Watching Sheen is like watching a train wreck

Poor Charlie Sheen. Poor, poor, Charlie Sheen.

I don't mean poor as in lacking in dollars, but lacking in sense. It is also poor, poor us who watch close up as a fellow human being mentally implodes.

The enticements to stare are everywhere. The networks extend invitations as does the Internet, social networks, newspapers, magazines, news outlets. Welcome to the asylum.

For those with better things to do or for those named Rip who just awoke from a 20-year nap, Sheen, the actor of the popular weekly comedy series "Two and a Half Men," has had past problems with drugs, alcohol and other behaviors that would get him kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

He has most recently re-emerged in the spotlight as he rants and raves about himself and his two female companions he calls his goddesses.

Generally I try and stay away from the troubled personal lives of stars and starlets. I see enough homegrown tragedy in my own pediatric practice.

But this time the teasing quote on one of the sidebars of a collected news site grabbed my attention, as it was intended to do. But unlike the masses I was curious as a clinician (sure, you say). Sheen said something to the effect that he was tired of pretending that he was not special. Wanting to know how special he was in every way, I tuned into the circus network.

Not being a trained psychiatrist and having never met the man, I come at this distanced analysis with some hesitation.

But if I were a betting doctor I would put money on the fact that this man is crazy. Watching his behavior and listening to him he is a person who is either a convincing actor or a person who is certifiably mentally ill with mania. There is a grandiosity that one reads about in psychiatric textbooks on manic-depressive disorders or other conditions with a delusional feature. At this moment he and Moammar Gadhafi have a lot in common.

While this is sounding to be about Sheen, it is about us. It is about all of us who tune in to this man's disjointed ramblings with the same amusement people used to do at freak shows.

Sheen is the Elephant Man of the Internet. There are all sorts of reasons people are drawn to such display of human dysfunction. I suppose some viewers are sincerely fond of him through his various roles or movies, and are deeply concerned with his well-being. There could be the tender-hearted who place flowers or candles on any and all makeshift memorials they see. They are the Mothers Theresa for the downtrodden famous.