Hadrian's Wall (18 page)

6

THE INSANITY GAME

At mid morning, Adrian returned.

I was like a time bomb.
Before he opened the door, I’d been pacing back and forth for more
than five minutes, trying to formulate some strategies in my
mind...
or rather, tactics of war!
Nothing and no one would dissuade me. All that
remained now was to inform him of my decision.

“I have to leave...” I was
saying when he opened the door. “I need to go back to South
Portland to see the people and places with
my
own eyes. I have to prove I’m not
crazy!
I’m not crazy!
”

Adrian took a few steps into room, studying
my physiognomy.

“Easy, Melissa. You’re not crazy, just a
little confused.” He gave me a shrewd look. “You mean that you
couldn’t confirm your stay in South Portland before coming to
Hadrian’s Wall, could you?”

It didn’t sound like a
question
. His expression seemed so
innocent...so confident!

“I’ll find a way to buy a
bus ticket to the coast even though I have to work months to
get...” I stopped walking and talking when I noticed his face. It
was the first time I’d seen such strong emotions visible on his
face.
Is he angry?

“You haven’t been discharged from the
hospital yet. You cannot leave.” His voice was sharp as steel.

Leave from where? From the
hospital? From the town? What kind of prohibition was that?
“But...”

“There are procedures and aspects of your
hospital stay that need be respected,” he said, this time more
controlled. “You’re undergoing treatment, don’t forget that.”

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what the
tests revealed?” I inquired angrily.

“That’s between you and the doctors
responsible for your case—Dr. Talbott and Dr. Barringer. He
enunciated every single word. “No point in getting mad at me,
Melissa Baker. You have to ask them.”

I blinked, mortified. He
was right, of course. I was unloading my paranoia on a stranger—a
very attractive, gentle stranger, but nonetheless a stranger who
was under no obligation to put up with
me.
Even so, I felt offended because he’d said it to my face, like I
was an irresponsible
teenager
.
He
didn’t need to remind me that he had nothing to do with my
problems.

I replied in the same formal voice that he’d
used with me. “I’m sorry. That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

Adrian sighed, running his hand through his
disheveled hair. He seemed to regret his harsh comment, although he
was still angry.

“Just...stop worrying about insignificant
things, okay?” He turned around and left.

So, my sanity is an
insignificant thing to him?
Humpf!

* * *

During the consultation, I mentioned the
latest happenings to Dr. Barringer. He said the same thing that
Adrian had said, but his manner was much more gentle, even
conciliatory.

“Until you have enough money saved to buy
your bus ticket, you should continue with the treatment without
worrying about what will happen to you in the future. Besides, Dr.
Talbott is considering giving you a discharge from hospital very
soon. Maybe you can continue your treatment with another
psychiatrist in South Portland.”

Although I didn’t want another psychiatrist
to treat me, I was excited at the prospect of getting out of the
hospital.

“But perhaps you’ll decide to stay in
Hadrian’s Wall. That is, if you find what you’re looking for here,”
the doctor said.

“The truth that I was seeking is there—in
South Portland. How can I find it here?”

He shrugged. “What do you mean by
‘truth’?”

Now he was looking more
like the
Dungeon Master
than
Dr.
Kildare
.

“What you’re looking for can be
unrealistic...it may be the manifestation of your emotional needs
and needs are something curable anywhere...not necessarily in South
Portland.”

We were finally having a serious
conversation, but I was not willing to allow philosophical evasion,
nor to accept bullshit like “the answers to your problems are
within you.” I was determined for this to be a decisive session
because I wanted a diagnosis report.

Sensing my mood, Dr. Barringer decided to
clarify some things regarding my case, but not in the way I
imagined. He took a totally unexpected direction.

“Melissa, you seem to be a girl who is not
satisfied with anything less than definitive answers, but you’re
not willing to accept someone else’s answers. You strike me as
being a girl who prefers to check things out yourself—to see things
with your own eyes...think for yourself about what you see. I
noticed that researching is one of your favorite hobbies, so let’s
do it then...together! You will participate in each stage of your
own diagnosis report, which you will see only when you are ready
for it.”

Can you say, ‘I’m
amazed?’
Let’s get the ball
rolling!
Psychiatrists should hear our
problems and at the end of the process, prescribe the appropriate
medications for symptoms, right?

Opening his laptop, Dr. Barringer suggested
an unusual game...

“If you’re looking for an answer, look for
it until you find it, even if you don’t like it.”

I couldn’t resist teasing him a little.
“You’d better watch out, you’re deviating from your therapeutic
stereotype!” He laughed heartily.

“Yeah. It’s been a long time since I
“retired” the pipe and couch. I’m more a fan of the Socratic
method.” He motioned for me to move closer.

Socratic method? He spoke
Greek as well?
I repositioned my chair next
to him, still not believing what was happening. The Google home
page appeared on his laptop’s screen.

“Come on.” He turned his head toward me.
“What do you think you have?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think is your diagnosis?”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t articulate
either the reason or the oratory. He laughed again and said, “Do
you want the cure or the diagnosis? What’s more important to
you?”

“The cure, of course.”

“Hmm...”
He nodded and smiled. “So, take your best
guess.”

“But I have no idea what I have! I’ve
searched the Internet many times and it seems that all the pictures
more or less fit in my case.”

“But not entirely?”

“Not entirely.”

