Two Crappy Years

This morning and several times since, I’ve heard this story out of Kansas about a woman who spent two years in her boyfriend’s bathroom. The boyfriend apparently finally called police to get some help and medical personnel had to physically remove her from the toilet.

That’s right. She was on the toilet for so long that her skin had actually fused to the toilet seat and she was no longer able to stand up. She may have suffered nerve damage from being on the toilet for so long and may be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

All of the news reports have said that her boyfriend may face criminal charges because he failed to get help for her during the last two years. He figured that she was an adult and could make her own decision about when to come out of the bathroom.

It’s true; the woman is in her 30s and apparently has a mental illness that caused her to seclude herself in the bathroom for two years. At least now she is out of the bathroom and can get the medical and mental help that she needs.

This story is truly bizarre and there are just so many questions. If she was fused to the toilet, how long had it been since she had actually showered? Apparently her leg muscles had atrophied, so it had been quite a while. Also, at what point did her boyfriend, who says the relationship was “otherwise normal”, decide to make the call for help?

While I do believe he was negligent in not calling for help when this first became a problem, I’m not sure that he should be charged with any crime. But then again, we still don’t know all of the details of the story. The media has been largely focused on the fact that this woman was stuck to a toilet seat. Ha ha.. <- That is cynical laughter. Isn’t it pretty cruel to use the media to make fun of someone with a mental, and now physical, illness?