But with the amount of folks with mental illness's now-a-days, myself included, you just never know who you might run into.
It's not just mental illnesses, it's also state of mind. Take me for instance. Sarah's first surgery, when the shunts and the biopsy were done, when we found the tumor back in May and she was on the table for 8 hours, my stress levels were so high there was no telling what I could do if someone even said the wrong word to me.
Flash forward a couple of days and my neighbor and I are walking across the local grocery store parking lot when a rather large woman with a car full of wanna-be thugs damn near hits me with her car. They all jump out and start spouting s*** at me about how they'd kick my ***. I'd just laughed it off. One little kid, about half my size, even made the comment that I "was his lightweight." That really made me laugh! When I told him I s*** bigger than him, they all flexed up to try to intimidate me. My neighbor's pulling me towards my car by my arm, telling me they aren't worth it.
Two different days, two different mindsets. On Friday all I could do was laugh at 'em. That Wednesday, though, I would have probably played Stretch Armstrong with the kid (Hey! His arms
do come off!) and used the bloody arms to beat the other three to death. Without blinking an eye.
In hindsight that scares me.
And these guys acted all tough and s***.
I know for a fact they would have hit a wrecking ball and I would have wound up with four counts against me. All with no feelings whatsoever. That was my mindset that Wednesday. Good thing this happened a few days later.
Stress, grief, depression, can make a man do things that are out of character. My understanding now is that you never know what might going through the other guy's mind. He may be so wrapped up in something that he's acting it out on others. That's too bad. For as much as I've been through these past months, I've tried not to externalize. I've tried to treat others with respect, it's not their fault Sarah had a tumor, it's not their fault Sarah died. But not everyone can do that.
Since you never know what might be going through the other guy's head, the question is: do you really want his problems to become your problems?