He put his gloved hands on the keyboard. “So
you know as much about your own medical issues as Ian and I
know.”

“Dr. Talbott?”

“In the flesh.”

The doctor typed a few words and clicked the
mouse without moving his eyes from the screen. “The cure comes not
from the diagnosis, although it may be a first step to helping find
it. Healing comes from attitudes.”

“Attitudes?” I made a tremendous effort to
follow his logic, but it was difficult. It started to make me
angry. He should play the role of the “listener helper” who knows
more than I do and in this crucial situation, he made a point of
saying that we were evenly matched; thus, without the slightest
embarrassment to him, as if things were to be conducted
so...frivolously.

“Yes...attitudes! Taking
the reins of your destiny,” he explained. “Having the courage to
change yourself...face the causes of your suffering. The worst
disease is not one that weakens the body, but one that
enslaves
the mind
.
The best diagnosis does not
bottle
the truth, but demonstrates that the truth has
many facets. These facets depend on who interprets them. Therefore,
it is healthy to question the origin “of the whole movement” to
understand the context that surrounds it. The purpose behind it is
often not reflected in the packaging of something so ephemeral that
everyone likes to call “truth.”

Looking at me directly, he added, “I can
tell you many truths, Melissa, but only you can accept or reject
them. They may make all or no difference in your life. It depends
solely on you.”

The doctor paused as he ran the arrow by
links that appeared on the screen. This gave me time to digest a
little of what he’d said. His remarks began to make sense and my
anger was easing. In some aspects he was right. First, I wouldn’t
be happy with anything I couldn’t prove myself. As he said,
participation in the process might be less stressful for someone
who’s paranoid...like me.

“So, tell me what you feel.
I know you’ve told me
several
times
; however, I’m only interested in your
descriptions of symptoms that match those which you’ve already
researched on the Internet.”

“Well, I think the amnesia
was the first thing that bothered me. Like, I remember
everything,
except
how I got here. That’s too much for my brain to
comprehend.”

He double-clicked the mouse and then the
monitor displayed the title: “Pathological Amnesia.”

“But that wasn’t the first thing that
bothered you...it was the hallucinations, right? As a child, you
had strange dreams and saw things.” He clicked again and then
pointed to the screen.

Hallucination:
Usually defined as sensory perception of animate
and inanimate objects that are not physically present. All
the
human senses
are liable to be hallucinated. Thus, the stimuli may be
issued from “inside out,” (i.e., from the mind to parts of mind
which recognize the external stimuli: smells, sights, thermal and
tactile sensations, tastes, and sounds
.)

The hallucinatory process
makes use of
memory
files to extract its elements, virtually projecting them on
the environment. These elements prevail over stimuli from the
environment itself. Its culmination often coincides with periods of
elation and/or emotional disturbance.

Hallucinations are
triggered, among other factors, by excess or lack of stimulation
needed to maintain equilibrium of
awareness
- organic or psychosocial
aspects can turn on stressing stimuli. The level of
stress
can lead the mind
to issue perceptions that, although internal, seem real to
awareness - with greater or lesser degrees of distortion. Its
symbolical aspects, as well as the magnitude of hallucinations,
depend on the
personality
, previous
learning,
traumas
, and
defense mechanisms
involved (...)

Research indicates that
states of transition from wakefulness to sleep, or just before
awakening, are fertile for the occurrence of hallucinations. In
child development, they are common in episodes of
night terrors
. In the
adult, they may be accompanied by a
delusional plot
- as occurs, for
example,
reports of paranoid
persecution
- when individuals subject to
a state of altered awareness consider themselves a target of
supernatural beings
and/or aliens.

There are several symptoms
related to hallucinatory process in different stages of awareness.
During the
hypnogogic
and
hypnopompic
state (before sleeping and waking), awareness can register
sensations of
paralysis
, tingling, chills (described as electrical currents that run
through the skin), visions of lights, as well as sensations
popularly called projective: Floating body or shutdown of awareness
from the body
(
dissociative effect
)
.
(…)

The doctor asked me to read the text aloud
and then he briefly explained each item. He then clicked the mouse
and sent the file to print.

“You sometimes have to
re-read this material. It’s more complex than the articles
published
for lay persons on this site. If
you don’t understand some concept, I’ll explain it the next time we
meet.”

He then mentioned some of the collocations
I’d made in previous sessions. “As I said before, you acknowledge
that your crises are hallucinatory, that the winged monster is not
real. Logically, we can delete the delirium of your symptom
picture. Delirium is when a person believes that the hallucinated
objects are real, as well as the context that surrounds them and no
one can dissuade them of their belief. Delirium involves a set of
distorted thinking about reality, while the hallucination itself
comes from a perceptual change.”

Is that...was I embarking
on the delirious wave?
After all, the line
between them—delusion and hallucination—seemed to be very
subtle.

“Let me put it this way: In the
hallucination, the person feels things happen. In delirium, the
person believes in the events and makes conclusions about what they
believe.

Interesting. Complicated, but interesting.
At least Dr. Barringer explains things... very different from the
frowning Dr. Talbott.

He kept talking and I kept pushing myself to
understand. Further, the text said that awareness was constantly
working to create and re-create consistent explanations about the
world from signs and/or stimuli received from the external
environment, as well as those that emerged from the mind itself. It
tried to conciliate external events with internal values
learned.