Newsgroups: alt.support.nutty.as.a.fruitcake
From: gooley@netcom.com (Mark. Gooley)
Subject: my "noted by his therapist" series
Message-ID: <gooleyD6qED9.1y9@netcom.com>
Organization: Dostoyevskian Characters, plc
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 1995 19:34:21 GMT

You've probably seen these if you've read talk.bizarre.  Tongue usually
in cheek, but not always.

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 18:39:01 GMT

Client: Medicine seems so pointless.
Therapist: Drugs, or the entire endeavour?
C: The whole thing.  People aren't that valuable, you know.  I have a
friend who's a veterinarian, and she tells me what they do for farm
animals.  Unless it's a prize milch cow, or a breeding animal of good
stock, if the treatment is anywhere near the cost of the animal, they
just kill it.
T: And the same should apply to people?
C: I don't think that anyone's worth medical treatment.  If one can't
get over an ailment without more than a few cheap drugs, one should be
put down.
T: Including you?
C: Yes.  I've wasted more than my share already.

...

T: Suicidal feelings of late?
C: Once.  I was driving a few days ago and I thought of that road that's
practically cut into a cliff face.   You know the one I mean -- the only
place like that I know of around here.
T: North of town, yes.
C: Right.  Well, I was headed roughly in that direction, and I got to
thinking: the guard rail isn't that strong there, and if I drove off, I'd
probably get killed, and pretty quickly.  But I decided against it.
T: Why?  Self-preservation?  Did you realize that life is worthwhile?
C: No.  I realized that it wouldn't be fair to my car.  It's a very nice
car.  It's beautiful and reliable and its engine is quite powerful for its
size, and I just couldn't bear the thought of destroying it.  [Appears to
be fighting off tears.]  I couldn't do such a thing to that poor, loyal car.
[Brightens somewhat.]  Of course, there are such things as car rental
agencies...but it would hardly be fair to those cars, or even to the rental
people.  Next time I'll have to think of something else.

Mark., that is not I, so don't go calling mental health people or anything
gooley@netcom.com


Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 04:17:16 GMT

Therapist: Sausage?
Client: Nothing phallic about it, I'm sure.
T: I'm not a Freudian, you know.
C: Oh.  Yes, well it strikes me that people are perfectly fitted to
be made into sausages.  Intestines for casings, useful deposits of fat,
meat...
T: So is any mammal, no?
C:  Uh, I guess you're right.

[...]

C: I don't like to move things out of the way.  If I'm, say, addressing
an envelope, I'll look for a clear bit of surface rather than pushing aside
something that's taking up space.  When I bother to vacuum the carpet, I'll
steer around books rather than pick them up and put them away.
T: Laziness?
C: Partly.   But I think it's more that the objects have a right to be where
they are, and I don't have any business moving them away.
T: Even if you put them there in the first place?
C: It's almost as if they're more important than I am.  Maybe it's just that
it's so hard deciding where to move them *to*, but I think it's also that they
have more of a right to exist than I have.  They're definitely more important
than I am.
T: Perhaps they are unhappy where they are?
C: Well, obviously they can't tell me.  Now you'll have me worrying about that.
I don't know why I bother coming to you, anyhow.

Mark.
gooley@netcom.com


Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 16:08:25 GMT

Therapist: So you have troubles about food?
Client: Yes.  Mostly with grocery shopping.  I have trouble buying food that
isn't on sale.
T: Thrift?
C: Maybe.  When I was a child my parents never bought me clothes that
weren't on sale, or hardly ever.  As far as I know, though, they never bought
my sister or themselves any clothes that weren't on sale, so i guess that it
was fair enough.  But they never skimped on food.  Steak almost every night
for years, always bought the national brands rather than store brands, and
so on.
T: How far do you take this?
C: Well, there are some things that never go on sale: milk, Campbell's soups
in the red-and-white cans, some luxury items.  But everything else does,
eventually.  I wait and wait, and when the sale comes I stock up.
T: How much do you buy then?
C: Lots.  Ten jars of salsa or spaghetti sauce, five pounds of pasta, twenty
pounds of flour, a dozen cans of beans, eight boxes of something like Hamburger
Helper -- which I don't really like.  Sometimes I'll stock up on a new brand
that I find I can't stand, or buy something that I already have far too much
of at home.
T: What then?
C: Well, there are such things as food banks...

