The Noonday Demon

by Andrew Solomon

One of the doctors told me, “Pull yourself together and stop feeling so sorry for yourself. There are people in this emergency room who are going through worse things than you are.” And when I said that I knew I had to go through the pain but wanted to take the edge off it before we proceeded, that I didn’t even mind this physical pain so much but was worried about psychiatric complications, I was told that I was being “childish” and “uncooperative.” When I said that I had a history of mental illness, I was told that in that case I could not well expect anyone to take my views on these things seriously. “I’m a trained professional and I’m here to help you,” the doctor said. When I said that I was an experienced patient and knew that what she was doing was in fact injurious to me, she told me that I had not been to medical school and would just have to proceed according to what she judged an appropriate protocol.