New Fiction: A Fairy Tale for Your Enjoyment

Once upon a time, in a very special treatment unit not so far away, ruled a very bad man. He was ugly and narcissistic, and possessed some evil magic which drew people to him and made them believe he was their friend - until it was too late.

Now this evil man loved to have an audience. He loved to expound for hours on his theories of the world, and to indoctrinate his listeners to his beliefs even when they were completely and provably false. He preferred young women in his entourage, or men who lacked self-confidence, or, if possible, that most important testosterone-producing set of organs which interferes with the smooth fit of trousers. Lacking much testosterone himself, the evil man found the way to be the king of the blind (or, more specifically, the king of the testosterone-challenged). In fact, he became so convinced of his might and his power, that he declared himself king of that very special little treatment unit. Behind the barbed wire fence, this little nebish king ruled with an iron fist and a ruthless sword.

What did he do? What didn’t he do? He was not a physician, but declared himself more knowledgeable than any physician. In the Land not so far away, the law had decreed that only a licensed physician could decide which evil prisoner-subjects could be released beyond the barbed wire, and which should remain there forever. King Evil, as we shall call him from here on, for the sake of clarify, decided that he did not like the law. He would bring his own disciples to make these decisions. They would not have to be physicians - they could be anyone. He picked several - a princess, some knights, some ladies-in-waiting - that he could rely upon to tell the grand inquisitors what he, King Evil, wanted to tell them. He wanted to have absolute power over who remained in his captivity and who was released, and he would not let such a small thing as the law interfere with his rule.

His anointed Princess, she of the long legs and long hair, was put in charge of all the knights and ladies. King Evil knew she would do his bidding, because his evil heart had already identified her area of weakness. Princess Rapunzel, we’ll call her in homage to her inappropriate workplace hairstyle, did not understand that bad guys hurt women because they are bad guys. Deep in her heart, she believed that bad guys hurt only women they found sexy and irresistible. King Evil, as a bad guy himself, knew perfectly well what motivates bad guys: the opportunity to hurt other people and show how much power and control they possess. But as part of his power and control trip, he deputized Rapunzel, gave her almost limitless power as long as she did what he wanted (he was able to make her think it was her idea) and then sat back to enjoy the show.

One day the inquisitor informed Evil and Rapunzel, and all the other lords, ladies, serfs (i.e. Psychiatrists), and the rest of the kingdom that one of the prisoner subjects had to go. He decreed that this Young Subject, after spending half his life in captivity, could be released into the community under close supervision by - gasp - soldiers from beyond the barbed wire fence! Quickly, King Evil devised a plan. He knew that Princess Rapunzel needed attention from every man she met, and recently she had been devastated when her long-term affair with one of the knights ended - the knight had been given an ultimatum by his wife and the mother of his two children that if he did not end the affair, the marriage was over. Because this knight recognized that Rapunzel was truly fucked up and not someone to leave your wife for, he accepted his wife’s ultimatum. Therefore, poor Rapunzel was feeling ugly and unloved (never mind her own handsome husband and her two children, her beautiful home and her successful private practice). King Evil could not have been certain of the outcome, but knowing her type, he did what every evil bit of pond scum would do. Rapunzel decreed herself not only the person who would decide whether this Young Subject was “cured,” but also the person who would “treat” him until a cure was achieved. King Evil, as the boss of the very special treatment unit, knew that this arrangement was completely unethical, contraindicated, non-therapeutic, and potentially dangerous. Yet in his role as the evil king, this type of situation made him ecstatic. He enthusiastically permitted Rapunzel to meet with Young Subject weekly, privately, and confidentially.

Rapunzel bloomed. On the scheduled therapy days, she would come to work in ever-shorter skirts and ever-higher heels. When they did not have appointments, she would find reasons to meet with Young Subject. Their therapy sessions became longer and longer, and Rapunzel would emerge from behind the closed doors flushed, with her long locks mussed and a dreamy expression on her face. All the knights and ladies, Prisoner-Subjects, serfs, and various and sundry other citizens figured out what was going on immediately. The buzz spread beyond the barbed wire fence and into the Land Beyond. All of the banished subjects, or the subjects who had escaped, heard about the shenanigans going on behind the gates. Only the grand inquisitor was apparently spared the news, for, upon hearing the glorious testimony of Rapunzel and how “cured” Young Subject had become, the grand inquisitor permitted Young to leave the special unit and go forth into the Land.

