Parliament - since, as well as not taking mental as well as physical health problems into account when allocating housing, putting a vulnerable person prey to paranoia next door to another unsupported one was at best ill-considered.
Such a situation makes me feel more worried about even leaving the flat, which makes finding and maintaining work rather more fraught, let alone improve my day-to-day interactions with the outside world.
Christmastime is a stressful enough time of year, without this sort of thing: leaving an unattended vulnerable person to get worse and also for his problems to so affect those physically nearest to him, whilst those supposedly dearest to him - along with the local Community Mental Health Team - are nowhere to be seen.
Recalling Nietzsche’s maxim “that which does not destroy me wan’t really all that much to get worked up about” I decided that I would no longer let such nonsense hold me back - the past 40 years had done a pretty good job on that score; but no longer.
