Donald Trump: The New Face of Anosognosia?

Normally, I don't care what Donald Trump (or Charlie Sheen, or Tom Cruise) is up to. I can't be bothered to take an interest in what I hear, because it's probably gossip. And it's irrelevant to me.

But when worryingly grandiose delusions suddenly attract international news coverage, I become concerned on a human level. Is it necessary to wait until the new DSM comes out next year before we address this issue? Would the issue be addressed even then?

The issue is anosognosia, the inability for an individual to recognize that he or she is suffering from a disability, quite commonly mental illness. Anosognosia is not the same as denial; it's a condition in which the individual truly isn't aware of the presence and extent of their disability.

I understand that people may be unwilling to approach the affected person, such as Mr. Trump, because it seems like a futile task to convince someone so powerful and seemingly influential that help may be needed to address "crazy" ideas. And the error may lie in attempts of well intentioned folks to convince Mr. Trump or others that a medical condition is responsible for these wild, unfounded, or absurd ideas; anosognosia will prevent sufferers from seeing any logic in the suggestion.

What, then, is the course of action? Who steps up? Who steps in? Who is brave enough, respected enough, and trusted enough by the sick individual to suggest evaluation for these ideas that seem perfectly reasonable to, in this case, Donald Trump? Who can convince him to consider help when he thinks he's perfectly healthy?

In some cases, perhaps intervention is unnecessary. It's a desire of loved ones who want to force normalcy on someone. Who gets to determine quality of life? Who has the right? Is it not the individual him- or herself? But because anosognosia prevents an individual from seeing the health condition, perhaps intervention is exactly the necessary course.

When grandiose delusions start interfering with important national events, action should be taken. Loved ones, colleagues, acquaintances—it's time for people to accept the uncomfortable responsibility of encouraging professional evaluation. It will be an exhausting task. It will feel futile. It will be a massive challenge. It should not involve ostracizing the affected individual, but this step must involve boundaries.

Fox News ought to be bold enough to refuse air time to Donald Trump until he seeks and receives help. "The Apprentice" ought to go on indefinite hiatus until Mr. Trump seeks and receives help. Oh, no! Such a popular show on hiatus? Yes. Someone's health is at stake. In a significant way.

Let's take a moment to actually consider what happened in this recent case. Donald Trump professed that he had election-changing news. Buildup. Hype. Then a YouTube video offering $5 million to a charity of Barack Obama's choice if President Obama would release his college transcripts, applications, and passport applications.

What? This is the big news? This is something to take seriously? If Mr. Trump has the money to donate to charity, let him do it. Why should it hinge on something as meaningless as old applications? Does he really think these documents matter to the election, or to anything at all? How is this election-changing? A man makes grandiose claims and is deluded in thinking that they matter. It's awkward. It's anticlimactic. It's telling. It's Donald Trump, so it makes the news as if it's to be taken seriously.

Here's what we need to take seriously: A popular TV personality/businessman attempted to hijack news sources in order to promote a bizarre deal. It makes no sense. He thinks it does. He's eager to widely spread this "news" as if it's more than a show of delusion. He does not realize how fanciful and outrageous he is being.

The delusion has gone too far, and Mr. Trump is demonstrating a clear case of anosognosia. Someone, somewhere—or preferably many people, everywhere—should realize it's time to address the issue. For a prominent individual to make such far-reaching claims that they interrupt significant current events....

Well, let's make this an event. Let's make this a metaphorical call to arms. Let's address the issue of anosognosia. Let's address the issues of responsibility with regards to mental health concerns. Let's not pretend that there's one level of responsibility or one clean solution. Let's discuss proper forms of intervention or lack thereof. Let's take an individual's well-being and choices into consideration. Let's also recognize that, with anosognosia, the affected individual's choices might not be enough to stand as the final course of action. Let's recognize that mental illness is complicated.

Let's recognize that we have a new face of mental illness. Let's address it. Let's help Mr. Trump and others return to reasonable thinking. Non-disruptive thinking—unless truly innovative or challenging in a much more productive way. A way we can take seriously. These recent extravagant delusions shouldn't be downgraded to the opinion of "Well, that's Trump. He's like that."

