Max is such a lover.

Max. Oh, Max. Max lives in a room with 3 other men. Their room is diagonal from my office. Max is paranoid schizophrenic and he hears voices almost non-stop. One of his voices is “Cootie”. Cootie was a real person. She was his aunt. Their relationship was a tense one and she messed with his head the way big people mess with little people in a game of tetherball. Aunt Cootie passed away but lives on in Max’s mind causing him endless frustration and sometimes brings along “an army of black women” to sufficiently torture him. Max sits in his room for most hours of the day listening to loud music, mostly pop. It helps him ignore the voices. Sometimes, though, I hear him screaming, “Go away, Cootie!” and if he says it more than 3 or 4 times I will go to his door and talk to him for a minute. He’s always sitting on the edge of his bed and there is usually a large amount of drool coming from his mouth which is a side effect of his medication. The look on his face when he sees me is absolutely heart wrenching. He’s helpless and desperate and there is nothing anyone can do. He is a giant man and could easily end my life out of frustration with his own if he wanted to but he is the kindest soul you will ever meet. I’ll ask him if he’s okay and he’ll always say yes. Always. He is obviously not okay but he doesn’t want to burden anybody. Occasionally he’ll ask me to tell Cootie to leave him alone and I will and he says that it helps. I don’t know if it does. The thing about schizophrenia is that to the person who has it--the voices and the hallucinations are real. They’re actually hearing and/or seeing things that no one else can.  I can’t go into his room and tell him that Cootie isn’t there because she is. Society does not see mental illness this way, though. Max is intelligent and very easy to talk to and if you met him you'd probably wonder why he lives in a psych facility. He'd love to have a job and a family but his hallucinations increase with anxiety plus; no one will hire him once they read that he is mentally ill. Max has completely swept me off of my feet.

*Any names I use have been changed for privacy purposes.