Mark., this time it's all true
gooley@netcom.com


Summary: lux perpetua luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternam
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 1994 04:32:19 GMT

Therapist: You seem a little more cheerful today.
Client: I'm not certain whether it's what I've been doing, or simply
that I've been doing something.
T: What have you been up to?
C: You've seen those articles on light and depression?  You know, how
perhaps the reason that people tend to get depressed in winter is that
there's less daylight.
T: Sure.
C: Well, I figured it was worth a try, so the day after our last session
I went out to look at some lamps.
T: Did you buy any?
C: I couldn't.  They weren't on sale.  You know how hard it is for me to
boy thngs that aren't on sale.
T: But I gather that you did buy some eventually.
C: The next day I was looking in the paper, and Discount Merchandise --
I like them, they're cheap -- had a sale on halogen torchieres.  You know,
those six-foot lamps that shine a bright light on the ceiling.
T: Yes.
C: The cheapest model was only $20!  Three hundred watts of power each,
and more efficient than incandescents, and such lovely white light, not
like those sickly fluorescent tubes!
T: How many did you buy?
C: Ten.  I should have tried to get a quantity discount.  Maybe I should
have gone to a wholesaler.  I feel guilty about that.
T: Why feel guilty?  It sounds like a good price.  Does it really matter
that you paid a little more?
C: I guess it doesn't...anyway, I put at least one in each room, and
when I come home it's dark, and I turn on all of them in every room I'm
in, and it's so bright...I turn them on if I get up early in the morning.
T: Do you think it's helping?
C: Maybe.  Of course, electricity is ten cents a kilowatt-hour, so those
torchieres cost about three cents an hour, and, oh, say I have them on
six hours a day, and four at a time on average, that's seventy-two cents
a day -- that's over twenty dollars a month!  God, my electric bill!
T: That's a third the cost of one of our sessions.
C: Oh.  Yeah, you're right.

Mark., I'm tempted to try that, actually
gooley@netcom.com


Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 06:15:52 GMT

Therapist: You look a bit seedy today.
Client: Yes, but I'm feeling better.
T: So it's not because of depression that you need a shave, that your
hair is all matted, that your clothes are a bit rumpled.
C: Not especially.  I'm economizing.  I'm saving wear and tear on the
electric razor, saving water by showering less often and washing my
clothes less often, saving money by not sending my clothes to the laundry
to be washed and pressed.
T: Why?  If you're in financial trouble I can lower my fee--
C: Thanks, but it's not that.  It makes me feel better.  I'm not consuming
as much, you understand.  I've been consuming more than I deserve.
T: Environmentalism?  Guilt over being an American, relatively wealthy as
the world goes, and using more than your share of the world's resources?
C: Not particularly.  I just don't think that I deserve to consume so much.
It's okay for other people to consume a lot, but it's wrong for me.
T: What else are you doing to use less?
C: Oh, everything I can think of.  I don't flush the toilet more than once
a day -- oh, sometimes I forget, but on the whole I've been pretty good about
it.  The insurance is running out on my car, and I'm not going to have it
renewed.  I bought a bus pass the other day!  [Takes out his wallet and shows
the pass to the Therapist.]  See?
T: I have one myself.  They're a good deal.
C: [Puts pass away.]  Yes, they are.  But you don't need to economize.
T: I live right on a bus line, and the schedule is convenient.  Do you plan
to sell your car?
C: I haven't decided.  Maybe I don't really deserve it.  On the other hand,
it's a good car and I don't know how the next owner would treat it.  It might
be happier if I mothballed it for a few years.  Riding the bus makes me feel
that I'm not taking up so much space in the world.
T: Are you still running the halogen lamps?
C: Yes.  I do feel pretty guilty about that, but they do seem to help.  Maybe
if I keep using less in other ways I can make up for it.  I'm recycling
absolutely everything now.  The recyclers don't pick up plastics, you know,
and I have to take them by bus to the city recycling center.  I have to change
buses twice.
T: You seem to be spending a lot of time on all this.
C: I save a lot by not washing so much.  Besides, what's my time worth,
anyway?

Mark., gross exaggeration; actually my car's in the shop
gooley@netcom.com


Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 16:44:43 GMT

Therapist:  Anything new this week?
Client: I have a strange urge to kill things.
T: People?
C: Animals.  Humanely, mind you.  I just want to make them die.
T: I suppose that you could get a job at a slaughterhouse, or at
an animal shelter.
C: There are a lot of prairie-dog colonies near my apartment.  I
could pour poisoned peanuts down the holes.  I understand that
the poison is fairly merciful.
T: Do you hate prairie dogs?
C: They look so smug and unworried.  They seem to have a social
life, living in those huge complexes of tunnels.  They make cute
noises which drive me mad.  But I don't bear them any real malice,
no.  I drop junk food down their holes sometimes.
T: Anything else that you want to kill?
C: When I was young I kept carnivorous fishes.  I had some piranhas
and an Oscar's cichlid, and I'd feed them live goldfish.  The oscar
was fun because he'd kill and eat the goldfish in one mouthful.  The
piranhas would bite off the tail half and leave the rest wiggling in
apparent agony, not always bothering to finish it off.  Kind of sickening.
T: So you might get another oscar?
C: Perhaps.  One can buy feeder goldfish for about ten cents each.  One
or two a day is not a lot.  Get a big tank for the oscar and watch his
incredible acceleration as he swoops on to the hapless goldfish and engulfs
it in his huge mouth.
T: Do you think that this might be a response to a feeling of powerlessness
in your life?  By determining that certain animals will die -- though
probably with little pain -- by your own hand or in the jaws of pet
proxies, aren't you trying to assert power over animals far greater than
you could assert over people?
C: That could be the reason.  I think I'll get a cat, though, and feed it
live mice.  Did you know that a whole mouse is almost the perfect food for
a healthy adult cat?  They have these homogenizers that can liquefy a mouse
in seconds, and they've analyzed the liquid and determined that it's got
exactly what a cat needs.
T: How interesting--
C: That's an idea!  Suppose I get an old cat with weak jaws, and buy a
homogenizer, and liquefy a mouse for the cat every day!

