“On a scale of one to ten,” the psychiatrist asked me, “how much emotional pain would you say you are in?” I considered the question carefully. It was our first session, and I’d been having a difficult time finding a therapist I felt comfortable with. I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot.
I've been hooked on your work since I listened to "The Blessing Bee" on This American Life, and rate my relationships based on people's reactions to your books—only those with the highest (oh shit, or is it lowest?) scores may enter my penumbra. So thrilled you're on Substack! (Thanks for the link to Index on Censorship; I just subcribed!)
The psychiatrist and I, I am an alien, had a smile on my face. I have no nose hair. The teacher's nose hair became swollen. It's interesting. Can humans understand the pain of others? I think people who have had the same experience as the other person can understand. If the reason for getting there is different, it will not be perfect. If a comrade who committed suicide speaks, why? I get upset because I asked the wrong question and no one understands, and I keep repeating it. There is a heartbeat and thoughts, but there is no feeling soul. I think those are strong words. The scenes where they kill each other are interesting because the tools change. I thought there was a downside. I was impressed by the way the two laughed at the exchange between Member One and Number Ten. Thank you.
Nicely done. As a nurse I was always asking about a patient's pain level on a scale of 1 - 10. With 10 as high. Sometimes, we had the smiley face scale. I have been going for physical therapy and they have the best pain scale I've seen yet. It's the Makoski Pain Scale and gives really good descriptions of what your pain might be doing to you.
I remember a nurse briefing me on this pain scale when I checked in for lung surgery. I knew I would be on morphine for 3-4 days after the surgery so I paid attention. On second night after surgery I woke up about 2 am and noticed pain around the incision in my back. Pain grew worse over time. I told the nurse it was an 8. She checked my incision and said it looked normal and noted that I was getting as much morphine as allowed. She turned on some soothing music on the tv and said that might help. To my surprise, it actually did but I was still in a lot of pain when my wife visited at 8 am. She noticed that my iv line had pulled out of my vein. Pain scale serves no purpose if people don’t have the tools/skills to do anything about it.
Enjoyed and empathised with this, in many ways. Having had many conversations (?) with psychologists and psychiatrists as a patient, as well as working in a mental health facility for around 13 years, being twice involuntarily incarcerated, almost dying from a prescribed change to a new medication, both working with and assisting mentally ill patients and being familiar with DSM5 and ICD10, and much of the literature, I have to say that I have no confidence in psychology or psychiatry and see them as pseudo sciences.
What is worse, however, is that even when sound research shows a particular aspect of the 'science' to be valid, (and that is always suspect, anyway), the reality is that its translation into diagnostic tool or treatment will be determined by a human-being who, if one uses the Pareto principle for a slightly different purpose than he intended, (which through experience I have found to be uncannily accurate), will in all likelihood, unless one is very fortunate, be one of the 80% who have the certification but not the competence or character for the role.
Even if one is fortunate enough to engage with one of the possible 20% who are both competent and have the empathy, life experience, communication skills and disinterest to conduct an honest, rational and equitable appraisal, it is still quite likely to be skewed by the aforementioned tools or similar.
That, at least, is my experience and, as I've indicated already, I have not a little of it. So, it seems to me, (as they say), that a scale of 1 to 10 or 10 to 1 or alligators to zebras is likely to be as useful as the diagnosis or assistance of the majority of these supposed experts on the human mind and its ineffable creations.
Thank you for reassuring me that my insanity is only that characteristic of the collective human race.
I’m a psychotherapist and once had a scaling question misunderstanding.
Me: On a scale of 1 to ten with ten being high - how much do you want this?
Client: Ten definitely. Eleven!
Me: You definitely want to stay sober okay you sound very clear on that.
Client: Eh? What? No! You asked me how much I want to be high!
Anyway - I’ve just upgraded my subscription simply because you are a beautiful writer and 80p a week in British £ is bargain ahoy!
A Class 1 anecdote.
I have only one response left to the question of 'how are you?' A: "It varies from moment to moment".
My grandmother used to say, "Good enough."
I've been hooked on your work since I listened to "The Blessing Bee" on This American Life, and rate my relationships based on people's reactions to your books—only those with the highest (oh shit, or is it lowest?) scores may enter my penumbra. So thrilled you're on Substack! (Thanks for the link to Index on Censorship; I just subcribed!)
