I’ve been semi-motionless with back pain for the last three days. An ailment which, I have decided, is the worst thing in the whole world. It leaves one inclined to do things, but unable to actually do them. In fact, things that you’ve put off for months (scrubbing the mould off that corner of the room, cleaning windows, grouting), suddenly become the most fascinating and enticing activities you can imagine having the joy of doing.
But you certainly don’t get any sympathy during your enforced inactivity. Pretty much everybody gets back pain at some point, so declaring yourself as having it makes you a hypochondriac of the highest order. I am as guilty as anybody for writing off the reported pain of others. You’ll get no sympathy from me for your outlandish wincing and malingering.
The very worst thing about back pain, though, is its inexplicable nature. It sidles up to you unseen, tendrils of hot fire starting as a tiny twinge, before debilitating you into a state of lying prone on the carpet for relief, within the space of half an hour. This leads one to suspect that something terrible and sinister is at the root of it all. The internet of course, confirms this many times over. The term “back pain” is so terribly nebulous that it can be symptomatic of literally almost any disease or ailment. All of which I am currently convinced I have. I’ve got kidney disease, liver failure, polycystic ovaries, gallbladder problems, any number of degenerative spinal conditions, appendicitis (despite having probably had my appendix out at the age of three during an operation for something else), and a highly ironic sports injury. Either that, or God hates me enough to send me an immaculate ectopic pregnancy.
For an alternative, hopefully less hysterical diagnosis, I consulted a book of mine, The Universal Home Doctor, published in 1949. A more philosophical time, when we accepted our medical fate with stoicism, and, initially at least, took symptoms at face value. You know, like in that saying about when you hear hooves, think horses, not that Satan’s finally come to collect on that deal you did when you were 14 and having a witchcraft phase.
This book is a treasure trove of archaisms. Back pain, it reports, is practically endemic amongst women. Especially, it notes “before and during the courses.” We should avoid “anything in the nature of tight-lacing” (I think they mean corsets), and in the instance of pain in the lumbar region, “the bowels should be kept open with suitable medicine.” I found all of this calm advice quite reassuring.
Google should provide a parental-control-type control for the neurotic and paranoid. I don’t want to be one of these people (and as I mentioned previously, I am cavalier about health issues), who visits the doctor with a printout from NetMD which proves that I have phossy jaw. Incidentally, this reminds me. My local library is currently being refurbished (huh, only Alsager could be so out of touch with the outside world that our library gets up-graded, rather than being closed down), and during the renovations, asbestos was found. My first thought? “I did two weeks work experience there when I was 15! No wonder I sometimes cough a bit! Bring on the worker’s comp!”
You see, ailments today seem to be perceived through their benefits, rather than their drawbacks (pain, physical/mental deterioration, disability, social alienation, death). Get diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and one anticipates the arrival of a telegram from Stephen Fry, welcoming you to the club (hopefully with a headquarters in Piccadilly, furnished with oak panelling and velvet-covered chairs).
Every medical problem can have its upside. Got some freakish deformity? Channel 5 will make a documentary about you! Unsightly skin condition? Street Doctor or Embarrassing Illnesses will transmit a close up of it into the living rooms of millions of gawping voyeurs! (Incidentally, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t be convinced to appear on national television waving my supposedly embarrassingly ill body part around for all and sundry to say “urgh” at. If you can get it out on the telly, it’s not really embarrassing, is it?) And then of course, if you’ve had an accident at work? Well, you get the picture.
Incidentally, since I started writing this a couple of hours ago, I’ve had a miraculous recovery. The pain has gone away almost as abruptly as it came on. (Maybe this writing's been like the psychological equivalent of blood-letting.) The side-effect of this is that my mood has just taken an exponential swing upwards. Maybe I’d better get myself down to that club of Stephen Fry’s, where we can all have a good revel in how great being ill is.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Monday, 24 January 2011
Dentist
Last night I had a dream that Russell Howard was my dentist. And that upon visiting him, he went nowhere near my mouth, but instead gave me an injection to relieve my back pain. If only my real dentist could provide such a useful service.
