Ladies in a Pizza Palor

Last week, I was sitting at a pizza pallor enjoying my pizza. I was sitting close to the front door, so I could see the customers coming and going.Two women were walking through the door and a woman (who was obviously not in her right mind) slid right past them,trying to get into the place.She was making quiet a ruckus so the manager of the pizza pallor went over to the erratic woman and told her to leave. The woman did what she was told and left the place.

The two women that walked through the door, were so frightened and shook up over this woman's behavior. The manager apologized for the lady's behavior. She also explained to the ladies that a methadone clinic is down the street and they get many people like her trying to come in there.

Once the incident was over, customers including myself, went on and enjoyed eating our pizza. I couldn't say that about these two women. They carried on about it, I'm sure well after I left. They were saying," I never saw someone act this way before." One of the ladies said, therefore I don't come into Boston". They got on their cell phone's calling their spouses, laughing about their experience and saying," we're in for a long night".

I thought these women were a bit over the top on how they reacted. I realize, the erratic woman was loud and that's not acceptable in a public restaurant. But, this erratic woman, who clearly was mentally ill, didn't need to be judged by these women. This is where stigma comes in. These women are clearly not affected or educated about mental illness. If these women have children, I'm sure their teaching them to fear mentally ill people too. I felt bad for the erratic lady. It's not her fault that she has a disease. She didn't ask for it. She gets loud, acts strange. And people are afraid of her.

Where is the compassion for this lady and others like her? How can we overcome stigma, when there are people who still stigmatize an erratic lady and don't really know how or why she is behaving this way? They just assumed this lady was a threat to them. And they even stigmatized the city of Boston. Do they assume, mentally ill people don't live in the suburbs?
There really should be more education on mental illness, drug addiction. Let people know not to fear them but to help them. Education = Awareness!