Let's recognize the delusions for what they are. Please. The world has enough nonsense without denying problems that genuinely exist. Let's not all remain willfully ignorant. Please. Must we all act as if we have anosognosia? Do we ignore these delusions, justify them, brush them off? Please. A man with grandiose delusions needs help. Who will step up?

Busy

The Little Words

I've made a very fine discovery.

In casual situations, I frequently use the words um, like, uh, and ah, despite being taught that these words are bad. (Hey, I'm a linguist. You'd have a hard time convincing me that "bad" is not an arbitrary label for words.)

Now what I've discovered is that I use each of these words in a fairly regular way. I think this is kind of awesome.

Want some details?

I use like directly before a word or phrase that I'm emphasizing, and usually there's a slight pause after like to add to the tension/stress/emphasis. For example: "I have to work, like, nine days in a row, all extended hours, and they're all night shifts!"

I use uh when someone has said something, well, that tends to be a bit obvious during a moment of slight stupidity. It's a moment for me to pause and not immediately call someone out on their mistake. It's a moment for them to correct themselves and for me to find a way to gently respond, whether I choose to address the mistake or not. Usually this is followed by "I think", as if I have an alternate opinion on the mistake or as if I'm unsure or might be mistaken myself. Interesting, no? Sometimes I use this to pause, as if I'm thinking, even though I know I'm right. (If I'm not right and I really am thinking, I use a drawn out hmmm or ummm.)

While ah is a common indicator of understanding or agreement in my speech, particularly when drawn out as ahhhhhh, I also tend to use it to introduce suggestions. As in, "Ah, let's make a trip to the store before we make plans for tonight." Or, "Ah, we should give that kitty a fine brushing."

So. Pretty cool that these little words carry more meaning than the sloppy speech they're usually labelled as, no?

Uncovering the Squeaky Wheel

How to tell if your little wheeled suitcase is concealing a squeaky wheel from you (and how to make said suitcase reveal its true colours):

1. Request a whack of books from the library. Recommended count of "whack": 22.

2. Take empty suitcase to library.

3. Check out all requested books and load them into the suitcase.

4. Wheel suitcase to nearest bus stop. Preferably in winter.

5. Smile! Your suitcase has confessed its true nature. (Or, alternatively, weep: you don't have a squeaky wheel. Your life means nothing.)

Sam Katz's New Tactic

Guy knocked on the door last week and I was home to answer.

"Hi, I'm with the Fire Department here in support of Sam Katz. Do you know if you'll be voting for Sam Katz in the election on October 27th?"

"I'm a Permanent Resident. I can't vote."

"Would you like a sign for your yard?"

"No."

Sam Katz: boldly reaching out to the often overlooked I-can't-fricking-vote demographic.

Did Something New

Got jiggy at a Halloween funeral.

It wasn’t so much of the gettin’ jiggy, really, as a neurological [issue] day. I managed fine, though all the shakiness made my legs extremely sore when the jiggy settled down. So ibuprofen happened and then sleep and then a long car drive. And another, longer, car drive after that. (Hopefully the ibuprofen will continue to relieve post-jiggy soreness like it did at the time.) And then I left The South by heading southerly. And then there was much less stress. And then the chances of my gettin’ jiggy or using the word “jiggy” should should SHOULD have been minimized. Let’s minimize jigginess, m-kay? I’ll draw a nice little parabola and we’ll use basic calculus to find the minimum jigginess. And somewhere in quadrants I, II, III or IV lies a line that represents usage of the word “jiggy” by my own lips. And somewhere this line intersects the parabola. And somewhere there is a low occurrence of jigginess that corresponds with low usage of “jiggy”. Let’s find that intersection and aim for it. (30 points.)

An Infamous Army, An Infamous Disappointment

I like fiction. I like history. I like historical fiction.

I do not like An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer.

