Published: April 06, 2008 11:33 pm            

Lee Ward: Let the sane do their part: 4/7/08

The world is full of mentally ill people. I believe many of today’s problems can be attributed to some kind of mental illness.

One hundred years ago, there were mentally ill people, but not nearly as many as now. Back then, it was all people could do to survive. They didn’t have time to lose their minds.

Now, since we have all this leisure time, we have more time to worry about things, to create problems. Sometimes these problems seem funny on the surface, but when you really think about the issue, you realize it must be rooted in a mental illness.

Every now and then we hear about a whole new kind of mental illness, something no one has heard of before.

Here’s one I’d never dreamed of.

In Wichita, Kan., a woman sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for most of two years; her body stuck to the seat and she had to be physically removed from it.

Sheriff Bryan Whipple said the woman, whose skin apparently had grown around the toilet seat, initially refused medical treatment but eventually agreed to be examined.

“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

Those investigating the case are considering charges against the boyfriend who allowed the woman, who has nerve damage in her legs, to stay there.

The boyfriend said he took food and water to her daily and asked her to come out of the bathroom, but she refused each day, telling him, “maybe tomorrow.”

“She is an adult; she made her own decision,” he said. “It was my fault I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it.”

Suddenly, the idea of crazy shifts to the boyfriend.

A story by The Associated Press said the woman had a phobia of leaving the bathroom because of childhood beatings.

Given that information, the poor woman’s behavior is understandable. Sick, but understandable.

Her boyfriend of 16 years, though, seems guiltier than ever of neglect.

“It just kind of happened one day. She went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer,” he said. “Then she got it in her head she was going to stay — like it was a safe place for her.” He said otherwise, their relationship was normal.

It’s a perfect example of our society needing to be more sensitive to mental illness, more able to recognize it and more willing to take action to help someone who suffers from it. It’s the responsibility of those of us who are sane, or at least claim to be.

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.

        

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