Chapter Sixteen: Therapy
~~
"I should have guessed, really, why they moved me from Post-Op into the VIP tent. I had a feeling that someone somewhere along the way would say I'm crazy, and so good old Doc Freeman pays another visit to the 4077th to talk to the crazy guy."
"Do you think you're crazy, then?"
"No, I don't, but probably everyone else does. Look, Sidney, it was nice of you to visit and all, but I don't know what the point of you talking to me is," BJ said languidly. "Everyone knows what's wrong with me, they know I stopped eating, and they know why, because they found the letter from Peg, so I really don't see the point of you talking to me."
Sidney noticed that BJ was trying to put off the talk, and this gave him all the more incentive to carry on the conversation. "Sure, people may know about what happened, but does that mean you're cured?"
"What's to be cured?"
This was interesting, Sidney thought to himself, that BJ was trying to almost deny either that he had something wrong with him, or that what was wrong with him could be treated. He said, "You've stopped eating, BJ, and to me that says that there's a problem out there that needs a solution."
"Oh yeah? Have you got the answer?"
It unnerved Sidney to see BJ like this, so without hope, without his usual zest for living, and without a care for what he was doing to himself. He also hated talking to him and treated him as a patient, despite him needing to be talked to in that way. "I don't have the answer, only you know how to help yourself. I'm just here to give you the starting blocks for that."
"I've got the answer? Give me the starting blocks? Aren't you going a little overboard with the psychiatrist mumbo-jumbo, Sid?"
Slowly, Sidney blocked out the fact that BJ was his patient, and began to take on the role of psychiatrist rather than good friend, and the professionalism came more into the conversation. "All right, I'll stop being the psychiatrist for you, and you can start to do some of the work. What do you think you have to do to get me out of here?"
"Throw you out of the door," BJ muttering, wondering what kind of approach Sidney was taking.
"Ah, but you can't do that, do you know why?"
"I'm in bed, hooked up to a drip," BJ told him, gesturing to the medical equipment he was attached to.
"Tell me, why are you in bed, with a drip? How did you come to be in that situation?"
"I lost some weight," BJ said casually, as if he was talking about losing a sock or something trivial like that, not about malnutrition.
"All right, you lost the weight, you stopped eating," Sidney said, glad to see that thus far, BJ was co-operating. As he asked the next question, he wondered how much longer this co-operation would last. "Why did you stop eating?"
This irritated BJ, as Sidney already knew why. "Look, someone must have told you this already, Peg decided to find comfort in the arms of another man," he said, now in full flow, "And now, because she has to think it through or whatever that means, I am stuck without communication, without knowing, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."
Sidney smiled ever so slightly, as he felt that BJ had just hit the proverbial nail on the head. He pursued the subject and said, "But why stop eating? I mean, you could have done any number of things, you could have started excessive drinking, you could have taken out your anger physically, and some have even been known to go AWOL. Why stop eating?"
This was a question that BJ had not been posed before, and he took the time to think about the answer. Eventually he said, "I guess I had total control of what I was eating."
Sidney could have jumped for joy as BJ said that, but he remained calm and composed. "I think you're right, BJ. You couldn't control what was happening at home, being here in Korea, so you decided to find something else that you could have control over, like what you ate, or in this case didn't eat."
BJ thought this through before nodded and said, "All right, I guess now you know why I stopped eating, how exactly does this cure me?"
"I never said it would cure you," Sidney said in his ever-calm voice, "but now you have a deeper understanding as to why you stopped eating, it was about your lack of control."
"You make me sound like a control freak or something," BJ said, looking away from Sidney.
"I'm not saying that at all, but everyone likes to have some grasp of a situation, especially when the situation is so close to home," Sidney explained to him. "It's only nature to find something else that you have power over, something that up until now, no one could have any influence over apart from yourself. But BJ, if you don't start eating soon, you are going to become severely ill, and there are a lot of people who are going to be greatly affected by that. Can you think who might be?"
"Well, Colonel Potter would be down a surgeon," BJ began, looking at the practical problems that might arise.
"But it would not only be the Colonel and the M*A*S*H that would suffer because you wouldn't be in the OR," Sidney told him, "Think of all those kids who might die because you weren't there to help them."
"They'd find another surgeon, there are plenty in Korea."
"And if they're not as good as you are? If they don't know the procedures, or if they freeze under the conditions, all the blood and suffering, what then?"
"I didn't know you branched out into emotional blackmail," BJ stated darkly, not liking the route that Sidney was going down. He himself had mentally been down that road, during quiet times of reflection since receiving the letter from Peg, and at the end of each road was the Still and a good few hours of drinking to drown his sorrows and try and forget.
Sidney got the hint, and said, "All right, let's move onto something else. Hawkeye would miss you, too, I mean you must know how deserted he felt when Trapper left, because he was left without a friend until you came along. Think of all the things you've done for him, like how many times did he say to you that he wouldn't know what he'd do without you? Well, it's true, he wouldn't. This war has taken its toll on everyone here in its own way, and if you weren't to recover, I have a feeling that Hawkeye wouldn't either, he'd probably lose the plot. He wants to help you like all the times you've helped him, but you're shutting him out. Let him in and see what happens," Sidney said, then deciding that it was time to bring out verbal force and to break through the cold wall that BJ had built up over the past through weeks with emotion.