One beautiful summer day, one of the guards of the fortress had a rare day off. This being New Jersey - um, I mean, this being the Land - he chose to, as they say, go down the shore. Armed with nothing more lethal than his cell phone and a cooler, the guard was enjoying the beautiful summer weather when he spotted some familiar long locks. Looking closer, he almost urinated upon himself. Rapunzel! And Young Subject! In one of those tonsil-tickling lip-locks that people over thirty generally save for behind closed doors! Amazed, he remained paralyzed for exactly three-tenths of a second, when he recalled that his phone had not only a camera, but video capability as well.

Poor Rapunzel had to resign as princess. She is now in hiding, waiting to have her license to practice psychology revoked. Ironically, Young Subject had not placed all of his eggs in Rapunzel’s basket. Rapunzel was older and supposedly more mature, but any girl would do, really, so he found another former worker-subject from the evil kingdom/special unit. In fact, while he was courting Rapunzel, and while Rapunzel was deciding his fate, he was simultaneously courting this other worker-subject. This other young girl had actually committed a felony: she brought illegal drugs into the fortress and distributed them to the prisoner-subjects while she was a worker-subject. She had been engaged in a turbulent romance with a mentally retarded child molester, and she really wanted to please him. So she brought him drugs and called him from her cell phone a zillion times, and when she was caught, she was almost dead meat. But for some reason, King Evil took pity on her (or didn’t want to be bothered with all the paperwork) so he told her if she resigned, he would not pursue criminal charges (the cover-up being also a felony, but what’s a felony or two between friends?) She left, found a new job, and then rented a nice cozy apartment where she could wait for one of her sex offender-prisoner-subjects to join her.

Young Subject arranged everything. While he was screwing Rapunzel, he was planning to go live with - oh, we’ll call her Goldilocks, to stick with the theme. He left the evil fortress and moved in with Goldi, and then would continue to meet Rapunzel while Goldi was at work. Rapunzel should have been at work, too, but because she was the Princess her time was flexible.

After Rapunzel and Young Subject were spotted at the beach, and Rapunzel fled the evil fortress kingdom in anger (“I can’t take this bullshit!”) Young Subject was stopped by the police one night, while driving in the Land. His car was searched. But guess what - it was not his car - it was Goldilocks’s! And guess what was in that car? (Hint: what did she bring into the fortress?) Uh-huh!! Amazingly, Young Subject was not arrested for having drugs, since it was not his vehicle - but his parole was violated and he was returned to the very special unit to await the next decision of the grand inquisitor. He remains there to this very day.

What have we learned from this story? We have learned that King Evil is in fact, quite evil. We knew it before, and we have many more stories to illustrate his evilness, but I propose to identify a new condition: Sex offending by proxy. In this mental abnormality, the offender, too chicken to actually physically commit an offense, manipulates the people around him into acting out some of his vilest fantasies. As the ultimate supervisor of everyone in that fortress, his job was to know who was too screwed up to work there. Yet he took, and continues to take, great pleasure in identifying women whose lives he can ruin by placing them in proximity with Young Subjects and then letting nature take its course. Women who believe that rape is a crime of being pretty (i.e., women get raped because the men who rape them find them irresistible) should not be working in a sex offender facility. To gleefully observe while people’s lives are ruined is one of the worst acts of sadism I can think of. Yet King Evil continues to rule, hiring more and more vulnerable young women he can manipulate.

So, dear reader, our story must pause here, until the grapevine yields new information. Of course, this story is only a fairy tale, and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. But just imagine if it were true - just imagine if the place where sex offenders get locked up until they are “better” were really run by a sadistic evil psychopath whose father is a registered sex offender . . . Just imagine if dozens of impressionable young psychologists were taught that rape is an act of affection . . . Just imagine if you could bring drugs into the security perimeter without any consequences . . . Just imagine . . . 

To Friend or Not to Friend . . .

I have been marveling over the shrinking of the world for at least a few months now. The number of people on the planet is growing but somehow the size of the planet seems to be smaller all the time. People who had disappeared from my life for decades reappear in a second, as if they never left. Conversations that were interrupted twenty years ago can continue as if one of the participants just left for a few minutes to go to the ladies’ room. Photos that we took in our teens pop up on our computer screens like instant messages. And for the most part, it’s all good. Sometimes we exchange a few e-mails and call it a day. Sometimes we find that we really missed our old friends and we readmit them into our lives. Mostly, I think, we, or at least, I, feel connected to my whole life all at once, but interact with many of those old friends mainly out of nostalgia, and possibly a desire to feel young again.

But there is a flip side to all of this instant connecting. Recently I sent a friend request on Facebook to my first friend. This woman came to the states as a toddler; her parents arrived here around the same time that mine did, and I was born a few months later. I have pictures of the two of us in our pink party dresses at each other’s birthday parties, and with all sorts of unrecognizable adults lined up with their closed-mouthed, poor European dentition smiles. 

