Patching Up

    I recently had an experience so unique it took me a while to process and here, at the hotel in Gig Harbor, I finally have time to write about it. On my mother-in-law's last visit, she returned from her walk with a stranger that needed "patching up". Since we went through a period 13 years ago of housing homeless boys, and have kept various missionaries through the years, we are no strangers to hospitality, but this was the first time I opened my house to a complete (but mentally incomplete) stranger. The missionaries we hosted were known to our church. And the young men we housed were all vouched for--Andy, A.J. and Lance by Tracy, McKenzie, Justin and Loren by Lance, Aaron by McKenzie. Not only were they present to vouch for the newcomers, they were present in our home to intercede if there was any trouble with them. Except in the case of Aaron (McKenzie was living elsewhere by then) whom I had only met once, and for whom I desperately tried to find other housing, but couldn't send back to the elsewhere where he'd been beaten up. Besides, there was always the protection of having Tracy and Reed in our home.

     That was not the case with Julie when she arrived. Pat could only give me brief information on the phone because she didn't know much about her yet and Julie could hear what she was saying. Because my guest turned out to be delusional and mentally ill, I still don't know much about her. She was obviously homeless, since she had spent the night in an abandoned car. She claimed to have escaped men who tortured her and broke her ribs, but she did not move like someone with broken ribs and refused to go to the hospital, which most people prefer after being tortured. Julie also had part of her hair dyed pink and most captors do not accommodate hair color preferences. She said she had removed her patch because it wasn't helping, and there are patches to dispense psychiatric medications but, by the confused condition she was in, I would agree with her. It was not working. It might have been a patch to monitor drug use, but I would not have let her in the house if she seemed high. Frankly, if my mind worked like hers does, I would use drugs too. And drug use would explain why she was more concerned the police would arrest her, than her "torturers". 

   I have both personal and professional experience with delusional people and have found ways to show interest in their conversation without encouraging their delusion. So when Julie said Princess Di had been planning to visit her before her tragic accident, I shared that it was sad she died so young, and how difficult paparazzi can be. Conversely, when she claimed to have $5.2 million in another country, but didn't care about that sort of thing, I did not share that millionaires seldom have to shelter in abandoned cars. So I do not know if she really went to school where she claims, has three children, was widowed in 2017, or has a service dog in the animal shelter. There is no reason to lie about such things, but delusional people often live in a different reality.

    I fed her breakfast, gave her my smallest pair of shoes to replace the oversized men's shoes she had been wearing, hugged her before she left and told her "God loves you and you're going to be all right". And, although I was really uneasy about letting a mentally ill stranger with a knife, ride with my mother-in-law, especially when I found out afterward how difficult she had been in the car, I also really wanted Julie out of my house. It was Grandma day and Brie could not come over until it was safe. After refusing the hospital, Pat wound up taking Julie to the mental health center, where she was known and welcomed. Hopefully, she got the patching up she needed, but there is a difference between needing help and wanting it. And it is good to know, if it happens again (there are problems with mentally unstable people in our police reports daily) that the mental health day program takes walk ins. But if I found a wandering stranger in need like Julie, I would give them food and clothing out on my porch, and let the police handle the transportation. God sometimes calls us to do the unexpected, but not the unwise, we could have been the ones who wound up needing patching up. 

    I am trusting the God who kept us safe then, both with Julie's problems and the fact that she knows where we live. As for the men who victimize women like her, I pray for God's patching up--after His punching down.