Wednesday, November 27, 2019


One of our patients who has been paranoid for many years at a low level even when well, and severely so when his medications go out of whack picked up a copy of 1984 at the library, having heard that reasonably-educated people should read it and be familiar with it. He is an intelligent but rather isolated person. We asked him what he thought after.

"It was a sad story.  The guy had a girlfriend, but he lost her."

They entire paranoid point of the story seems to have been mere unimportant background to him, which I suppose makes some sense.


Christopher B said...

Fish don't know other fish are wet, either.

Aggie said...

Once in central Asia I had a Russian translator, spoke very good English but was still trying to wrap his head around the finer points of idiom. He had been trained in the Moscow Language Institute, which was the cover business for training Soviet spies; He had been through most of the program when Glasnost hit and ruined his prospective career. Anyway, of course all Soviets are paranoid from birth as a survival mechanism. One day in the course of business an observation about paranoia was made and I rolled out the old chestnut: "You know, Alex, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that somebody isn't actually out to get you". I could see him rolling that around trying to sort out the syntax for about 45 seconds before he finally got it and let out a true, hearty Russian guffaw. It was a very satisfying moment, seeing humor make its way past repression.