Being a Psychiatry Doctor has never been easy for me, having encountered different kind of cases and was able to sort them out, but I thought I had seen it all until this new patient.
Mr. Bruce symptoms were easy and innocent enough, just a mere ringing in his ears which won’t go away. He did visited numerous otolaryngologists, but still no changes, as there was no discernible cause for the ringing.
On June 18th, 2020 he was referred to me to diagnose and decipher the psychosomatic source of the phenomenon. During our first meeting, he didn’t make any eye contact, nor did he ever speak, but he just stared at his hands and the ground, endlessly wringing his hands against each other. Doing it so obsessively, in fact, his fingers were rubbed raw and bloody.
His first meeting was quite progressive with the aid of some anti-anxiety medication, he was able to look me in the eyes, although the hand wringing continued.
“Can you hear it, Can you feel it doctor?” He asked in a frantic manner.
“Of course not. The sound is not coming from a mutually accessible environment. The sound is formed in your mind.”
I shouldn’t have prescribed the anti-anxiety medication, I thought to myself. At least it kept those dark, lifeless eyes pointed away from me. Suddenly he pulled his gaze away from the ground and looked at my face, then it seemed as though the effort it cost him resembled how you might struggle to gaze at a moving tree with human legs.
Now I could hear it too, that soft ringing like someone playing violin inside my skull.
“How about now? Do you hear it now, doctor?” He smiled with a twisted grimace of satisfaction.
Admitting I heard his hallucination would only deepen his psychosis, so I had to deny it and terminate the session. I prescribed some antipsychotics for him, even taking some for myself. But still the ringing continued when I got home.
The next day, the ringing started again as soon as he entered the room, but time the pitch rose and fell with melodic rhythm like a whole orchestra was welling up inside me.
Mr. Bruce just stared and grinned, seems he don’t care of getting better anymore, he was just relieved of not being the only one to hear it. He was wasn’t responsive that session, he was just busy humming along to the music inside my head.
I had to terminate the session again and he went home without any complain. Just as Mr. Bruce left, my nurse ran in and asked me where was those strange bells coming from. I increased the dosage, prescribing some to my nurse and myself as well. My racing heart pushed blood through my veins in rhythm with the beat, and my head would throb from the intensity of those notes.
By the end of the third session, the skin on my palms was wearing thin and there was blood beginning to sleep through, I couldn’t even clenching them together.
I had to refer Mr. Bruce to another doctor, he called, I guess to complain. But I told my nurse to let it go to voicemail. I’m tired of him and if not taking with him will end this sounds in my head. Then I’m ready to disconnect and retire..
The sound is still there, and being alone isn’t the right thing for me to do now, but somehow my office is the only place I felt safe. I tried calling my nurse to check on her. But she didn’t pick up the call. So i the phone system and listened to Mr. Bruce voicemail because I was so desperate for an answer, I still forced myself to listen to it.
Here is what he said: “As long as the music plays, you’re alright. All the world is a stage play, and all of life is a play upon it, and as long as the music sounds the show is still on, I didn’t come to because I was of the sound, I came because I was afraid it would stop.”
After listening to the voice mail, I spent the rest of the day pondering on what Mr. Bruce
meant and also referring patients to a new specialists. I called my building manager and told him I want to lease on my office.
The music is getting quieter everyday now, but that’s only making me more anxious on when it would stop. I called the doctor I referred Mr. Bruce to, but he said, he never he never showed up, I traced his house address using his medical form, but it was an abandoned orphanage home.
I don’t know when the sound will stop playing or what will happen when it stops, but until then I’m just wringing my hands and waiting for a change.