The Troubled Young Man

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I take paying guests and I've had a lot of interesting people to stay. One young man seemed very pleasant and once he'd settled in asked if he could talk to me. I said yes of course, and he told me he'd just been released from a psychiactric hospital. He'd been compulsorily detained there for 2 months. He said he'd been depressed and tried to take his own life, but wanted to make clear that he was no threat to me, just to himself. He wasn't ready to go to his own home just yet and thought that staying at my place would give him the breathing space he needed. If I'd known this before he came I might not have been too keen to have him - how wrong that would have been. He was an intelligent and bright young man who'd taken a wretched path. He just needed a non-judgemental listener - I was happy to fill that role. He'd booked for a week but stayed an extra few days and I was so pleased that he left in a happier state of mind than when he'd arrived. Sometimes all that's required is to listen. I wrote this after reading Ocean Tiara's post about the outrageous fees her psychotherapist charged just to listen to her.