Transcription
So, one time I got consulted on the neurology service. A young woman with non-epileptiform seizures. These are called pseudo seizures. And I was like, so help me understand like how often do they happen? Like help me understand a little bit about how you feel about not being able to go to college. Like what's that like for you?
She didn't like the questions that I was asking her. So, she started doing this. And it was a pseudo seizure, a created seizure. Really simple test that you can do. They're seizing on the hospital bed. You pick up the arm and you hold it above their head. If they're really seizing, it'll smack them in the face and it'll hurt. If they're pseudo seizing, I make the mistake of administering this test. And so she seizing, I pick up the arm, I drop it, goes over here. But now everybody in the room knows that the game is up.
So, what does she start doing? She starts seizing harder, starts flopping around. And then both of the parents put their bodies on top of her and literally contain her. And they panic and they're like, what is it? What did it? So bad, it's so bad, it's so bad. And I was like, this is the problem. They're literally holding her down.
And then afterward we're talking about it. They're like, yeah, we have to do this like several times a day. And we have to quit and we are like, I can't go to work and I can't do this and it's like tearing apart her life. And I was like, you guys have to stop. I didn't say that. But in my mind I was like, this has to stop. They're taking the responsibility from her.
So, I had a brilliant attending on the console service who then told me this, which you guys may have heard me say before. The doctor who goes the extra mile for a patient goes a mile too far. When you start doing someone else's work for them, they stop doing it themselves. This is the relational problem of anima and animus.