Becoming the Story (8 page)

“I am answering your question. What is the
real answer to mental illness? Considering that mental illness has
its basis in reality distortion, the cure, the aim, and the
prescription for mental illness must be the truth. And what truth
is more timeless, more reliable than mathematics?”

Katy stared at him, expecting further
explanation or some hint that he was teasing her. “Math? You are
proposing to cure me of my phobias and insecurities with math?”
Katy studied the doctor, but he still did not smile.

“Indeed.” He continued to look seriously at
her. “And not just any kind of math, but the kind that requires the
faculty of logic.”

She waited for him to say more, but he was
silent, waiting for her response. “
Please
 tell me you
are kidding.”  She began to look frantically around the room.
“I failed ninth grade algebra.” She stood. “Math hates me, I avoid
it whenever I can. Oh my God.”

Her host regarded her calmly.

She felt claustrophobic suddenly. She stared
at the door, thinking that if she did not leave at once, the walls
would come together and crush her. “Oh my God, this a nightmare, I
thought you had real answers. I need fresh air. I feel dizzy.” She
took a few steps and braced herself against the wall nearest to the
door, her breaths coming quick, her heart thumping. “What is
happening to me?”

The doctor stood and stared at her calmly.
“It is commonly referred to as the fight or flight syndrome,
activated by the autonomic nervous system during times of
inordinate stress. Math induces that reaction in some. But I assure
you: the feeling is quite normal and will pass.”

“Like I said,” she said between gasps, “math
hates me, it will never cure me, you must be insane.”

“I suspect that your attitude is largely the
source of your problem. Had you not succumbed to mathematical
indolence, perhaps you would have had a better life and would not
need to be here.”

She glared at him. “Look, I did not come
here to be insulted. And who uses math as therapy?” She stared
accusingly at the doctor. “No wonder you people are so secretive.
If anyone knew what you really offered here, they would stay the
hell away from you. No one has said hi to me since I got here. You
are the unfriendliest doctor I have ever met and your office…,” she
sniffed, “smells funny. What is that, licorice?”

“I was only speaking out of concern for you,
because if you are as disinclined to math as you say, remediation
may be necessary as a first step to your emotional recovery,” he
said. “Without an adequate foundation, you will be unable to
comprehend the essential course work.”

“
Course
work? You want me to take
courses in math? What is this, a zoo? I already graduated from
college, mister. That part of my life is over, thank God. No deal.
You are crazier than I am. I am going home.”

“Very well.” The man stared placidly at her.
“But if you leave here, where will you go? What kind of life will
you be returning to? Will you return to your phobic, friendless,
loveless life so easily? Are you going to give up so quickly,
without at least listening to what I have to say?”

She took a long deep breath. Her shoulders
felt heavy and limp. She had to admit, he had a point. She moved
back to her hard chair and almost stepped on a line but caught
herself in time. She settled back into her chair.

The doctor stood and strolled once more
toward the bookshelf against the wall near the door. He ran a long
pale finger along the bindings and pulled a new book from a shelf.
“For the duration of your treatment here, you will be required to
keep a journal.”

“I already keep a journal,” she said. “I
have since high school.”

“This journal will be different from any
kind you have ever kept, a journal of logical statements. Have you
ever heard of the fallacy called
affirming the
consequent
?”

“No,” she said.

“Well, I will get to that in a moment.” He
stepped over to her and offered her a thin book with a glossy
cover. “Normally I like to start my patients off
with 
Principia Mathematica
 as a primer. But given
your mathematical disinclination, perhaps you would prefer this
one, 
Fun
 
with
 
Numbers
.”

She glared at him.
“I 
know
 basic arithmetic.”

He exhaled. “Oh, excellent.” He set the book
his desk, “that should make our task easier. However, what I am
about to show you requires no math but only the ability to
comprehend logic. It is an excellent starting place for showing you
what we do here. You said your problem was that you are needy and
afraid of life. These fears of yours can be written in the form of
statements.”

“Statements? What kind of statements?”

“Formal assertions.” He stood, went over to
the whiteboard, and erased some scrawled formulas that were already
on it. “Can you give me a specific example of a time when you drove
away people whom you loved? Suspected you were behaving
irrationally, but were unable to stop yourself?”

She tensed. “No, not at the moment.”

“Well, tell me about one of you failed
relationships.” He studied her. “When did it end and how?”

Resisting the impulse to bolt, she thought
about the mess her life had become and forced herself to stay put.
“My husband, he cheated on me.” She struggled to keep her voice
steady and failed. “Denied everything, but I knew.”

“You knew. So tell me. There must have been
clues. Was there any anything in particular you noticed? The smell
of perfume on his clothes? Strange phone calls?”

“No, nothing like that. But he lied.”

“He lied. Please. Elaborate.”

“Well, when I first met him, he was already
engaged to another girl. He told her he had been other places when
he was really with me. After a while he broke up with her.

“Months later, I married him. He worked late
sometimes. One day he told me he would be spending the night at his
office. That night I missed him, so I went there to visit him. The
office was locked, but I had a key. The building was dark, there
was no one there. I was afraid he might have gotten into an
accident on the way.

“But the following morning he came home as
usual. He looked and acted fine. I asked him if he had spent the
night at the office like he planned. He said he had. He lied to me,
and I knew. 
Knew
 he was cheating on me.”

“Ah,” he put his fingertips together. “You
were afraid. Afraid because you suspected the same thing could
happen to you that happened to his ex. The lying. The silence. The
unpleasant reality. The devastating revelation.”

“Well yes.”

He nodded. “Your fear can be viewed as a
kind of emotional prediction then. A belief. A premise. To you, an
axiom. Therefore, we can write it as part of a conditional
statement: If my husband ever cheats, then he will lie about where
he has been. Though this is a highly questionable assumption, let
us assume, for now, that it is true and write it out as a
formula.”

