Twilight Of The Headshrinkers

 

Excerpted from Confessions of a Rogue Psychotherapist, by Desmond Darling.

Case Study # 37 

Sitting across from me is my three o’clock, Sandra Levy, a brooding, enigmatic Jewess with raven hair, volatile green eyes and a body literally demanding some form of ungodly worship. A raging physical beauty with a seriously disturbed mind. Classic case of dissociative personality is my best guess, brought on, no doubt, by an early childhood trauma.

Psycho-therapeutic Note: When in doubt, always blame an early childhood trauma. It sounds compelling and, as few people have any actual memories of early childhood, there is little chance of being challenged on it.

As usual, Sandra is wearing next to nothing; a wispy, see-though blouse, sans-bra, a shiny, oh so short, artificial snakeskin miniskirt and, making an educated guess here, no underpants. She has her hair done up like the Bride of Frankenstein, minus the white streaks, her lips a shade of indigo reminiscent of the fluid emitted by certain species of exotic jellyfish when aroused. I’m not sure whether to hammer a stake through her heart, or make wild, lethal love to her in an giant fish tank.

  Somehow I restrain myself from doing either.

“So, Sandra,” I say. “How are we today?”

"We?"

"You, then. How are you today?"

“How do you think I am?” she wants to know, sounding annoyed. “I saw her again this morning, following me, as usual.”

“And by her you mean...?”

“Me, of course. That psycho bitch!”

Lest we lose sight of the elusive thread here, Sandra believes that whenever she leaves her apartment she is being followed by herself. Not merely someone who looks exactly like her, but she herself, following her. On rare occasions there is more than one of herself following her.

“And how did that make you feel?”

“What kind of dumb fucking question is that? How do you think it made me feel?”

“It helps to say the words, Sandra.”

“Okay," Sandra snarls, "Let's see. Upset, pissed off, stressed out, depressed, enraged, sad, murderous, ill, revolted, angry, dead inside, horny...”

Wow, that's a lot of stuff. Maybe I should be taking notes, cause all I can remember is ...

“So, horny, huh?"

“Uh, yes, one of the many emotions I was experiencing.”

“Go on.”

“She followed me into my favorite clothing shop. Everything I tried on, she tried on the same thing, only she looked better. A lot better, actually.”

"Which prompted you to ..?"

"Start screaming, naturally."

"Somewhat reasonable under the circumstances."

"Not how the security guard saw it. He threw me out of the store." 

"Well, you were screaming."

“She was screaming, too. He didn’t throw her out. If that's not a blatant of some kind of discrimination, I don't know what is.”

"What did you do next?"

"The only thing I could do. I accosted the blind guy selling pencils outside the train station, dragged him into the nearest restroom and had sex with him."

"Bet he never saw that coming."

"What?"

"Nothing.  And was she - and by she I of course mean you - there while you were ..."

"No, she never follows me when I'm having sex."
"If only you could be having sex all the time, problem solved."
"Believe me, Doctor, I am trying."

"And how did this rather sordid sexual encounter with the visually impaired pencil seller cause you to feel?"

"Again with the feelings?"

"Trust me, why don't you?"

Sandra's expression confirms that trust is not something I should be expecting anytime soon. She issues a lengthy, exasperated sigh, at the end of which ... "soiled, depraved, vaguely satisfied, nauseous, hungry, existentially challenged, promiscuous, dull, dizzy, disappointed, horny..."

"Still horny?"

"Pretty much always." 

“Okay, Sandra, let's approach this from a different angle. Contrary to all available evidence, you're not hopelessly insane. What you are is a twin. You have a long-lost, identical twin sister, of whom, for reasons embedded in your unique psychopathology, you have repressed all conscious memory. She, in an effort to reestablish a relationship with you, her sister, but wary of your reaction, and no doubt constrained by her own challenging mental typography, has no recourse but to surreptitiously follow you."

“I have a twin brother, Doctor.”

 “Your brother is a twin? Really? Any chance of triplets?” 

 “I can only hope you’re joking." 

“Hey, a little levity never hurts. In fact, I think that if you could begin to appreciate the comical

 nature of your situation, vis-a-vis yourself who follows you, you might start to feel a lot better.”

