THE SITTING HANDICAP

"Where do you work?"

"Repair shop."

"Repairing what?"

"Cars."

"How long have you worked at the repair shop?"

"Since high school."

"Let's see. You are 34-years old now. So you have been working at the repair shop for at least 16 years."

"Yeah."

"Do you have any friends at work?"

"No."

"Do you have any friends anywhere?"

"No."

"You drink a lot of beer. You've been drinking about a case a day for a long time. Actually since you got out of high school."

"Yeah."

"Who do you drink with?"

"No one."

"You drink by yourself, everyday?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you drink?"

"It makes me happy."

"What do you do when you are happy? Do you talk more?"

"No. I just drink more. It makes me happy."

"In what way. How does it make your happy?"

"I don't know."

"How can you tell you are happy?"

"I don't know."

"If drinking makes you happy, why do you want to stop drinking?"

"My wife said she would leave me if I didn't stop drinking."

"Why does she want you to stop drinking?"

"I don't know."

"Did you ask her?"

"No."

"Do you talk? I mean does she talk to you and do you talk to her."

"Not much."

"Do you talk more or less when your drink?"

"About the same, I guess."

"Not very much then?"

"No. Not very much."

"How long have you and your wife been married?"

"About 14 years."

"14 years? What...I mean how did you go about getting married since you don't talk much?"

"She liked to watch TV. I like to watch TV too when I am drinking."

"Well...I'm interested in how you got together. What did you say to her? How did you find out she liked to watch TV?

"She told me at my parents house."

"At your parents house?"

"Yeah. Her parents and my parents were friend. She came over with her parents and we watched TV together."

"Why did you decide to get married? I mean what motivated you to get married."

"I don't know. We just did."

Most psychiatrist dread talking with schizoids. Drying paint, burnt toast, growing grass is more interesting. At least paint dries; toast burns; grass grows. Schizoids don't do anything. They don't talk; they don't laugh; they don't cry." They sit mainly. It's sad to watch them just sit there, but they don't seem to be sad about sitting. They don't know any better. They're handicapped.

When we hear the word handicap, we usually think about blindness or deafness. But handicaps can be extended to include personality traits. Certainly, a person with no sense of humor is handicapped as is a person who has no feelings. Being bored and boring is a handicap. The inability to cultivate friends is a handicap. The inability to responding to the needs of others is a handicap. A lack of friends is a handicap. The inability to experience pleasure is a handicap.

Schizoids shouldn’t be confused with schizophrenics. Schizophrenics have bizarre delusions and weird hallucinations. They think that they come from the planet K-Pax, or that they have x-ray eyes, or some other peculiarity that makes them interesting.

Schizoids are dull, stale, and flat. No one really knows how he or she got to be the way they are. They must have some sort of abnormal gene floating around in their chromosomes. Something activates this abnormal gene. Maybe childhood deprivation contributes to the problem. Regardless of the cause, there is no treatment. Psychiatrists don’t have many schizoids as patients, because schizoids generally do no one harm and they usually don’t have many complaints. They just sit.

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The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any resemblance to the names, character, or history of any person is coincidental and unintentional.