I can’t go any further without having to sound massively gloaty and self-satisfied. About something that is in no way due to my own efforts or talent, but simply a matter of genetic good fortune on my part. I have perfect teeth. Completely straight, no fillings, and no past extractions. So having wasted God-knows-how-many-hours of my life visiting the dentist seems criminally extravagant.
Admittedly, these days I only go for a check-up every nine months, and the dentist spends two minutes, at the most, having a perfunctory prod, and a look to check that I haven’t got mouth cancer. But I resent it. Because the fact that I continue with this time-wasting charade strikes at my vanity. I am hopelessly cavalier in my approach to preventative medicine. I tend to presume an early death to be pretty inevitable, so, hey. Surprise me, Reaper. But, the only explanation for my continuing to waste time and money on preventative dentistry, is because I don’t want to risk ending up with gum disease. A bit of lung cancer or liver cirrhosis, and I’ll think “Well, I got what I deserved. Night everyone.” But, I sure as hell don’t want to die toothless. As my coffin sallies forth on its final fiery journey, I want to it to be a fully dentified1 me cocooned within it. I may be swollen up, yellow, and lacking half a lung, but I’ll still be able to get the tops off beer bottles, when no one else in heaven can find a bottle opener.
My discomfort at going to the dentist begins as soon as I step through the door and announce myself. I have to tell the receptionist which of the practice dentists my appointment is with. But I have an unfortunate aphasia where his name is concerned. It is only two letters different to the name of a minorly successful snooker player. Therefore, this snooker player is all that I can think of as I stand gawping at the receptionist, pulling agonised faces, and opening and closing my mouth like a manatee who’s forgotten to resurface for air until it’s almost too late.2
Once ensconced in the waiting room, the discomfort is not eased. Benches occupy three of the tiny room’s customary quota of four walls. One is forced to spend around 40 minutes studiously avoiding the gaze of 20 eyes. The more socially adept of patients evade this necessity by reading. Or, I don’t know, at least looking at printed material. But, the provision of this is limited, and a little narrow to say the least. Not only is it limited to appalling women’s magazines, but appalling women’s magazines which are pretending to be upmarket. They may advertise country house hotels, but they have Colleen Nolan on the front cover.
On my last trip to the dentist, someone had had the presence of mind to bring along a Chris Ryan book to read. Maybe in an attempt to psych themselves up for the ordeal. It’s a kind of logic, I suppose. Albeit one akin to having the waiting room television screen Marathon Man on loop.
On being called upon to enter the dentist’s lair (and from one trip to the next Ialways forget which is the correct room, so make a spectacle of myself in reception once more – and everyone knows it’s the opticians at which you’re supposed to do that), the usual procedure occurs. Sit in chair, answer dentist’s banal questions about one’s wellbeing, open mouth, and become overwhelmingly sleepy as chair pneumatically reclines and descends. There’s no time to relax though. No sooner have I opened my gob than the dentist has apparently seen all he needs to see, and I’m sent packing. All I can say is that I’m glad that I have to pay either nothing, or not a great deal for the privilege of his time and expertise.
Things were different at my old dentist’s. He practised from a lovely big old house, with a musty-smelling waiting room, filled with enough copies of The Beano to corrupt a child for life.3 The dentist himself, an elderly, time-served practitioner of tooth-proderry, used an array of fascinating tools (my current dentist seems to have one lowly pick thing), and called out a litany of “1, 2, 3 un-erupted, 4, 5, 6 okay.” This made dentistry seem more like wizardry (aided in part by my dentist’s half-moon glasses and white beard), and as a result, a lot more fun than it is these days.
But I’ll continue to go for check-ups. Because the moment I don’t, my wisdom teeth will begin to come through awkwardly. (Yes, I’m 32-years old, and I haven’t got my wisdom teeth. Go figure.) Or my years of smugness surrounding my laissez-faire tooth-care regime (which veers between completely non-existent, and massively fastidious), will finally catch up with me, leaving me in need of 10 fillings and 18 extractions all in one go. And condemned to eternity in hell: a place of limitless Kronenburg, but neither implement nor teeth with which to open it.
