PTSD

Something to keep you occupied

I had intended to post a long rant about this article, but Twisty Faster over at I Blame the Patriarchy beat me to it.

From the original article, in Prospect:

The young psychiatrist’s early optimism collapsed under the grinding reality of Nia’s dilemma. The first drug had worked. But the change in her appearance seemed intolerable—and potentially devastating for the self-esteem of a 17-year-old girl. The second drug hadn’t made her fat, but nor had it treated her illness. The consultant felt there was no option but to put her back on the Olanzapine. Again, it worked. The terrors of persecution vanished, the voices quietened down. Even her parents said that this was the old Nia. They cried over her.

The desire to experiment further with her medication left the consultant and the young psychiatrist. It was likely that the weight gain associated with Olanzapine would be very difficult to treat and that Nia would be fat, if not obese. But more disconcerting to the young psychiatrist was Nia’s apparent indifference to her predicament. While those around her worried about the beauty she had lost, she seemed unconcerned. Was she really as well as her family suggested? Had she really rejoined the image-conscious world of her peers?

*snip*

The young psychiatrist wasn’t sure. The treatment had reversed a Faustian pact in which Nia had been beautiful and mad, and replaced it with another—in which she was fat and sane. But was it really a blessing that Nia seemed to have no conception of what she had lost?

So the moral of this story is that, if given the choice between being beautiful and being sane, women should choose beauty. If they don't, they must be insane.

I think I'll skip my rant about the assumption that only thin people can be beautiful. This is a PG-13 rated blog, after all.

posted by Elizabeth @ 6:30 PM