Lacking an adequate superlative,😍.
The psychiatrist and I, I am an alien, had a smile on my face. I have no nose hair. The teacher's nose hair became swollen. It's interesting. Can humans understand the pain of others? I think people who have had the same experience as the other person can understand. If the reason for getting there is different, it will not be perfect. If a comrade who committed suicide speaks, why? I get upset because I asked the wrong question and no one understands, and I keep repeating it. There is a heartbeat and thoughts, but there is no feeling soul. I think those are strong words. The scenes where they kill each other are interesting because the tools change. I thought there was a downside. I was impressed by the way the two laughed at the exchange between Member One and Number Ten. Thank you.
I give this a ten. No, a one. Auuuuuuughhhhhhhhh
Nicely done. As a nurse I was always asking about a patient's pain level on a scale of 1 - 10. With 10 as high. Sometimes, we had the smiley face scale. I have been going for physical therapy and they have the best pain scale I've seen yet. It's the Makoski Pain Scale and gives really good descriptions of what your pain might be doing to you.
https://www.painscale.com/article/mankoski-pain-scale#:~:text=The%20Mankoski%20Pain%20Scale%20is,to%20systematically%20track%20their%20pain.
I remember a nurse briefing me on this pain scale when I checked in for lung surgery. I knew I would be on morphine for 3-4 days after the surgery so I paid attention. On second night after surgery I woke up about 2 am and noticed pain around the incision in my back. Pain grew worse over time. I told the nurse it was an 8. She checked my incision and said it looked normal and noted that I was getting as much morphine as allowed. She turned on some soothing music on the tv and said that might help. To my surprise, it actually did but I was still in a lot of pain when my wife visited at 8 am. She noticed that my iv line had pulled out of my vein. Pain scale serves no purpose if people don’t have the tools/skills to do anything about it.
Yes, the nurse should have notified the surgeon about your increased pain. An 8 for pain is significant n matter which pain scale you are using.
Except for the punch out this would be a vintage woody allen movie.
The pic's from Annie Hall.
Floored and astounded at the brilliance of this piece.
Are you related to George Costanza?
He's a fictional character..
Dave: The fact that Jason Alexander never won an Emmy is one of the great tragedies in American history.
Underrated for sure.
Very LOL funny! Hits at real truth too.
Please don't start thinking your other pieces are "un-good". I didn't mean that at all. This is a number one on the scale of humor --- or a number 10.
Nice! Thanks for the diversion. We need more humor in our lives.
Enjoyed and empathised with this, in many ways. Having had many conversations (?) with psychologists and psychiatrists as a patient, as well as working in a mental health facility for around 13 years, being twice involuntarily incarcerated, almost dying from a prescribed change to a new medication, both working with and assisting mentally ill patients and being familiar with DSM5 and ICD10, and much of the literature, I have to say that I have no confidence in psychology or psychiatry and see them as pseudo sciences.
What is worse, however, is that even when sound research shows a particular aspect of the 'science' to be valid, (and that is always suspect, anyway), the reality is that its translation into diagnostic tool or treatment will be determined by a human-being who, if one uses the Pareto principle for a slightly different purpose than he intended, (which through experience I have found to be uncannily accurate), will in all likelihood, unless one is very fortunate, be one of the 80% who have the certification but not the competence or character for the role.
Even if one is fortunate enough to engage with one of the possible 20% who are both competent and have the empathy, life experience, communication skills and disinterest to conduct an honest, rational and equitable appraisal, it is still quite likely to be skewed by the aforementioned tools or similar.
That, at least, is my experience and, as I've indicated already, I have not a little of it. So, it seems to me, (as they say), that a scale of 1 to 10 or 10 to 1 or alligators to zebras is likely to be as useful as the diagnosis or assistance of the majority of these supposed experts on the human mind and its ineffable creations.
Thank you for reassuring me that my insanity is only that characteristic of the collective human race.
Take care. Stay safe. . ☮️
#borc
In a nutshell, superb.
Dude, YOU are number 1. BTW that’s the good end of scale. Keep it coming!