1‘Dentify’ is not a word. I just thought that it should be. It put me in mind of how one is ‘identified’ by one’s dental records. The similar etymology though, is of course a pure coincidence.
2Incidentally, manatees grow new teeth continually throughout their lives, and therefore never have to go to the dentist.
3It’s occurred to me recently that Dennis the Menace was a shocking role-model for children. He played practical jokes, was disrespectful to his elders, and flouted authority – while mercilessly bullying his well-behaved, polite, studious neighbour. What the hell sort of an example is that to set?
Post Script: Sorry for being unable to make the footnotes font size more sensible, or link to them from the main text. Turns out I've forgotten everything I ever knew about HTML.
I can’t go any further without having to sound massively gloaty and self-satisfied. About something that is in no way due to my own efforts or talent, but simply a matter of genetic good fortune on my part. I have perfect teeth. Completely straight, no fillings, and no past extractions. So having wasted God-knows-how-many-hours of my life visiting the dentist seems criminally extravagant.
Admittedly, these days I only go for a check-up every nine months, and the dentist spends two minutes, at the most, having a perfunctory prod, and a look to check that I haven’t got mouth cancer. But I resent it. Because the fact that I continue with this time-wasting charade strikes at my vanity. I am hopelessly cavalier in my approach to preventative medicine. I tend to presume an early death to be pretty inevitable, so, hey. Surprise me, Reaper. But, the only explanation for my continuing to waste time and money on preventative dentistry, is because I don’t want to risk ending up with gum disease. A bit of lung cancer or liver cirrhosis, and I’ll think “Well, I got what I deserved. Night everyone.” But, I sure as hell don’t want to die toothless. As my coffin sallies forth on its final fiery journey, I want to it to be a fully dentified1 me cocooned within it. I may be swollen up, yellow, and lacking half a lung, but I’ll still be able to get the tops off beer bottles, when no one else in heaven can find a bottle opener.
My discomfort at going to the dentist begins as soon as I step through the door and announce myself. I have to tell the receptionist which of the practice dentists my appointment is with. But I have an unfortunate aphasia where his name is concerned. It is only two letters different to the name of a minorly successful snooker player. Therefore, this snooker player is all that I can think of as I stand gawping at the receptionist, pulling agonised faces, and opening and closing my mouth like a manatee who’s forgotten to resurface for air until it’s almost too late.2
Once ensconced in the waiting room, the discomfort is not eased. Benches occupy three of the tiny room’s customary quota of four walls. One is forced to spend around 40 minutes studiously avoiding the gaze of 20 eyes. The more socially adept of patients evade this necessity by reading. Or, I don’t know, at least looking at printed material. But, the provision of this is limited, and a little narrow to say the least. Not only is it limited to appalling women’s magazines, but appalling women’s magazines which are pretending to be upmarket. They may advertise country house hotels, but they have Colleen Nolan on the front cover.
On my last trip to the dentist, someone had had the presence of mind to bring along a Chris Ryan book to read. Maybe in an attempt to psych themselves up for the ordeal. It’s a kind of logic, I suppose. Albeit one akin to having the waiting room television screen Marathon Man on loop.
On being called upon to enter the dentist’s lair (and from one trip to the next Ialways forget which is the correct room, so make a spectacle of myself in reception once more – and everyone knows it’s the opticians at which you’re supposed to do that), the usual procedure occurs. Sit in chair, answer dentist’s banal questions about one’s wellbeing, open mouth, and become overwhelmingly sleepy as chair pneumatically reclines and descends. There’s no time to relax though. No sooner have I opened my gob than the dentist has apparently seen all he needs to see, and I’m sent packing. All I can say is that I’m glad that I have to pay either nothing, or not a great deal for the privilege of his time and expertise.
