Encounter with Psychosis: 02

I met with the psychiatrist early the next week, relaying everything that had happened in excruciating detail, including how Steve scared the shit out of me with his bizarre behavior. After that he and the university psychologist worked a deal with the Dean’s office, making Steve’s continued attendance in class conditional on him seeing the psychiatrist and stopping his twice a day visits to my office. Thank God for small favors.

Either later that week or early the next I met with Steve, his parents, the university psychologist, and the University of Michigan clinical psychiatrist at one of the University’s conference rooms. Immediately prior to the meeting the psychiatrist warned me that Steve’s mother was as paranoid-psychotic-whacko as he was and was making getting Steve into treatment doubly difficult as she consistently denied her son had a mental or emotional problem. I was causing all the difficulties Steve was having at the university. Viola, it was all my fault. I was the problem, not her beloved boy.

Needless to say the meeting didn’t go well. Steve was in full rant/rave mode and was supported at every turn by his mother, who accused me of doing everything Steve had. At one point Steve’s father turned to me and asked why his son would make all those accusations against me. I said that I hadn’t the slightest idea, that I had never once seen Steve off-campus, didn’t know one single thing about his personal life, and NEVER EVER involved myself in my students’ private lives, that I had a wife and three children and didn’t need to find other outlets for what little spare time I had.

From my point of view the meeting went badly. But afterwards the U of M psychiatrist was pleased. He thought I had made a significant impression on the father and things were looking up. It had come out in the meeting that Steve was failing in every class and had failed many of his classes the previous semester. Apparently, I was the only one of his professors who had tried to work with him and help him improve. The psychiatrist said because I was the only sympathetic professor and tried to help, Steve had transferred his delusions to me, blaming me for all the problems in his life, even going so far as to make up having a girlfriend (who we later found out he had never spoken to and had admired from afar) and accusing me of telling her he had raped and beaten several other girls at EMU. All totally untrue. Whoa! I couldn’t make that shit up. Well, as a writer I could but never would in a real life situation.

The next Thursday afternoon Steve showed up at my office a little after 2:00. Somehow he knew I had an Economic Geography class at 3:00 in Strong Hall. He stood in the doorway and mumbled nonsensically until I told him in a loud and forceful voice that he wasn’t permitted to talk to me any more and would have to leave or I would call the Campus Police.

He then stared at me and said very calmly and clearly: “I’m coming back to kill you.” Or: “When I come back I’m going to kill you.” And walked away.

I immediately called the Campus Police Lieutenant I had spoken with several times before and told him what had happened. My voice and hands were shaking badly. Although I really didn’t think Steve was violent, I have to admit I was scared shitless. I couldn’t possibly know what was going through his head or what was driving his actions. But whatever it was wasn’t good from my point of view or for my state of health.

The Lieutenant ordered me to close and lock my door immediately and wait for two plainclothes detectives to show up. Which I did as soon as I hung up the phone. Not five minutes later someone knocked on my door and identified themselves as being from the University Police. I opened the door and let them in. Both were surprisingly young looking and were dressed like students. The shorter white policeman looked 19 or 20 but had to be older. He wore a modish tee-shirt and jeans and looked like he had just walked out of a lecture hall. The taller, heavier-muscled black man wore jeans, a sort of hip cowboy shirt, and a golf jacket. He looked and carried himself exactly like a college football linebacker. They told me that they would accompany me to class and arrest Steve if he appeared. If he didn’t they would sit in class for the entire period and escort me back to my office and then my car when I left for home.

Both waited with me with the office door closed and locked. I was too nervous to make much more than small talk so we basically sat quietly until 2:58. They then escorted me from my office to the main corridor, which was jammed with students who were either leaving or arriving for class. Literally dozens and dozens of kids milled around each classroom door. As you can imagine it was a typical college scene of noisy near-chaos.

The black policeman walked in front of me and told me to keep my right hand on his right shoulder. As soon as I saw Steve I should tap his shoulder and identify him. The second cop had his hand on my left shoulder and walked a half pace behind me, keeping up a running dialog: “Is he here? Do you see him? Tell me where he is. What’s he wearing? What’s he look like?”

