Are you mad?

I've just read in my local free Guardian Newspaper that in the last three years, eleven mental patients have escaped from the Psychiatric unit about five minutes away from my house. This is not good news!

There are too many crazy people living outside the nut house much less the people who've been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

I know I'm being paranoid and my paranoia is leading to ignorance and insensitivity but I said to my neighbour that one escapee is one too many.

After all, it's not as if they're wearing straight jackets, carrying signs that say I'VE LOST MY MIND, DO YOU KNOW WHERE IT IS? I'm never going to be able to recognise a patient from a packet of peanuts.

Maybe it’s a good thing that the Mental Health Unit is just around the corner from where I live. If I ever loose my mind, I won’t have far to go. I know for sure that most of us are one crisis away from a nervous breakdown, it can happen to anyone at any time.

Maybe if I loose my mind and get captured, I’ll climb over the hospital's low perimeter wall and come home for a cup of tea and no one will be any the wiser.