Things were different at my old dentist’s. He practised from a lovely big old house, with a musty-smelling waiting room, filled with enough copies of The Beano to corrupt a child for life.3 The dentist himself, an elderly, time-served practitioner of tooth-proderry, used an array of fascinating tools (my current dentist seems to have one lowly pick thing), and called out a litany of “1, 2, 3 un-erupted, 4, 5, 6 okay.” This made dentistry seem more like wizardry (aided in part by my dentist’s half-moon glasses and white beard), and as a result, a lot more fun than it is these days.
But I’ll continue to go for check-ups. Because the moment I don’t, my wisdom teeth will begin to come through awkwardly. (Yes, I’m 32-years old, and I haven’t got my wisdom teeth. Go figure.) Or my years of smugness surrounding my laissez-faire tooth-care regime (which veers between completely non-existent, and massively fastidious), will finally catch up with me, leaving me in need of 10 fillings and 18 extractions all in one go. And condemned to eternity in hell: a place of limitless Kronenburg, but neither implement nor teeth with which to open it.
1‘Dentify’ is not a word. I just thought that it should be. It put me in mind of how one is ‘identified’ by one’s dental records. The similar etymology though, is of course a pure coincidence.
2Incidentally, manatees grow new teeth continually throughout their lives, and therefore never have to go to the dentist.
3It’s occurred to me recently that Dennis the Menace was a shocking role-model for children. He played practical jokes, was disrespectful to his elders, and flouted authority – while mercilessly bullying his well-behaved, polite, studious neighbour. What the hell sort of an example is that to set?
Post Script: Sorry for being unable to make the footnotes font size more sensible, or link to them from the main text. Turns out I've forgotten everything I ever knew about HTML.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Psychiatrists say the funniest things
Firstly, my apologies for not writing for far, far too long. Much longer, in fact, than has been good for me, but I haven’t been getting out much of late. So instead of resorting to recording the minutiae of my budgie’s day-to-day existence, and what I have had for lunch every day, I have remained silent. Well, I’m always silent here, it’s not as though I read what I’m typing out loud, record it in an mp3 file, and post a link to it.
But, anyway, someone asked me fairly politely when I was going to write something, and kindly went so far as to furnish me with some suggested topics. None of which I really knew much about, so I’m ignoring them, and having a gentle little ramble, in the hope of ending up in a tortuously metaphorical cul-de-sac of actual subject matter. Sorry if it’s not very good, but I’m very, very out of practise.
After several months of being treated by my doctor for anxiety (see “I hate the Jobcentre” post for the a full explanation of the ailment’s exogenously arising causational stimulus), I finally got an appointment through the post, for an assessment by the people who do psychotherapy (who may or may not be called psychotherapists), with a form enclosed, in which some questions are asked of the recipient. The recipient’s me, just to clarify that sentence.
Most of the inquisition is fairly straightforward: “Have you had a head injury?”, “Are you on drugs?”, “Do you have Vietnam-induced PTSD?”, “Do you beat your children, and if so, have you been abused whilst in jail for it?”, and “Jesus, Lindsay? Just how much of an alcoholic ARE you?” But the one that particularly drew my attention was “Do you sometimes feel that others might not like you if they really knew you?” This line of enquiry is presumably intended to catch out the paranoid delusional, who is convinced that others are insulting them behind their back.
But hold on. Isn’t worrying about others’ perceptions of you a good thing? The next psychological intrusion the form goes on to impose is whether you “sometimes feel that you are better/superior to others”. Well yes, yes I do. In my case, this is due to a somewhat inflated ego, and an apparent sprinkling of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Which is a completely uncalled for label, and just goes to how society will stigmatize you for being so great. Because they don’t want me to get too big for my boots. They don’t even want me to “sometimes” think that I am either better or superior to others. Even though I quite obviously am. I mean, objectively, surely I’m a slightly better person than, say Fred West (my brother’s “favourite serial killer”, incidentally), or that dreadful fellow from Pineapple Dance Studio?
The internet informs me that his name is Louie Spence, and he is exactly what happens when a person fails to be concerned about what others might think of them. As was the influence of however many decades of Big Brother were inflicted on us, with its encouragement of the imbecilic to gain the favour of the media by showing no regard for the public perception of them. “I’m just bein’ myself, an’ if anyone don’t like it, well you know, that’s just me”, they uttered, as though it is some kind of noble display of integrity to hold your innate dickishness open to scrutiny by all and sundry.
