As a matter of fact, the suicidal tendencies of some sufferers from tic
are seldom full-blown. The will is too unstable to effect their
realisation. Hence the patient's hints at doing away with himself are
nothing more than empty verbiage. Similarly with the inclination to
commit homicide, it vanishes as soon as it arises.
The term "vertigos" is used by O. to designate a long series of little
"manias" or obsessional fears from which he suffers, among which may be
enumerated dread of passing along certain streets and a consequent
impulse to walk through others; dread of breaking any fragile object he
holds in his hands, coupled with the temptation to let it fall; fear of
heights, and at the same time a desire to throw himself into space.
I have often stood on the edge of the pavement waiting for a
vehicle to pass, and at the moment of its approach darted across
just under the horse's nose. On each occasion I have been conscious
equally of the absurdity and yet of the irresistibility of the
idea; each time the attempt to withstand it has been labour lost.
O. is a great nosophobe. At one time he was immoderately apprehensive of
contracting hydrophobia, and used to flee from the first dog he saw. To
his sincere regret he had several of his pet dogs killed, because of his
conviction that they would become infected, although he felt such harsh
measures to be quite unjustifiable. At a subsequent stage he turned
syphilophobe for no adequate reason. He was alarmed lest a minute pimple
on his chin should develop into a chancre. Recently his chief misgiving
has been that he may become ataxic or demented.
Among his various afflictions mention must be made of an umbilical
hernia, supposed to have originated in the chafing of his umbilicus by a
belt he was wearing during a long spell in a canoe. As a matter of fact,
the hernia is purely imaginary--at any rate, there is no trace of it
to-day. Yet at the first it bulked very largely in his mind, and he is
still fully persuaded of its reality, though no longer of its gravity.
O. further complains of all sorts of noises in his ears, but these are
simply the ordinary sounds that one can produce in the middle ear by
clenching the jaws together. He will not accept so obvious an
explanation, however, preferring to regard them as indubitable evidence
of the "lesion" with which he is preoccupied. The tinnitus, therefore,
is rather of the nature of an illusion than of a hallucination.
He is distinctly emotional, and lives at the mercy of his emotions, but
from their very bitterness he contrives to derive some pleasure. His
passion for horse-racing is not due to the fascination of the sport,
but to a bitter-sweet sensation which the excitement of the scene calls
into being. He is indifferent to arrest or aggravation of his tics; all
that he seeks is the association of a certain sense of anguish with
certain "tremolos in the limbs," wherewith he is greatly delighted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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