My classroom was near the far end of the corridor so we had to walk slowly through the crush of students. My eyes searched the crowd but I couldn’t spot him. Kids where everywhere, laughing, talking, horsing around. Normal shit. No one threatening. No one obviously crazy. My nerves were at the breaking point. My stomach muscles so tense I trembled like a leaf in a hurricane. Suddenly, the crowd parted slightly and I saw him leaning against the wall opposite the classroom door. He was looking in the other direction and didn’t see us.

I gripped the detective’s shoulder hard and identified Steve: “Light blue jean pants and darker jean jacket. Tall kid, brown hair, the only one leaning against the wall, one leg propped up. He’s not carrying any books or notepads.”

“Got him,” was all the black detective said. The second detective pushed past me and positioned himself directly in front of me. At that moment Steve saw me. He stood up, turned, and took a step towards me, his hand disappearing into his front pants pocket. He never saw the black detective who took one step past him, turned as fast as a snake strike, and knocked his ass flat on the floor as he yelled in surprise. Pandemonium, chaos. Kids shouting, trying to get out of the way of what looked initially like a street fight. Steve, on the floor bleeding from the mouth and nose as the black cop, one knee in the middle of his back, handcuffed him and pulled him to his feet. Everything happening so fast you couldn’t figure out what was going on

The white detective’s gun out pointing at the floor, badge displayed in the other hand, yelling loudly. “Police! Police officers! Stay back. This is an arrest. Everyone move back. This man’s under arrest.”

Minutes later Steve and the detectives were gone. Unnatural quiet filled the corridor. The remaining students, whispering to each other, scared, wondering what the fuck had happened. Some of them staring at me; they thought I was involved because I had spoken to the detectives before they hauled Steve away. I took several deep breaths, tried unsuccessfully to stop shaking, and walked into my classroom. All the students were standing at the door, questions and uncertainty written on their faces.

Standing at the front of the room I told them I was unable to teach class that afternoon. One of my students from another course threatened to kill me and had been arrested. You could see shock and disbelief on their innocent faces. I couldn’t say another word or I knew I’d break down and sob like a baby. So I turned and left.

Back in my office I tried to calm down but wasn’t particularly successful. My hands refused to stop shaking. The phone rang, it was the Police Lieutenant. Steve had been carrying a pocket knife whose blade was an inch longer that what was legal in Michigan and by stepping toward me had committed an overt, unprovoked physical act against me. The weapon, his earlier verbal threat, and the physical threat of him attempting to approach me and reaching into his pocket for the knife were enough for him to be arrested and for the County prosecutor to file an involuntary commitment petition with a judge for observation.

The U of M psychiatrist called me the following week and told me Steve’s father had agreed in a court hearing that his son was a threat to me. The judge had granted the petition legally committing him to treatment at the U of M Neuropsychiatric Institute based on the father’s testimony, my signed complaint, the signed affidavit of the psychiatrist who had interviewed Steve three times and found him disturbed and a threat to others (meaning me), and the Police arrest report. Then the doctor told me that Steve had suffered an acute psychotic break in my office and he was a little jealous of me. When I incredulously asked why he said he saw patients after their initial breakdown but had never seen one in first full bloom. Then I asked about the horrific facial distortions and body twitching. He said that those were symptoms of a mind that no longer had full control of the central nervous system and was misfiring. A typical characteristic of psychotics.

A year later I was strolling across the Quad scoping out the hot chicks when a male student stopped and said hello. He asked if I remembered him. When I said no he laughed and said he was Steve. Knock me over with a feather. The guy was happy, smiling, and all but unrecognizable as the Steve I had known. He told me that he had been diagnosed with psychosis and had spent nine months in treatment. He was taking lithium and other medications and would probably have to do so the rest of his life. He not only did not remember taking any classes from me but had no memory of accusing me of what were obviously delusions. He then apologized for his disturbing behavior and asked if I could forgive him for him involving me in his personal mental problems. Jesus, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

Of course I did and told him that all I ever wanted to do was to help him. I asked how he was doing and he said he felt great and was getting all As and Bs that semester in accounting and finance. We shook hands and I wished him well. I never saw him again.

Several years later San and I were in a Chesterfield cinema watching the movie, Fatal Attraction. When Glen Close became profoundly psychotic at the end of the film and was slashing her own leg with a butcher knife and couldn’t feel the pain, I bolted from my seat and left the show until the scene played out. The vivid flashback of how frightened and helpless I felt when Steve had threatened me disturbed me so badly I was trembling all over.

I still can’t watch that fucking movie.