Worrying about others disliking you is a good thing. It gives you the motivation to be nicer. Hence, the idea of philanthropy as an evolutionarily advantageous trait. This theory posits the suggestion that a philanthropic act is done not so much out of a concern for its recipient’s wellbeing, but through the impulse to improve one’s own standing in the eyes of others. Or maybe some people are just genuinely nice. But my point is that, if not concerned by others’ perceptions of you, you are by definition a psychopath. If I were to care so little about others’ opinions that I picked off my neighbours with a sniper rifle, I imagine the psychiatrist might have something pretty negative to say about it.
So, I am presented with four options by this conundrum of logic the NHS has provided me with. I can check neither box, in which case I neither care what others think of me, nor ever feel that I am superior to others. So, I think I’m the worst person in the world, and don’t care if others agree with me. Wow. I must have a really depressing life. Maybe I live in a skip. Earning a living through prostitution (despite my obvious low self-esteem making me the lowest charging hooker in town).
Claiming both a grandiose opinion of myself, coupled with a fear of rejection would give me a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, the most spurious, fatuous medical complaint ever concocted, as an attempt to medicalize the condition of being insecure, but also a bit stroppy.
So the only remaining solution is to claim either a fear of others’ perceptions of me, or an inclination towards despotic narcissism. In the first instance, I spend my life accompanied by an imaginary commentary in my head, insulting everything I think, say or do. Probably provided by that BASTARD from Come Dine with Me (I know he’s paid to say that stuff, but he should still be strung up). Or alternatively, it is me that proffers the Come Dine With Me commentary to others, critiquing their multitudinous inadequacies. And eventually, under the tyrannical rule of my alternatively diagnosed autocratic self, the guy from Come Dine with Me would, indeed be strung up.
It’s a confusing business. Under no circumstances can I come across to the therapist as free from mentalness. Nobody can. It’s a Catch 22 situation, in which you inevitably condemn yourself to abnormality. However, my point here is an anti-psychotherapy polemic. I’m not resolutely against having a little weekly chat with a stranger. Maybe I’ll take biscuits. What I object to is the compartmentalization of personality traits as a means of attempted diagnosis. Indeed, for the need for an attempt to medicalize the personality at all. Psychiatry is still such a hopelessly non-scientific science, and maybe this fact should just be accepted. Instead it is denied, in an attempt to legitimize the work of its practitioners. I’m not suggesting that many psychiatrists don’t do sterling work, but that their approach seems rather akin to what is politely termed “alternative” medicine. Neuroscience is an eminently respectable, and unimaginably important scientific field. Perhaps psychiatrists should migrate en masse to neuroscience labs, instead of attempting to give pseudo-scientific labels to the slightly unstable, by asking them to solve impenetrable, semantically recondite riddles.
But, anyway, someone asked me fairly politely when I was going to write something, and kindly went so far as to furnish me with some suggested topics. None of which I really knew much about, so I’m ignoring them, and having a gentle little ramble, in the hope of ending up in a tortuously metaphorical cul-de-sac of actual subject matter. Sorry if it’s not very good, but I’m very, very out of practise.
After several months of being treated by my doctor for anxiety (see “I hate the Jobcentre” post for the a full explanation of the ailment’s exogenously arising causational stimulus), I finally got an appointment through the post, for an assessment by the people who do psychotherapy (who may or may not be called psychotherapists), with a form enclosed, in which some questions are asked of the recipient. The recipient’s me, just to clarify that sentence.
Most of the inquisition is fairly straightforward: “Have you had a head injury?”, “Are you on drugs?”, “Do you have Vietnam-induced PTSD?”, “Do you beat your children, and if so, have you been abused whilst in jail for it?”, and “Jesus, Lindsay? Just how much of an alcoholic ARE you?” But the one that particularly drew my attention was “Do you sometimes feel that others might not like you if they really knew you?” This line of enquiry is presumably intended to catch out the paranoid delusional, who is convinced that others are insulting them behind their back.
