Encounters With the Mentally Unwell: The Calls That Make You Question Everything (Including That Turkey Log)

Law enforcement has a strange relationship with mentally unwell calls.

They’re unpredictable. They swing between dangerous and ridiculous. And they always — always — happen when you’re one cup of coffee short of mental stability yourself.

But every cop who’s worked longer than three shifts has a handful of those stories. The ones that start normal and then immediately spiral into:

“Ah. Yes. The universe has selected me for this mission.”

Below are two encounters with the mentally unwell that left me staring into the void, questioning my career choices, my life decisions, and occasionally my sense of smell.

1. Mentally Unwell Julia and the Case of the Cursed Turkey Log

At the time, I had almost two years on. Just enough experience to think I knew things. Not enough to know that I didn’t.

By some miracle of turnover, I was assigned to dayshift — the shift where normal humans exist. It’s noon, the sun is warm, kids are out, families are walking around. You know… civilization.

Then we get a call:

“Male subject lying naked on a picnic table.”

Nothing like nudity in broad daylight to remind you the mentally unwell do not operate on society’s schedule.

I’m first on scene and immediately hit with a smell so powerful it could melt a badge. Laying on the table is a human sprawled out like a sad rotisserie chicken — bare from the waist down, sleeping peacefully in a pile of their own life decisions.

The table, once a pleasant shade of wood, now had a large dark stain beneath this individual. A stain that should never exist in nature.

As I get closer, I recognize the face.

Not a man. Not today, at least.

But Julia — a mentally unwell local wanderer, trespassed from more places in town than she was legally allowed to enter.

I try to wake her.

“Ma’am? Ma’am? …Julia!”

She snaps awake, disoriented, confused, and very clearly marinating in regret.

I ask what happened and why her pants are missing. She vaguely gestures toward the swingset.

I later find the pants.Full of liquid poop.Covered in flies.

A scene no academy instructor warns you about.

Julia explains — in perfectly calm, mentally unwell sincerity — that she’d been walking all day and got hungry. So she ate a week-old turkey meat log she’d been carrying in her bag.

Let me repeat: A WEEK. OLD. TURKEY. MEAT. LOG.

According to her, the turkey “poisoned” her. And because she was trespassed everywhere, she couldn’t find a bathroom.

So nature just… activated. And then she laid down on the picnic table for what I can only assume was a “spiritual reset.”

We gave her a blanket, offered guidance on basic food safety, and sent her on her way — because honestly, if anyone earned a nap that day… it was Julia.

Julia was just having a bad day

2. The One-Legged Mentally Unwell Wizard and the Marijuana Christmas Tree

Fast-forward to my current department. Early morning — the witching hour for calls involving the mentally unwell.

We get one:

“Someone’s trying to get into my house. I’m hiding inside.”

Solid call. Actionable. Let’s go.

We arrive. No forced entry. No footprints. Nothing.

The caller tells us he thinks his wife’s boyfriend tried to break in but “just left.”

Sure, buddy.

We clear the exterior. Nothing.

Before I hit the end of the road, dispatch calls again:

“Same caller. Same complaint.”

Now I’m confident we’re dealing with someone who is… generously speaking… mentally unwell.

This time he lets us inside. We see some drug paraphernalia but nothing indicating an intruder.

Then I notice a bicycle wedged in the hallway like a makeshift anti-burglar barricade created by someone who watches too much Discovery Channel.

We keep searching.

I open the bathroom door and freeze.

Hanging upside down in the bathtub is… a full-size marijuana plant.

Just dangling there like it’s auditioning for a Vegas acrobat show.

We finish the search and the caller transitions from “concerned victim” to “extremely bad at hiding things.”

He opens a safe to prove he doesn’t have drugs.

Inside?

Meth bubbles. Completely forgotten. Like leftovers in the back of a fridge.

The suspect — who only has one leg — reacts with shock that the meth he put in his safe is still in his safe.

He stumbles backward and I catch him before he collapses.

He looks at me and says:

“I wasn’t going anywhere. I wouldn’t get far anyway.”

Fair point.

My partner transports him while the LT and I stare at the weed tree like it’s a seasonal decoration.

“No, LT,” I say, “I don’t think he’s celebrating Weedmas… but I could be wrong.”

Why These Calls Stick With You

Calls involving the mentally unwell aren’t just sad or stressful. They’re everything at once:

• heavy

• confusing

• chaotic

• heartbreaking

• darkly hilarious

• and sometimes… educational in ways nobody asked for

You try to help where you can. You try to be patient. You try to be human.

Sometimes you succeed.

Sometimes you end up ankle-deep in flies staring at a cursed turkey log.

Sometimes you end up face-to-face with a hallucinating one-legged wizard guarding a bathtub grow operation like it’s the Hanging Gardens of Weedylon.

This job gives you stories you couldn’t invent if you tried.

And if you don’t laugh… you cry. Or quit. Or join admin.

And nobody wants that.