Subject: Re: I'm married to BOB From: fi@whittaker.rice.edu (Fiona Oceanstar) Date: 1990-11-03, 15:17 Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks In article <46216@apple.Apple.COM> scott@Apple.COM (scott douglass) writes: > >Fiona Oceanstar -- you're the psychologist, right? Psychiatrist (M.D.)--but close enough. :-) > > Well, do they > >really send forty-year-old women with extraordinary strength who > >believe they're still in high school home with their husbands? Part of the reason I decided not to post anymore of my psychiatric thoughts about TP is that it's departing more and more from possible reality. The only condition that I know of in which people really believe they're still in high school is a variation of Parkinson's disease (usually post-encephalitic), and the reason some of those patients believe that is because they get sick when they're in HS and then stay "stuck" there for the years following. No way Nadine has that. In fact, she doesn't have anything remotely resembling what she *should* have--either due to her preceding mental illness, or due to the overdose. So.... it's TP reality, not real reality, so what difference does it make? :-) Actually, people with pretty severe delusions and possible dangerous behavior *are* frequently sent home with relatives. TP doesn't appear to have a psychiatric hospital, so there's no therapeutic reason to keep her in chains in the general hospital. Personally, I think she should be sent to the nearest university hospital psychiatry ward, so she can get a diagnosis. We have no idea, right now, what disorder she's suffer- ing from--and Hayward is no shrink--so how is she supposed to be being treated? It's weird, as I say. > >what about Leo? Would they send him home for his teenaged wife to > >look after? Not too improbable, actually. But there would need to be a lot of special equipment, a trained nurse who at least comes in during the daytime, and so on. What Leo is really at risk for, right now, is inhaling his food (aspirating) and getting pneumonia from that. Again, we don't know enough about what his diagnosis is, what his level of functioning is (how good is his breathing? swallowing? response to pain? etc.). The term "a vegetable" is pretty damn vague. Reading this newsgroup is starting to feel too much like working But I don't mind the occasional question, really. I just don't have the energy to write up full psychiatric assessments for Leland, Andy, Harold, etc.--that's what I do for a living, and "Twin Peaks" is supposed to be recreation. Thanks for all the kind feed- back about my Ronette posting, though. :-) --Fiona Oceanstar