Mark., no comment
gooley@netcom.com


Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 05:14:33 GMT

Therapist: You seem to be in a better mood than usual today.
Client: It's the antidepressants Dr. _____ prescribed.  I feel great!
T: Any trouble with side-effects?
C: Dry mouth.  I keep drinking and drinking -- mostly diet soft drinks
or water, to keep down the calories -- even when I'm not thirsty.  I
keep having to urinate.  Otherwise, no problems.
T: Are you finding that you're interested more in new things these days?
C: Well, yes.  My new interest is in digging tools.
T: Digging tools?
C: Yes.  I want a pickaxe, most of all.
T: Why?
C: It's so, well, formidable.  I like something in the pick mattock mode,
myself.  Good stout pick on one end of the head, good thick shovel-ish
blade on the other.  I imagine myself digging deep into rocky soil...
T: You're a bit out of shape for that...
C: I can dream, can't I?  I'd start out with a smallish pickaxe, say about
a 5-pound head.  I can't seem to find one already mounted on a handle,
though.  I like those tools with the one-piece head and handle, with the
vinyl grip on the handle part.  When I was a boy I had a small Estwing
pick with a blue plastic grip.  They make a lovely little pickaxe -- it's
a bit expensive, but I could buy two of them for the cost of an hour with
you, you know.  I mean, if I'm spending so much money already, what's a
little extra for a fine digging tool?
T: Well--
C: [visibly excited]  I don't like those separate heads.  I keep thinking
that no matter how well I mount them on a handle, they'll work their way
off.  The one-piece ones are the best.  Or maybe one of those fiberglass
handles.  I've seen some lovely eight-pound sledgehammers with those, and
I must say I like the feel of them.
T: A bit heavy for you--
C: If I went to the mountains and sort of, you know, bashed away at rocks,
maybe breaking up rocks like convicts in the movies, I'd get stronger,
wouldn't I?  Start with that small Estwing pickaxe and a two-pound engineer's
hammer and a cold chisel, and work my way up through four- and eight- and
maybe someday sixteen-pound sledgehammers with bright yellow fiberglass
handles, and a heavy fiberglass-handled mattock, and drive up into the
mountains and smash those rocks!
T: Certainly you could build some muscle that way.  What do you think
that these desires represent?
C: I don't know.  Maybe the desire for a one-piece pickaxe represents a
fear of castration--
T: A little bit too Freudian, no?
C: Okay, a fear of failure, maybe -- the pickaxe coming apart just as I'm
digging a big hole, just as I tend to come apart when I'm under the most
stress.  Maybe a desire to feel worthwhile, to exercise power over things,
but things like rocks that can't feel pain or suffer as a result.  Or maybe...
T: Yes?
C: Maybe I just like bashing things against other things.

Mark., and I haven't even gotten to his hallucinations yet
gooley@netcom.com


Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 17:07:23 GMT

THERAPIST: So how have you been doing?
CLIENT: Not too badly.  I haven't been taking my antidepressants.  They
upset my stomach and make me tired and thirsty, with a metallic taste
continuously in my mouth.
T.: Aren't you being a bit irresponsible?
C.: Maybe I am, but I'm SICK of the things.  I'd rather suffer.  They
seem to sap my will.
T.: Have you talked with Dr. ________ about this?
C.: $150 just to see him -- twice as much as for you.  The hell with him.
I'm feeling better.  I've got ideas, plans, things to do!
T.: Such as?
C.: Well, for instance, I'm going to build a workshop.  Everything in it
will run off a Stirling engine.
T.: A what engine?
C.: Stirling, not Watt.  Ignoramus.
T.: What?
C.: Stirling.  Don't they teach you social science types ANYTHING in school?
Don't you read anything on your own but psych books and, say, the New Yorker?
Where's that scholarly quest for and love of learning, learning for its own
goddam sake, eh?
T.: So this is like a steam engine?
C.: Near enough.  Five, ten horsepower, maybe more.  Big system of belts
and pulleys driving a home sawmill, planers, all sorts of tools.  Power,
power, power.  Self-sufficient: I'll burn wood or at least propane.  I
can hook a generator to it for electric power.
T.: You do realize that we're seeing these motifs again and again: a need
for power, for independence.  This is just a more direct manifestation.
C.: Yeah.  So?  I think it could help make me happy.
T.: Possibly.  Next you'll want a truck.
C. [childisly enthusiastic]: Yeah, yeah!  Cummins turbo-diesel!  Dodge
Magnum V-10!  Vroom, vroom!  Gun rack.  Pair of fuzzy dice.
T.: How does this fit in with a love of learning and a Ph. D.?
C.: Any way I damned well please.

Mark.
gooley@netcom.com