There is nothing amusing about mental illness. It typically strikes without warning, often lasts a lifetime, and can leave devastation in its wake. The jails and prisons in this country are gradually becoming mental health facilities, and over the past ten years it has not even been gradual. It is now more like a great Mental Health tsunami that is washing over the nation, taking with it all the pride, dignity and future of every soul caught in its churning flood. Jails and prisons, especially jails, are not prepared to take on this burden of mentally ill inmates. Jails are meant to house inmates for short periods of time, hence the term Detention. Jails detain and house people who are being held over for trials or for disposition of their cases, anywhere from twenty-four hours to, well, however long it takes. If a person has broken the law, he or she will remain in jail until they can bond out; are released by the courts; or have a disposition imposed upon them. Typically it is a few weeks or months and because of that the jail systems rarely have enough funding or staffing to provide the long-term care necessary for the mentally ill.

Sometimes mental illness is brought on by drug or alcohol abuse. This can be temporary, such as a person “coming down” from alcohol or any sort of drug; or permanent from damage caused by their substance abuse over very long periods of time. You see a lot of both within the jail system and it is never pleasant.

The first person I ever saw with the DT’s (delirium tremens) was a hardcore alcoholic who had been brought into jail for shoplifting. I had only been there a week or two and was fascinated by the man, who was being housed in the jail infirmary. As the alcohol wore off, he began to display a series of very distressing actions. His entire countenance changed and his face took on an expression of horror. He dug at the edges of the window in the cell door until his fingers were raw. He stood on his bunk, holding himself in terror as he watched something that I could not see, crawling about on the floor, crying for help from anyone who would listen.

Finally my nerves began to wear as thin as his were and I tried to talk to him, thinking I might be able to do what the nurses could not, which was to help the poor guy settle down. I tried to assure him there were no creatures in his cell and that no one was going to harm him. His response was to quote me passages from Revelations mixed with other assorted Bible verses and passages, which did not seem to have much to do with the demons nipping at his toes.
I finally asked him if he wanted me to get the chaplain for him. That was when he announced he had already talked to God and God told him if his eye offended him he should pluck it out. I was about to try to explain to him that this was not a literal order from God and that he would feel a lot better about it after getting some sleep, but he was not listening. In the time it took for me to say about six words the terrified inmate reached up with his thumb and plucked out his eyeball!

I was not prepared for that. Forty-two years of life had not prepared me to see someone pluck out his eyeball when standing eighteen inches in front of me. There was a window in the door between us but even if there had not been, I would not have had a clue as to what I should do. I believe I came close to passing out. I know I stumbled backwards into the wall I and must have made a sound of some sort because the nurse on duty leaped up from her desk and, thankfully, took over.

I do not remember that inmate’s name but I do remember he was my first introduction to the world of mental illness. During the following years I worked with hundreds of mentally ill inmates, some who acted out even worse than the man who plucked out his eye during a bout of DT’s, and some who were just mildly disturbed. Some made me cringe, some made me cry, some made me laugh. All were memorable.