I had a recent unsettling experience. My elderly host was very nice, but was having some sort of emotional crisis. At first I thought she was just lonely and was desperate for some company. After a couple of days, it seemed more serious. She was coming by and contacting me continuously, talking in great detail about how alone she was, how bad her financial situation was, how her relationships had all failed with family and friends, and how she wasn’t being treated right by the medical community. She kept talking at length about the suicide of her aunt and that she thinks her sister is suicidal. I heard her sobbing and shrieking several times during the night. I contemplated calling 911, but she had been to the hospital twice in the past few days and I assumed they were a better judge of her health and safety since she had lived in the small town more than 20 years and had told me in great detail that she had been under the care of a physician and a psychiatrist. Instead, I left a day early and didn’t ask for any money back, I just needed to get out or there.
What I’m about to say may sound sarcastic but I mean it genuinely: I’m surprised by your compassion and how you spent time contemplating what to do in the situation while absorbing what the host was saying to you. Even the fact that you put together, as well as you could from the information, a picture of the health care this woman had been receiving seems thoughtful. A lot of people in general would have just left and said the host was crazy crazy crazy but you seem fairly empathetic to someone struggling despite it putting you in an odd position.