"Gimme Shelter": Another Perspective

"Gimme Shelter": Another Perspective

To give you another angle. consider the effect of mental illness has on the reaction to offers of help for the homeless. I am a manic-depressive who spent most of 1985 and part of 1986 at the Ann Arbor Shelter. Part of my illness is paranoia and delusions of grandeur. When life gets bad and then gets worse the last person you're going to trust is a shelter worker.

I can see where setting up a homeless person with housing would help get the person psychiatric help because it would be a sign things are getting better. With me they staged a fight to get me out of the shelter and to get me into probate court. I was so delusional I was committed though not dangerous. I can see the staff's frustration because of the commitment laws even though I do not like the hospital. I was forced onto medication each time before I recognized I was psychotic. That may seem like neo-Nazism to you but it is reality.

With the proper medication combination I have been stable for four years. I have obtained a MS in Biology and am currently working on a MS in Chemistry. I also tutor and teach chemistry. Still people think I need a kick in the butt because I'm not working a full-time job--well give me one. Many of us who have psychiatric histories are unable to work because people don't trust us.

Petra Moessner

ANN ARBOR