The doctor picked up a marker and on the
board wrote:

1. If P, then Q.

2. Q.

3. Therefore, P.

He looked at her.

“Well go ahead,” Katy sighed. “What does it
mean? I have a feeling you’re not going to let me out of here until
I know.”

“Affirming the consequent is a fallacy which
says that given a conditional along with its consequent, we are
able to deduce its antecedent.”

“Please,” Katy said. “Can you talk like a
human?”

The man sighed. “Maybe I should start with
an example. Take this one: If an object is a star, then it must be
hot. A candle flame is hot. Therefore, a candle flame must be a
star.” He looked pointedly at Katy. “Do you see anything wrong with
this reasoning?”

“Other than it not being true? I agree, it
makes no sense.” She sighed. “No more than anything today has made
any sense.”

“Good. Then we agree thus far. Let P – as
the antecedent – represent the first part of our statement: ‘If an
object is a star.’ The next part of the sentence, Q, is the
consequent: ‘then it must be hot.’  But if you reverse the two
parts of the statement and say, ‘If an object is hot, then it must
be a star,’ it is obviously untrue. Agreed?”

Katy nodded.

“The inability to make a valid deduction by
reversing the two parts of a conditional statement is called
converse nonequivalence. But people use this false reasoning all
the time to try to prove things that are less obviously false.”

“Let us apply the principle to your
situation. The reverse of the your original statement is, ‘If my
boyfriend lies to me, then he is cheating.’ Do you see? You have
used faulty reasoning to reach your conclusion. A fallacy.

“To put it simply, there could be many
reasons your husband lied to you. Perhaps he was going to A.A.
meetings in secret. Perhaps he wanted time alone. Maybe he was
planning a surprise birthday party. Given the complexity of human
behavior, many scenarios are possible.”

At first she only stared at him. She looked
at the letters on the board and they began to blur.

At the same time, something inside her
shifted, alarming, almost electrical. She felt the way she
sometimes did when a roller-coaster crested the rise and dropped
her into space.“The day I broke up with him, it was my birthday. He
seemed happy and excited that day, before I made him leave. Before
I yelled at him.

“I remember so clearly how he changed, how
his face looked, first hurt, then anger. What if
he 
was
 planning a surprise birthday party? I never
let him explain. I screamed at him. When he tried to talk I just
spoke louder to drown him out. I remember the hurt on his face when
I pushed him out the door, told him to never come back, said I
never wanted to speak to him again. Oh my God, what if I drove him
away for no reason?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. But clearly your
unfounded assumptions have been affecting your decisions, indeed
your entire life.”

Those words “your entire life” settled into
her mind and would not leave. Every self-doubt she had ever had
seemed to pull together and condense inside them.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I have been
affirming the consequent all my life and I never knew. What if the
biggest decisions of my life have been made based on – what did you
call it – a fallacy? What I think and do because of it are what
make me who I am. Who am I? Most of my memories, my
interpretations…”

“Are probably false.” He paused. “My
apologies. You seem distressed. Would you like some licorice?”

Katy raised her head and stared at thin
black rope the doctor dangled in front of her nose. “You
think 
licorice
 is going to help me? My whole life
might be based on a lie, I am falling apart, and you offer
me 
licorice
?”

“No pressure. I will be more than happy to
eat it myself.”

“Oh God.” She snatched the string of
licorice from his hand. “I should never have come here. Before I
came, I knew. I knew he was cheating, it was so obvious, the
divorce, it was such a nightmare. But I
felt 
good
 about breaking up with him. What if I
was wrong?”

“Congratulations, my friend. You have made
significant breakthroughs on your first visit, despite your
aversion to my formulas, which you 
must
 overcome
if you wish to progress. You must begin to keep a journal of
logical statements. Whenever you make an assumption based on your
feelings, I want you to write them down as conditional statements.
If one of them contains a fallacy, you will become aware of the
illogic that has been governing your life.

“You must also examine your assumptions,
such as ‘If my husband cheats, he will lie.’ Given the complexity
of human behavior, it is impossible to make those kinds of
predictions with reliable accuracy. But writing your thoughts in
the form of conditional statements will expose flaws in your
thinking and bring you closer to the truth.”

She sniffed. “I always thought I was
intuitive.”

“For many people, the word intuition is only
a way of saying that their emotions grant them special knowledge.
But feelings tell you little or nothing about the outside world.
Logic is a powerful tool for breaking through confusion.”

Katy raised her head. “So, what, are you
saying that mathematicians are the sanest people on earth? I have
met some crazy people who are good at math.”

“Mathematicians too seldom apply what they
know to their emotions. For too long there has been a dichotomy.
Feelings and logic are viewed as mutually exclusive. But emotions
can be brought into adherence with logic. You said that you cannot
talk yourself out of irrational feelings.

“Emotions and logic do argue quite
frequently, but your emotions are winning all the arguments. If you
want to think and act reasonably, then your logical voice must
become 
better
 at arguing. The disciplined study of
logic expressed in the language of mathematics will strengthen that
side of you. But I am warning you: your emotional recovery will not
be easily won. You must study. You must calculate. You must
commit.”

Katy stared at the book the doctor had given
her, 
Principia Mathematica
.

“Mental illness,” he went on, “is only a
form of the irrationality to which all humans are prone. Many
people deemed sane by society delude themselves in order to go
about the daily practice of living. But to look reality in the
eyes, full on, and still embrace life, is a rare ability. So is
embracing uncertainty, when uncertainty is all there is. The goal
of this therapy is not to restore you to productive denial, but to
open your eyes. The
only
 cure for mental illness worth
pursuing is the truth.