Since the middle of the summer, I have had two roommates in supportive housing in Queens, they both have some kind of schizo-affective disorder. They are both twice my size, which isn’t saying much as i’m 5'3, 123 pounds. One of them is Karl, and Karl is a gift of a human being, just a giant, soft spoken (even when speaking to himself) teddy bear of an individual. The other roommate is Robert, and i wouldn’t say anything bad about robert as a person, I would just say that he has severely symptomatic scizophrenic psychosis that causes him to scream at his hallucinations about murdering them at all times. Over the past few weeks, it became more intense, louder and more violent.
“my severely schizophrenic roommate Robert is more symptomatic than ever and literally screaming at himself all of the time, and I can hear it at all hours. I think the fact that I’m not in the best mental spot is causing it to be more troubling to me than perhaps it normally would be.
I’m granted housing due to a NYC program designed to help people with metal illness diagnoses, and a history of homelessness become able to achieve and maintain a better life than we found on the street, or in the various institutions where tend we end up.
I first wrote that last sentence as “maintain a better life than THEY found on the street, or in the various institutions where THEY end up.”. I had to rewrite it, to say WE. Sure, I may not be yelling at myself, but i’m no stranger to being completely out of my mind, i’m no stranger to living on the street, or being in a psychiatric hospital. They are me." — From “It’s About Mental Health”
So, Robert is screaming bloody murder at imagined people that aren’t here, all of the time, even at 3 in the morning, which wakes me from a dead sleep. I keep telling the housing agency… they tell me that his medication has been changed and it takes about 4 weeks to see if it’s working. Ok.
I understand that I live in supportive housing for people with a psychiatric diagnosis and and a history of homelessness, I get the curriculum. I know that the people I live with are going to have their own mental health struggles as I have mine. I don’t think that includes fear of safety, not just my own, but for all 3 of us. Robert doesn’t scream about lovey rainbows and unicorns on magical clouds of joy…he screams about brutally murdering people.
The other day, a caseworker from the housing agency came to take Robert to the grocery store. Karl and Robert need more help than I do with things like that. Usually the murder screaming doesn’t happen when staff is around, for some reason. On this day, Robert had an outburst In the car with the caseworker, and when they came back she was what we call “shook”.
This is when something took over my actions and speech. I took Giselle (the housing worker) out front, and first of all gave her a cigarette. She called her supervisor who instructed her to dial 911, but she wasn’t really up to it, and had never encountered an emergency on the job. Being well versed in the protocol of dealing with insanity (my own, and that of others), I took over and made the call.
I read somewhere that people with ADHD have a knack for keeping cool in times of crisis…even though I can’t always do something simple like putting on my shoes without stopping in the middle to look at something on my phone. I called 911, and told them that my roommate was in the center of a schizophrenic psychotic break kind of episode (i’m not a doctor), and that we were concerned for numerous people’s safety.
As giselle and i waited for the emergency people, we talked. I told her about how in 2022 I had been pinned to the floor, knife to my throat by a another supportive housing roommate who wasn’t getting adequate psychiatric care, despite my numerous warnings to the people who were tasked with not just the knife weidling roommates care, but mine. I explained that these events were the very reason that I was concerned about the situation with Robert, and that I never thought that Robert would hurt anyone, but then again it was the last thing that I expected from Antonio, who had stabbed me back in Flatbush. She was grateful for my calmness, and I told her that if I hadn’t figured out how to advoacate for myself then i’d still be sleeping outside, instead of the master suite in a brand new house, in a beautiful neighborhood. Seriously, you should come visit (if you’re cool).
She said that she was sorry that my life had been so difficult. I told her that we all need every single experience that we go through to put us where we are, and bring us to where we are going. It turns out she had experienced past violent trauma, which was making a mental return due to the situation with my roommate screaming bloody murder.
I asked if she wanted to hug it out. she did. we did. She smoked many of my cigarettes, but I didn’t care.
The police and EMTs came, and removed Robert.
Robert was back within the hour.
I took a walk, and got on the phone with the housing agency. I explained my reasoning for finding the situation, that would wake me from a dead sleep at 3 in the morning to screaming about heinous violence, quite unsustainable. I reminded them about a previous roommate Robin, whom I had to resort to Adult Protective Services to take care of. I told them about the trauma of being attacked. The person told me they’d call me back in 10 minutes, they did just that.
Robert would be moved out by the time I got home from the AA home group that I so much enjoy.
Now it’s just Karl an I. Karl is an absolute gift of a giant human being, and i’ll eventually dig up the whole thing I started writing about him. For now, I’ve got to get ready to visit the Lower East Side of Manhattan for a Halloween dog parade, because I like dogs.