When discovering this book on Mini Book Expo, I was intrigued. Historical fiction fascinates me. It's educational but usually brings a personal light to things, and that subjective view reveals nuances, ambiguities, emotions that simply aren't often found in a purely historical tome. Usually. Usually that's how it works. Reading praise, unpaid blurbs, for Heyer's book, I thought I might be on to a new source of good historical fiction. And a 2007 reprint (by Sourcebooks) of a book originally published in 1937 should indicate some merit to the book, no?

No. Heyer's book fails deliciously, astoundingly, and (oh ho ho) infamously. We open with a small social gathering in which all characters and players are gossiped about in order to be introduced. Is that a moment of wit when it is said that tying a cravat is an inborn skill, not something everyone can master? Is it a slight? Is it a combination of the two? Unfortunately, the focus on clothing is paralyzingly shallow. That would be where the realism fleets in for a moment or so. But the contrived introduction of characters through gossip is painfully amateur. No one has a real opinion for themselves, but they spit out insipid background details that are too bland to even set the scene. And the stilted and stifling conversation does nothing to lure me in; I am demanding, and if such language is used, there ought to be a reason, whether based in history or in mockery of history or in mockery of historical writers. But I don't think that's the case in An Infamous Army. I suspect that blind romanticism may be at play, and here Heyer would just be manipulating the Battle of Waterloo into something more easily understood by herself: fanciful language with little basis in reality, pretty dresses, and the notion that all this imagined romanticism has left the world by the time she gets around to writing the book.

Oh, yes, the Battle of Waterloo is in here somewhere. In fact, once the characters are properly introduced through unnaturally crafted dialogue, they seem to fade out. In comes a history lesson. The distinct separation between sections of fiction and history, in use of language but no visual division on the page, creates a laughable effect. I can't fault Heyer for her historical research, and when she writes in the Author's Note that she avoided studying French historical records—presumably because that might give her non-French characters an inappropriate omniscience—I do find myself offering her great respect.

But dear lord, I think the respect ends there. This is bad fiction alternating with history lessons. The fiction leaves headaches from constant cringing at frivolity and hardly makes use of real history. As I've said, I'm demanding. In historical fiction, I expect history and fiction to be so entwined that I am inspired to do research so as to determine what is true and what is not. Heyer's book leaves me completely apathetic.

To be fair, a book published shortly after the Great Depression may have been meant for mere entertainment and escapism; then, if ever, I'm sure it was needed. If anyone could have afforded it. I suppose I could be generous and examine the book within the context of that time as a desperate attempt to get away from life, but the absence of real hardship in this writing is rather inexplicable. We have here a book around a battlefield, a book also written during genuinely difficult times, and yet there's no real sense of urgency or sacrifice or injustice of living. Dry history combined with shallow fiction. It's escapism at its best, but literature of the weakest sort. Yet in order to be escapism for people like myself, a book needs to be slightly relatable. History presented as archaic stories does nothing for me. Fiction full of shallow obsessions that aren't social commentary does nothing for me. It's not escapism for me, it's not reality for me, it's not literature, and it only passingly involves history.

And there's the crux of it all: this book wasn't written for me. In the Author's Note, Heyer says this book was an ambition of hers. Of hers alone. Something to do for herself. Suddenly, we have a woman in the 1930s who disregards all that's going on around her to fulfill her own damn desire. And suddenly, I have more respect for Heyer the woman than Heyer the author. Her book is not a success in literature, but a success for herself. I suppose that's something.

Note: It has been suggested that I give this book five out of five stars if it contains mention of time-travelling cats from the future. Unfortunately, Heyer once again falls short. I withhold a star rating.

Update?

MRI: normal.
Walking: happening.
Ambulance bill: ouch.
Anterograde amnesia: fading.
Sunlight: still painful.
Hypersensitivity: less Parkonsonian.
Sleep medications: NONE.

Flavourful

Bedtimes. They has a flavour.

This day. It has a flavour.

My pants. They has a flavour.

My rouladen... they has a flavour.

These lamps. They has a flavour.

This scent... it has a flavour.