Pain Management
Disclaimer: House belongs to David Shore and FOX. The lines marked with a * are from Hugh Laurie's novel: The Gun Seller. It sounded almost prophetic.
Anne Porter was a patient at PPTH, currently lodged in the Diagnostic Department Wing.
She had been in Japan once, which apparently gave her the authority to feel entitled to unload philosophical orientalist crap. She restored her apartment according to her Feng Shui guru, ate ramen on a daily basis and felt in peace with the whole cosmos.
She was now ill, and nobody knew what was wrong with her, and the only man who could help her was one misanthropic, blasphemous, contemptuous ass. And, of course, she felt it was karma-tic fair to try and save him as well.
One day, she asked him why he had to be like that, avoiding happiness like the plague.
- Because I'm in pain.
- Pain is a thing you do to yourself. Other people do things to you - they hit you, or stab you, or try to shoot you- but pain is of your own making. It's always within your power to stop your own pain*.
- Pain is an event. It happens to you, and you deal with it in whatever way you can*.
- You mean overdosing with Vicodin, getting yourself drunk and miserable, pushing everyone who gives a crap away, rejoicing in your own puddle of self-loathing?
- As I said, in whatever way you can.
Two days later Anne Porter was cured and discharged. She swore Greg House hadn't changed her; she still was a believer, because she was now believing for two. She was under the impression he needed help in that department.
The End