This girl, I’ll call her Gaby for convenience although it’s not her real name, grew up in my neighborhood, went to my elementary school and then my high school. We did not stay close after our parents stopped forcing us together, but, as far as I know, we never had any major conflicts or disagreements. Eventually she became the type of person I’d say hi to in the hallway - not a friend, but not an enemy. I haven't thought of her in years.

Enter the internet, and Facebook. Another childhood friend sent me a friend “suggestion” - that I add Gaby to my friend list. Wow, I thought, I haven’t heard of her or even thought of her in ages. I was curious to find out how her life had turned out. I sent her my friend request, with a little message. Nothing. She disappeared from my list. So, naively, I sent another request, assuming a system malfunction. Again, she apparently ignored me. 

I should have laughed off this incident, but instead, I got mad. I googled Gaby but the information was scant - more or less what my parents already knew from bumping into her parents every few years. I began to worry. Had I inadvertently offended Gaby? Had I done something back in high school which she never forgave? (not that I had any memory of such a thing). Did I have the proverbial cooties?

I’ll probably never know, but Freud did his own self-analysis and I’m going to do mine too. I did not do anything to offend my first friend - and while I have no clear memory of the birthday parties with the pink frilly dresses, I do have the photos, and I still treasure them because they are all I have of those early days - before I could speak English, before I had a sister, before I ever began my formal education and before the layers of school, society, friends, family, travel, work, and emotional challenges ever began to turn me into the person I am today. So I have decided that I actually feel a bit of pity for Gaby - pity that she has no connection to those early days, or any nostalgia for a time in her life that was not hers to control, but during which she - and I - were the darlings of a group of young immigrants. I have always felt a deep connection to my roots - not just to my parents and grandparents but to all the generations going back through Spain and Persia to ancient Israel and Egypt and back into the land of Ur. I love being part of a history, and trying to make a little mark that can live on. I am lucky enough to have three amazing sons who will pass on my legacy; I try to write and publish both fiction and non-fiction so that part of me will live on. Grandiose? Maybe, but I’m hardly alone in wishing for some sort of permanence, connection, and immortality. Gaby apparently is uninterested in either her roots or her immediate past. Too bad. In psychiatry to know a person’s history is to know a person. When people ask me how I can know so much about someone in a ninety-minute interview, I point them to the list entitled: “Sources of Information.” The interview is only a small part - it is the person’s history - his c.v., curriculum vita - which explains all of the details leading to the ninety-minute interview and resulting in my clinical impressions.

If Gaby changes her mind and decides to “friend” me, I hold no grudge. I am curious about the lives of other people - without this innate curiosity I could not do what I do for a living. If she chooses to remain distant, that is her prerogative. I certainly don’t need her in my life - but for someone like me, who does what I do for a living, the absence of information is sometimes more informative than any clinical interview could ever be.

Busy Hands are Happy Hands!

When I was really little I loved this song: “Busy, busy, busy, busy all day long. Busy hands are happy hands, and - they - can’t - go - wrong!” Anyone remember it? Readers who know my history of years of working with sex offenders will see this title and cringe. But don't worry, today's post is not about work. Or not about that kind of work, anyway!

Today, busy busy busy is the mantra of everyone I know. We seem to have to many more things to do every day than we had when we were younger, or that our parents had when we were younger. And our kids need full time parenting. When I was nine years old I was doing the wash for my whole family - I’d take it down to the basement where I’d put in the quarters to do one load of whites (in hot water with bleach) and one load of colors (warm, detergent only). My mother taught me how to do the laundry, what went in the dryer and what did not; everything would fit into one dryer which (I may be remembering wrong) cost a dime! I knew how to take out my father’s shirts while they were still damp, and shake them out and hang them on wire hangers for easier ironing. I knew that certain things (tights, my mother’s “undergarments”) did not go in either the washer or the dryer. It was not the worst job in the world, although I was a bit scared of the basement.

But here’s the amazing part: two loads of laundry a week for a family of four. Today we are a family of five and I generally do two loads a day! No bleach, no hot water, organic detergent - but lots and lots of dirty clothes. 

In two days I’ve written two blogs, and both mention laundry. A coincidence? A preoccupation? An obsession? It’s not a huge challenge for the Freudian in me to understand that I am obsessed - with making order out of chaos. I want to “clean up my act.” I need to simplify my life. So what do I do? Give myself an additional deadline - a column a day. Just like newlyweds who think they are going to make love every single night for their whole lives, some people (like me) think they can give themselves an unreasonable standard to live up to.

