My First Psychotic Patient

And when I say "patient", I really mean "random dude walking around my neighborhood that is scaring the sh*t out of my dog and screaming at nobody..."

I got home from school and the grocery store around 3pm and took the dog for a walk. Sometime between pee #1, talking to the neighbor about the apple I was eating, and pee #2, Rosie and I were startled by the muffled ramblings of a dirty guy stumbling down the street*. I turned around and saw a guy violently thrashing as he walked, screaming, "Get out of here, n---a! Get out of here! I'll kill you! Get away from me n---a!"

Rosie started barking like a maniac^, and I just stood there dumbfounded. The guy didn't pay either of us any attention and just kept stumbling along swatting at the voices in his head. As soon as I came to my senses, the medical student in me came on full force: "This guys is having a psychotic episode! He's obviously experiencing auditory hallucinations!"

A few seconds later, the medical student got particularly annoying: "I wonder if he's schizophrenic and off his meds... Maybe he's just high on drugs... [this is where it gets bad] A typical neuroleptic would probably be best for the positive symptoms; I'd probably go with haloperidol, although I'd titrate the dose because of the extrapyramid-"

At this point, the normal person in me broke in, "Wtf are you thinking!?! Haldol?!?!? This guy is obviously high on crack! He better get out of my neighborhood before I call the cops!"

I didn't call the cops, but I probably should've. I was pissed - there are lots of families with kids in our neighborhood - and this guy was walking right toward the community center where students go to play basketball after school and do their homework...

Take home point: So what if this guy has the ghost of Old Dirty Bastard living in his head? I have an annoying, yuppie medical student living in mine...

*He kind of looked like one of the people that live underground in Demolition Man - the ones that 'live freely' and eat rat hamburgers...
^In retrospect, this was the correct response...