From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

I would like to thank my unsung hero.

I do not know her name.

And all of a sudden I look up and this hand slides two warm chocolate chip cookies across the desk.

To this day, it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

Today's story comes from a listener who asked that we refer to him by his first initial, A, in order to protect his privacy.

A few years ago, A's life took a strange turn. He started having a hard time sleeping and

began having delusions. He believed that he was a sleeper agent for the U.S. government and that

he had just been woken up to begin his mission. It was a fascinating reality.

I dove in headfirst and began to believe that the government had a base on the far side of the moon,

and I was destined to be picked up by a helicopter, taken to a spaceship, and flown to that base.

Needless to say, I was experiencing a psychotic episode.

I went to work and told my boss that I needed to quit my job because I was needed for national security purposes.

My boss took it in stride as best she could.

She sat down in her chair and slumped back, clearly hit by the weight of what I had said.

I then went on to do things that I would rather not disclose

and wound up in jail for a DUI,

which was really driving under the influence of a psychotic episode.

As I was sitting in jail, the staff told me that I would be released soon and that someone would be coming to talk to me.

That person was a designated crisis responder who had received a call from my boss

explaining that I was in some sort of psychotic state and needed help.

...