09:28 - May. 22, 2003
girl, interrupted, in my flat
Although the whole garlic round the flat thing was kinda funny at first, now things feel a lot more serious. There is actually a girl in my flat who is having or has had a nervous breakdown. Charlie spoke to her mum yesterday who wouldn't come and pick up her daughter, claiming the girl hates her and wouldn't go with her and that she couldn't make her do anything. We could take her to A&E but what's the chances of there being a psychiatrist on site and her not being referred back to her home GP anyway? The other "option" is to call the police and have social services pick her up, but can you imagine how distressing that would be for the poor girl? She's really not all there. She walks around the flat in a daze, continually in and out of the bathroom, soaking her feet in TCP. M, who is staying with us at the moment, has probably spent the most time with her over the last couple of days and says she can just about manage to get herself up and eat every day and that seems to be it. She washes her clothes in the machine one item at a time and then puts the central heating on to dry things. She won't talk to anyone if she can help it, and whenever I get home and go in the kitchen and say hello, she'll get up and go and hide in Charlie's room. Oh and no, they're not an item - he's gay.
On Tuesday night she said she was going to go home, but now she's showing no signs of moving. And her shitty, pass the buck parents don't seem to want to take responsibility for her and won't tell Charlie what it has that's happened to disturb her so much. So we're not even sure that we should send her home... what if that's where the problem is?
If she had a broken leg we wouldn't think twice about calling an ambulance for her... yet calling social services to get her some medical help for her brain seems totally taboo.