“But what’s comical about being followed by yourself?” 
“The question, Sandra, is what’s not comical about it?”

Pass the Prozac, Pray to Jesus, Pull the Damn Plug

"One is hard pressed to make the case that the world is not continuing along its plodding though seemingly ineluctable path towards the precipitous brink of ... if not outright doom, then at least a chronic state of ultra- absurdity."

Even a cursory glance at any day's 'news' suggests that the above is more than merely an exercise in glib fatalism.

*Global stupidity levels are up (way up, actually). People are also becoming fatter and uglier at an alarming rate. One respected futurist predicts that by the year 2080 it will be extremely difficult to find anyone on the planet who is not fat, dumb and bad-looking.

"There will be exceptions, of course, but these slim smart attractive people will be considered dangerous anomalies, evolutionary hybrids, and will most likely be ostracized, possibly exiled to remote polar regions."

*A photo secretly smuggled out of North Korea shows Great Leader, Kim Jung (chubby boy) Un, attending an apres mass execution party dressed as Minnie Mouse. Whether the extremely tall Donald Duck in the background is in fact Dennis Rodman cannot be independently verified.

"Kim has never made any attempt to conceal his love for all things Disney. He envisions an exotic merger between the Hermit Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom, which he has tentatively decided will be called the Maggot Kingdom."

 *Justin Dweeber, or whatever his name is, now has 40 million twitter followers.
 Not sure what that means, but imagine it describes a situation in which vast multitudes of female tweenies stare mindlessly at their cell phones all day long in breathless prepubescent anticipation of their favorite pop poodle boy tweeting something insipidly inspiring to their mostly incomprehensible lives.

#no talent but somehow keep getting away with it // eating pizza with pet monkey/a.k.a. bodyguard Bruno. Cripes! No napkins. Gonna smoke some hash tag (ha ha) later / maybe get busted in Boston. How Cool Me Is!

*Leading story on CNN:  "The growing threat of toothpaste tube terrorism."

What will these evildoers think of next?  It is apparently possible to blow up an airplane or, say, an Olympic venue with a single economy size tube. Somewhat ironically, the average terrorist rarely if ever brushes after meals.

CNN:  "So how concerned should the general public be?"

Anti-terrorist expert:  "Well, people should not necessarily begin fearing their toothpaste. We do however advise that toothpaste should not be left unattended, particularly in places where terrorist types are known to congregate."

*Mental health experts from 173 countries have convened at a secret location (these people take paranoia quite seriously) for their annual psycho-therapeutic conclave.

Reports one British psychiatrist, "It's a bloody madhouse but, the occasional delusional episode aside, we are making progress."

Perhaps the most disconcerting revelation thus far: 80% of the world's population now suffers from some form of depression.

"We are essentially a depressive planet, trapped in mindless cultural constructs, vaguely aware that the erosion of an authentic individual identity is the sine qua non for the rampant cannibalistic consumerism upon which the Capitalist paradigm thrives, but helpless to do anything about it."

More troubling, at least from the therapists' point of view, is the prospect of the worldwide depression rate hitting 100%, thereby rendering the very concept of depression as a mental disorder effectively moot. Basically, if everyone is crazy then, by definition, no one is. Not much money to be made offering treatment for a nonexistent illness.

As one therapist put it, "Shit, now I'm depressed."

*Once again - and not terribly surprising - Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana have been voted the most religious states in the good old U.S.A.  Coincidentally, these states also lead the nation in high school dropout rates, obesity and gun ownership.

What does this suggest?  That in Mississippi one is as likely to be randomly shot by a disgruntled fat person in a church as by a deranged psychopath in a shopping mall.

*And finally football / U.S. style.
At last week's supremely boring Superbowl game, the Coca Cola company ran a commercial in which the American anthem was sung by foreign people in a variety of languages.
(I've heard that the Lithuanian version was especially moving)

Completely missing the subtle message that the emerging global culture is strictly corporate in nature - so prepare yourself to be conquered and consumed - thousands of angry American morons - sorry! - patriots took to - what else? - twitter to denounce the beverage giant.

One tweet in particular not only nicely sums up this situation, but also reflects just how essential the mindless application of social media has become in our lives.

"fuck outa here you communist liquid!"