Changes (page 2)

DakotaRed

Grits, good advice about dating a man. I think I would go crazy dating a man too

Yeru, welcome home. It did my heart good to watch you guys come back and receive the dignity and respect we didn't.

Lew W

The whole carpet cleaning thing sounds a bit odd, if you ask me! That doesn't even make the remotest bit of sense for someone to think someone else is conspiring to clean their carpets. Hell.. if that was true I wish someone would conspire to break in and clean *my* carpets! My brother has schizophrenia. It started when he was about 19. He had become close friends with one of the sisters and she had gone up to Maine for the summer. They talked on the phone frequently, and ran up a huge phone bill in my parents' name. My Father was livid. The girl said their agreement was that he'd pay for the calls, he said she would. She came back and took the complaint to the elders. My brother was so stressed from this event that it seemed to trigger the schizophrenia. He began to smoke and hang out in gay bars, much to the dismay of the elders who promptly disfellowshipped him.

He began listening to air vents out of air conditioners and hearing voices. The stress was something that seemed to aggravate what might have already been developing. It sounds as if your friend may have some type of severe depression or other type of mental illness to have such irrational thinking.

Country Girl

Yerusalyim

Dakota Red,

And in some ways I feel guilty about the reception we got, the Korea and Vietnam vets had a much tougher war, and deserved the nations respect and support. Ya'll have mine.

Kingpawn

Yeru,

I think Korea and Vietnam were different from previous wars for several reasons:

The enemy didn't fight as we were used to--guerilla warfare, not huge offensives.
Had to deal with Asiatic allies' concern with "saving face."
The thing kept dragging on--MacArthur warned us about that.
Did we have a clear objective?

Most of that applies more to Vietnam since I wasn't alive during the Korean conflict. And Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's best general, wondered how we were going to fight this war when a large portion of the country was against it. They had read Sun Tzu who counseled that when time goes by and there are few victories, the home populace becomes dissatisfied and calls the army home. They had only to wait. They'd dealt with the Chinese, the Japanese, the French, and now us, and it always worked before.

Desert Storm was more of a "here's the problem and what to do about it"--iow, it was conventional warfare we knew we had a better chance of winning. No jungles for people to pop out of to ambush supply columns or make our technological superiority useless.

Now back to our thread...which I had no intention of `jacking.

All the posts giving possible causes are good places to start in figuring out this person's behavior. But if she was there only a month, wouldn't the cause have to be something pretty sudden? If she didn't show any obvious signs of maladjusted thinking before she left, I'd suspect drugs, a tumor, or head trauma. Maybe she was injured and doesn't even know it. Another may some environmental factor--lead in the water, chemicals or something that might have interacted with OTC meds or prescription drugs?

Yerusalyim

I think Korea was as it was because America was tired of war. We were there for good reasons. Vietnam was a winable war, but when you let politicians set military objectives you get into trouble. As to why we were there, well, that will be debated for decades to come. (THANKS JFK!) One day we could bomb Hanoi, the next not; ya gotta stay outta Cambodia even though the North is using it as a logistics route and training area. Ya can't INVADE the North, we gotta support the criminals running the government in the South, the News Media took a great military victory on the part of the American forces and turned it into a defeat (Tet '68 shattered the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force, yet the media made it out to be a defeat of US forces, this was the real turning point in public opinion for a war that was for the first time, broadcast nightly into the homes of Joe and Jane American. What would Joe and Jane have thought had the landing at Omaha Beach been Broadcast into their homes nightly. Anyway, I'm babbling now.

SPAZnik

Someone I loved changed a lot due to schizophrenia. The "carpet cleaning conspiracy theory" thing definitely seems to fit the bill. So does the "carelessness" you mentioned. And the downhill spiral in job and life competency.

As was mentioned by others, drugs can alter personalities too.

I'm sorry this is happening to you, your friend and your friendship.

Did they ever get back to normal?

No. The longer before they receive appropriate diagnosis and treatment, the greater the changes and the further the "decline". The problem is not likely "reversible", however, it may be "managable" in some fashion. Good luck to you and your friend.

SPAZ

Edited by - SPAZnik on 4 October 2002 23:21:20

Jesus Christ

Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the really great comments and first of all, I'd just like to say welcome home (although belatedly) to both Lew and Yeru. You guys stepped up and did what needed to be done and therefore deserve the respect and dignity that should be given from people who couldn't do it themselves (self included, damn pancreas).

As for my old friend, I do kind of wonder if alcohol played a part in her behavior. I've seen the effects that can have on people up close and personal but I'm just not sure if that's what happened with her. I know she definitely drank more once she had gotten back but I don't know if it was because she was screwed up or if she was screwed up because she drank more. Who knows, it probably could have been a bit of both. I kind of think she may have had depression on top of it all though I'm pretty sure that it wasn't schizophrenia. She also didn't start dating that married guy until she had already been going downhill for a while. I'm pretty sure they're still together but I don't really know because I haven't talked to her for over three years and just about anything I know about her is through various common friends that we'll both run into from time to time.

More than anything, I just hope she's ok. I don't talk to her anymore, haven't in years, and to tell the truth, I really don't even want to because of all the stuff that's happened. Truth be told I'd actually be happier if I never saw her again for the rest of my life. Still though, we were really close for quite some time and before she went over to Europe to see her friend she was a great person that I cared alot about, its just a shame someone else came back in her body. She definitely had her problems but still, I hope that somehow she's been able to work through it all and is living a happy life now wherever she is or whoever is in it. That's the real reason I started this thread. I was wondering if anyone else has had something like that happen and how the person who changed dramaticly ended up.

Jesus Christ

Well, for any of you who may care to follow up on this thread I saw the girl who I've been talking about here earlier this week and she's just changed even more. I don't know how many of you have ever heard of the Fall Festival but its a big fair that's basically a midwestern version of Mardi Gras that's colder, doesn't have alcohol all over the place, and ends much earlier in the evening. Yeah, that pretty much makes it sound the opposite but they're both really big street fairs (as in the largest and second largest in the country in regards to the number of people who attend) that are held yearly. There are also many food booths that are set up by various clubs and charities every year. You have everything from churches, schools, clubs, and political parties selling every type of food you can imagine (chocolate covered crickets, cow brain sandwiches, and other more common stuff like turkey and pizza).

Anyway, I saw this girl working in a food booth that belonged to a church group. This is the same girl who never went to church past middle school even once and went on and on about how she hated so many different things in the bible. I didn't go over and say hi or anything because its pretty plain to see that I wouldn't know her at all. Sad. :(

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