You're not sick, you're crazy.

Very recently I became allergic to penicillin. It wasn't fun. I don't recommend it. If this were facebook, I'd put a "like" on the I HATE BECOMING ALLERGIC TO PENICILLIN page. I won't go into the gory details of what happened to me, but if you're really curious, you can google Urticaria and Angioedema and Arthritis in connection with penicillin reactions, and see what I went through.



Anyway, sometime early in my second admission to the E.R., the following conversation with the admitting MD took place.



Dr. - "Remus Graham?"

Me - (in a confused way) "No....?"

Dr. - (turns around, looks at nurses in an even more confused way) ".....uuuuuuuh"

Me - (lightbulb illuminates overhead) "ooooooooh, ARE YOU MISS Graham! Yes, yes I am."

(ensue laughing hysterically)

Dr. - "Do you or does any one in your family have a history of mental illness?"


During this entire silly exchange my mind was going a million miles an hour trying to figure out why the Dr. would have called me Remus. First I thought he was one of those guys who thinks it's funny to call you by the wrong name, or does it "just to see if you're paying attention". I have an in-law who thinks it's funny to call everyone George, so I thought maybe that was his game. When that didn't seem to fit the scenario, my brains google button hit on the idea that there was some other patient here by the name of Remus Graham and our charts had been swapped. Same last name... I could see the mistake. When that didn't seem to fit either, I then scoured the corners of my consciousness to figure out why, oh why was this Dr. SO confused that my name wasn't Remus. And that's when the google button brought up the "translation to english language" option, and the lightbulb went on. Aha!

When I regaled this anecdote to my friends and family, aside from laughing at my poor hearing, the first question from them was, why would he ask you about mental illness?
Good question. At first I thought my hearing faux pas was such a blunder that it had him questioning my sanity. Later, after having done some extensive research on the cause of my entire medical fiasco, I learned that there are cases of allergic reactions where the patient believed so strongly that they were allergic to a substance that they actually put themselves into a full blown allergic reaction, just because they believed that was indeed what was happening to them. For me this was not the case. And trust me, if it were at all possible to have believed myself out of the penicillin reaction I was having, I would have done it. I did NOT wake up one morning and say, "Hey, it's been a long time since I've visited the good folks down in the E.R. and it's high time I had a serious life threatening medical issue! Plus, I could REALLY use an outrageous medical bill that would be the equivalent of buying a new luxury car, so I think I'll be allergic to penicillin now.".

Anyway, the whole idea that someone could actually believe themselves into an allergic reaction, and that the medical industry would consider such a phenomenon as "mental illness" really got me thinking. Is it really a mental illness that could do such a thing? Isn't it more like a very unfortunate super-power? In the world of super-heroes, those people would be called like "Introspective Voodoo Girl" or something, with powers that only work on themselves. Eventually they'd probably turn to being a super-villain though, just because misery loves company, and they'd be working on a machine that could extrovert their powers by focusing it through a super high intensity lazer beam that they would point at a trillion-faceted crystal hung from the top of the Empire State Building, which would refract the beam into trillions of smaller beams that would hit the entire population of New York and eventually THE WORLD! Muahuahahahahaaaa! Sheesh. What a weirdo.

Here's another thought. What if there are people all around us that are what they are, be it rich, poor, thin, fat, ugly, pretty, just because they believed that is what they were. We don't know about it because none of those things draw the kind of attention that a disfiguring physical ailment draws, but what if it happens all the time and we just don't realize it? Furthermore, what if poor uncle Gus, who talks to the chair, and believes the chair talks back to him ACTUALLY hears the chair? You don't know... maybe it does because he believes it does. Just because the chair doesn't talk to YOU doesn't mean it isn't happening. He's not "mentally ill", you're just JEALOUS!

Well, I guess all I am really saying is, maybe not everyone who we think is a few bricks shy, actually is. Maybe they are gifted with something the rest of us lack, and our society doesn't know how to handle it, so they've been labeled as "ill". Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive because I didn't clean my ears out well enough that day.