Mr Farthing, a British man whose
characteristic pessimism and gloomy perspective were interpreted as serious
clinical depression, was led on a nightmare journey through the American
psychiatric system.
Doctors described Farthing as suffering
with Pervasive Negative Anticipation–a belief that everything will turn out for
the worst, whether it’s trains arriving late, England’s chances at winning any
international sports event or even his own prospects to get ahead in life and
achieve his dreams.
“The satisfaction Mr Farthing seemed to
get from his pessimism seemed particularly pathological,” reported the doctors.
“They put me on everything-Lithium,
Prozac, St John’s Wort,” said Mr. Farthing. “They even told me to sit in front
of a big light for an hour a day or I’d become suicidal. I kept telling them
this was all pointless and they said that it was exactly that sort of attitude
that got me here in the first place.”
Running out of ideas, his doctors finally
resorted to a course of “weapons-grade MDMA”, the only noticeable effect of
which was six hours of speedy repetitions of the phrases “mustn’t grumble” and
“not too bad, really”.
It was then that Mr Farthing was referred
to a psychotherapist. Suicidal?
Dr Isaac Harvey explored Mr Farthing’s
family history and couldn’t believe his ears. “His story of a childhood growing
up in a grey little town where it rained every day, treeless streets of
identical houses and passionately backing a football team who never won, seemed
to be typical depressive ideation or false memory. Mr Farthing had six months
of therapy but seemed to mainly want to talk about the weather–how miserable
and cold it was in winter, and later how difficult and hot it was in summer. I
felt he wasn’t responding to therapy at all and so I recommended drastic
action-namely ECT”.
“I was all strapped down on the table and
they were about to put the rubber bit in my mouth when the psychiatric nurse
picked up on my accent,” said Mr Farthing. “I remember her saying ‘Oh my God, I
think we’re making a terrible mistake’.”
Nurse Alice Sheen was a big fan of British
comedy, which gave her an understanding of the British psyche. “Classic comedy
characters like Tony Hancock, Albert Steptoe and Frank Spencer are all hopeless
cases with no chance of ever doing well or escaping their circumstances,” she
explained to the baffled US medics. “That’s considered funny in Britain and is
not seen as pathological at all.”
Identifying Mr Farthing as British changed
his diagnosis from “clinical depression” to “rather quaint and charming” and he
was immediately discharged from hospital, with a selection of brightly coloured
leaflets and an “I love New York” T-shirt.
HT:
Reformed
Catholic (a very fine blog)
This made me laugh when I read it before, maybe over at Peter's blog. It reminds me of being repeatedly labeled as depressed by some counselors and then being labeled as other things like passive agressive, resistant, avoidant, etc. because I wouldn't "cooperate" with getting fixed. At the time, I was talking on the phone with a friend from the U.K. and she said I sounded extremely British in my approach to life and therapy and all, and not depressed at all. Her words didn't make me more cooperative, but in the end, they encouraged me (literally gave me courage) in going ahead with life as I felt I should (in spite of the pressure on me from many sides to "treat depression") being sad about the overwhelming quantity of sad things I was walking through at the time. In the end, that's what I did, and I feel much healthier and happier for having done so. (Whether or not I'm actually healthier, well, perhaps I'm not the best judge of that. But I feel pretty good for someone who has been labeled as many things as I have :))
Posted by: eclexia | April 04, 2008 at 02:39 PM
A piece of satire from 2005. See here
Posted by: Doug Chaplin | April 05, 2008 at 06:16 AM
Eeyore John, I couldn't help wondering if it is you who have now been officially declared British!
Winnie-the-Pooh Peter
Posted by: Peter Kirk | April 05, 2008 at 08:19 AM
Peter, I can be British with the best of them, in more ways than one.
Doug, thanks for unearthing the source.
Posted by: JohnFH | April 05, 2008 at 11:57 AM
Brilliant! I laughed for whole minutes. Anyway the weather here is lovely. Still, I expect it will rain later...
Posted by: tim bulkeley | April 07, 2008 at 06:47 PM