But hold on. Isn’t worrying about others’ perceptions of you a good thing? The next psychological intrusion the form goes on to impose is whether you “sometimes feel that you are better/superior to others”. Well yes, yes I do. In my case, this is due to a somewhat inflated ego, and an apparent sprinkling of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Which is a completely uncalled for label, and just goes to how society will stigmatize you for being so great. Because they don’t want me to get too big for my boots. They don’t even want me to “sometimes” think that I am either better or superior to others. Even though I quite obviously am. I mean, objectively, surely I’m a slightly better person than, say Fred West (my brother’s “favourite serial killer”, incidentally), or that dreadful fellow from Pineapple Dance Studio?
The internet informs me that his name is Louie Spence, and he is exactly what happens when a person fails to be concerned about what others might think of them. As was the influence of however many decades of Big Brother were inflicted on us, with its encouragement of the imbecilic to gain the favour of the media by showing no regard for the public perception of them. “I’m just bein’ myself, an’ if anyone don’t like it, well you know, that’s just me”, they uttered, as though it is some kind of noble display of integrity to hold your innate dickishness open to scrutiny by all and sundry.
Worrying about others disliking you is a good thing. It gives you the motivation to be nicer. Hence, the idea of philanthropy as an evolutionarily advantageous trait. This theory posits the suggestion that a philanthropic act is done not so much out of a concern for its recipient’s wellbeing, but through the impulse to improve one’s own standing in the eyes of others. Or maybe some people are just genuinely nice. But my point is that, if not concerned by others’ perceptions of you, you are by definition a psychopath. If I were to care so little about others’ opinions that I picked off my neighbours with a sniper rifle, I imagine the psychiatrist might have something pretty negative to say about it.
So, I am presented with four options by this conundrum of logic the NHS has provided me with. I can check neither box, in which case I neither care what others think of me, nor ever feel that I am superior to others. So, I think I’m the worst person in the world, and don’t care if others agree with me. Wow. I must have a really depressing life. Maybe I live in a skip. Earning a living through prostitution (despite my obvious low self-esteem making me the lowest charging hooker in town).
Claiming both a grandiose opinion of myself, coupled with a fear of rejection would give me a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, the most spurious, fatuous medical complaint ever concocted, as an attempt to medicalize the condition of being insecure, but also a bit stroppy.
So the only remaining solution is to claim either a fear of others’ perceptions of me, or an inclination towards despotic narcissism. In the first instance, I spend my life accompanied by an imaginary commentary in my head, insulting everything I think, say or do. Probably provided by that BASTARD from Come Dine with Me (I know he’s paid to say that stuff, but he should still be strung up). Or alternatively, it is me that proffers the Come Dine With Me commentary to others, critiquing their multitudinous inadequacies. And eventually, under the tyrannical rule of my alternatively diagnosed autocratic self, the guy from Come Dine with Me would, indeed be strung up.
It’s a confusing business. Under no circumstances can I come across to the therapist as free from mentalness. Nobody can. It’s a Catch 22 situation, in which you inevitably condemn yourself to abnormality. However, my point here is an anti-psychotherapy polemic. I’m not resolutely against having a little weekly chat with a stranger. Maybe I’ll take biscuits. What I object to is the compartmentalization of personality traits as a means of attempted diagnosis. Indeed, for the need for an attempt to medicalize the personality at all. Psychiatry is still such a hopelessly non-scientific science, and maybe this fact should just be accepted. Instead it is denied, in an attempt to legitimize the work of its practitioners. I’m not suggesting that many psychiatrists don’t do sterling work, but that their approach seems rather akin to what is politely termed “alternative” medicine. Neuroscience is an eminently respectable, and unimaginably important scientific field. Perhaps psychiatrists should migrate en masse to neuroscience labs, instead of attempting to give pseudo-scientific labels to the slightly unstable, by asking them to solve impenetrable, semantically recondite riddles.
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