Nobody in my family seems to know that there is no laundry fairy. As my boys grow up and pass me in height, they do not pick up any domestic responsibilities along the way. We are supposed to be consistent and firm with discipline. All the magazines tell us, and all the websites and even the textbooks. Only nobody told the kids that they were supposed to respond to this treatment a certain way. They “forget.” They “didn’t see.” Their lives are much more complicated than ours were. Our phones were attached to the wall. We had a few TV channels (cable was all for adults back then - I think that was the point of it!). We had a couple of hours of cartoons after school and on Saturday mornings; we had an occasional ABC After-School Special. My kids have about 20 dedicated kids’ channels which broadcast 24/7. They have cell phones and iPods and laptops. They don’t just play basketball in the park (although they do that too) - they have to play in a league, with organized games and practices, and guess who gets to drive them everywhere? And at the end of the season, every player gets a trophy. They shake hands with the other team at the end of every game, and they (we, the parents) chip in for a gift for the coach. But hey - the mom who makes an additional 12 car trips each week to the practices and the games - not even a thank-you. I can’t remember the last time I heard a carpool beneficiary thank me for the ride. I know my kids have good manners when they visit people and places without me; I actually get good feedback about my boys. So why is it that whatever Mommy does for them is taken for granted?

Busy, busy, busy. I have a job, and I also have a dream. But I feel like everything has to take second, third, or fiftieth place to all the chores that contribute to domestic bliss (whatever that is, and whoever is experiencing it). Everyone writes about balance, but I noticed in a recent magazine article that all the husbands have to “leave for the office early.” The moms, somehow, find a way to leave late, or to work at home, or to somehow postpone their career goals until their kids grow up - or forever. I promise you that the 90% of forensic psychiatrists who are men leave for their offices whenever they want. They don’t plan their work schedules around the Hebrew School carpool. They don’t throw in a load of laundry before going to work, and they don’t spend the minutes between cases making shopping lists or calculating the time it will take to get everyone picked up and dropped off and dinner made before it is time for a guitar lesson or basketball practice. They are Doctors - with that capital D. And we women? We fit in our work in our spare time, or else we hire helpers who teach our kids to like Jerry Springer and put sugar in everything, even spaghetti sauce. 

So I tell my children that my success as a person will depend on their success - and then I feel guilty because that pronouncement is just a new-millennium variation of the same Jewish mother guilt that my mother heaped on me. New millennium, new generation, new technology - same guilt. 

Is there an answer to our busy lives? Would I really be happier living off the grid? (are you kidding me? Without my computer? Without a library card? Without Facebook?) Could I just homeschool my kids? (insert hysterical laughter here as well as synonym for homeschooling: committing suicide). Can I use my desire to decrease my carbon footprint to get out of some of these millions of trips in my minivan? What can I do?

The answer is: Nothing. I live where I live and I have my kids, whom I love. We will continue to drive each other crazy until one day the last one will move out, and I’ll find myself with all these empty hours to fill each day. Then I can blog all I want. But then - who will I blog about?

Boiling Over

Once I had a patient who, as they all do when they are really crazy, denied any auditory hallucinations. In fact, he had only one problem. Inside his brain, something was dripping. He could hear it drip, sometimes loudly, sometimes softly, but it never stopped. He was convinced that this condition was extremely grave and a portent of his impending doom. I would agree - if numerous CT scans, neurological consultations, and possibly even an exorcist found nothing wrong with him. The dripping and bubbling were - pardon the pun - in his head.

We have medication for that, and, from what I remember, he got better and went home. But what about my brain? I don't hear any dripping, but I feel - I sense - so much bubbling and boiling over; so many ideas and thoughts that I need to write down but instead, I store away for later, for when the laundry is folded and the kids are grown.

Last night I made soup. Chicken soup, or "regular" soup as it is known in my house. First it boiled over, and I ran to the kitchen to turn the heat down, just as I write little essays like this one to appease the bubbling in my brain. Then I got distracted and I forgot it on the stove for a while. When I remembered to check, my big pot of chicken soup had reduced to something like Campbell's, requiring reconstitution. Will my brain require reconstitution if I neglect it? Is a brain full of ideas like a soup, which needs a delicate balance of fire to cook properly? Or, to return to my patient's intracranial dripping, will something inside dissolve if I neglect it for too long?

My work is interesting, and it requires some thinking. Maybe even a lot of thinking. But my audience is limited - everyone skips to the "Recommendations and Formulations" part, and then somehow they don't even understand that! I can't post confidential psychiatric evaluations on the internet - so what to do? I'm taking this first jump into cyberspace without a safety cord. I'll wait and see what happens. The worst that can happen is that my boiling brain will have an outlet for all the nonsense it accumulates every day. I know it won't actually drip. We have medication for that!