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Probably everyone knows what the holocaust was, where some five millions Jews were tortured, and slaughtered in concentration camps. Few people realize there was another holocaust in Tibet slightly later, where the Chinese tortured and slaughtered one million Tibetan Buddhist monks. All these people were tortured and killed because of the religious beliefs which defined their culture. Tibet only had a population of 6 million. I think these events were facilitated by a virus, but my main reference is Alice in Wonderland when the Duchess and Alice agree there was way too much pepper in the soup.
The survivors of these Holocausts have a hard time adapting to life. I don't know whether they are diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or not, and it doesn't really matter. You never fully recover from an experience like that. Every experience you have on this planet shapes your character. The Great Depression is a good example. You can tell when someone has lived through the great Depression just by talking with them. You can see it in the way they look at and respond to the world. People who grew up in the Great Depression never seem to recover from it. They may have lots of money and stability now but it doesn't change who they are. The Great Depression makes you realize just how fragile a human psyche really is. It can be permanently damaged. What then of someone who has been homeless, because of an untreated mental illness? It happens often. As someone develops schizophrenia they tend to lose the human relationships that would have cared enough to help them when they were homeless. I was homeless for six months. You could never feel more banished, more abandoned, more unwanted, and more ashamed, than being homeless. I took a tour of a homeless shelter in Toronto called Seaton House a few years ago. The worker said he thought 40% of the residents were in psychosis. Some have stopped talking. Some come in winter without shoes on their feet. He told me about one fellow who had a wound on his leg. It had a very old dressing on it and they convinced him to allow a nurse to take a look at it and at least change the dressing. As she unwrapped the dressing maggots fell out on the floor. Now that I think about it they were presumably feeding on the dried blood in the dressing. That fellow was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric assessment because of the imminent risk of physical harm. For most people who come to the shelter in psychosis there is nothing the staff can do. Go To Page: 1 2
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