BJ looked away, tears in his eyes, and Sidney could see what he was saying was working. He decided at that moment he would bring out the biggest of the big guns. "Last but not least, there is a little girl so many miles away that needs you, maybe not right now, but when she gets older she'll be asking her Mom what happened to her Daddy, and someone is going to have to answer that question. There is also someone who is going to have to be there for that little girl, for when she falls and scrapes her knee, when she falls out with her best friend, when she wakes up from a nightmare, when she goes through her first break-up, and for many more times after that, and I know from being a father that I wouldn't trust any other guy except me to be there for my kid when they go through all those things, wouldn't you?"
BJ was now in full flow, tears streaming from his eyes, and Sidney knew that he had broken that wall that had kept back all the emotion in him. He also knew that even though BJ was crying then, in the long run his method had been the least hurtful. He moved from his chair and crouched next to BJ's bedside, so that he could embrace and pat BJ on the back, to give him some strength and support.
After a moment BJ let go, and with a half-laugh asked, "How did you do that, Sidney?"
"You did the first part of it yourself," Sidney said, typically modest about the work he did. "You figured out why exactly you had decided to stop eating. For the second part, I just reminded you of a couple or three things that you had to live for, and you did the rest."
"What did I do? I just sat there and listened," BJ said, wiping the tearstains from his face.
"Exactly. You listened to someone, and you took it in. You won, BJ," Sidney said, congratulating him softly. "You may not know where you stand with Peg right now, and its okay to feel bad about that, but it doesn't mean that you have to give up on everything else in your life, because you have so much to live for, you just forgot about it for a moment, that's all. Now, you're still not totally cured, I mean you have lost a lot of weight and you have a lot of strength to get back, physical and mental, but you're out of the starting blocks, buddy."
BJ looked up, ready to face the world and all it could throw at him once again, before he turned to his friend and said, "Thank you, Sidney."
~~~~
~~
"I should have guessed, really, why they moved me from Post-Op into the VIP tent. I had a feeling that someone somewhere along the way would say I'm crazy, and so good old Doc Freeman pays another visit to the 4077th to talk to the crazy guy."
"Do you think you're crazy, then?"
"No, I don't, but probably everyone else does. Look, Sidney, it was nice of you to visit and all, but I don't know what the point of you talking to me is," BJ said languidly. "Everyone knows what's wrong with me, they know I stopped eating, and they know why, because they found the letter from Peg, so I really don't see the point of you talking to me."
Sidney noticed that BJ was trying to put off the talk, and this gave him all the more incentive to carry on the conversation. "Sure, people may know about what happened, but does that mean you're cured?"
"What's to be cured?"
This was interesting, Sidney thought to himself, that BJ was trying to almost deny either that he had something wrong with him, or that what was wrong with him could be treated. He said, "You've stopped eating, BJ, and to me that says that there's a problem out there that needs a solution."
"Oh yeah? Have you got the answer?"
It unnerved Sidney to see BJ like this, so without hope, without his usual zest for living, and without a care for what he was doing to himself. He also hated talking to him and treated him as a patient, despite him needing to be talked to in that way. "I don't have the answer, only you know how to help yourself. I'm just here to give you the starting blocks for that."
"I've got the answer? Give me the starting blocks? Aren't you going a little overboard with the psychiatrist mumbo-jumbo, Sid?"
Slowly, Sidney blocked out the fact that BJ was his patient, and began to take on the role of psychiatrist rather than good friend, and the professionalism came more into the conversation. "All right, I'll stop being the psychiatrist for you, and you can start to do some of the work. What do you think you have to do to get me out of here?"
"Throw you out of the door," BJ muttering, wondering what kind of approach Sidney was taking.
"Ah, but you can't do that, do you know why?"
"I'm in bed, hooked up to a drip," BJ told him, gesturing to the medical equipment he was attached to.
"Tell me, why are you in bed, with a drip? How did you come to be in that situation?"
"I lost some weight," BJ said casually, as if he was talking about losing a sock or something trivial like that, not about malnutrition.
"All right, you lost the weight, you stopped eating," Sidney said, glad to see that thus far, BJ was co-operating. As he asked the next question, he wondered how much longer this co-operation would last. "Why did you stop eating?"
This irritated BJ, as Sidney already knew why. "Look, someone must have told you this already, Peg decided to find comfort in the arms of another man," he said, now in full flow, "And now, because she has to think it through or whatever that means, I am stuck without communication, without knowing, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."
Sidney smiled ever so slightly, as he felt that BJ had just hit the proverbial nail on the head. He pursued the subject and said, "But why stop eating? I mean, you could have done any number of things, you could have started excessive drinking, you could have taken out your anger physically, and some have even been known to go AWOL. Why stop eating?"
This was a question that BJ had not been posed before, and he took the time to think about the answer. Eventually he said, "I guess I had total control of what I was eating."
Sidney could have jumped for joy as BJ said that, but he remained calm and composed. "I think you're right, BJ. You couldn't control what was happening at home, being here in Korea, so you decided to find something else that you could have control over, like what you ate, or in this case didn't eat."
BJ thought this through before nodded and said, "All right, I guess now you know why I stopped eating, how exactly does this cure me?"
"I never said it would cure you," Sidney said in his ever-calm voice, "but now you have a deeper understanding as to why you stopped eating, it was about your lack of control."
"You make me sound like a control freak or something," BJ said, looking away from Sidney.
"I'm not saying that at all, but everyone likes to have some grasp of a situation, especially when the situation is so close to home," Sidney explained to him. "It's only nature to find something else that you have power over, something that up until now, no one could have any influence over apart from yourself. But BJ, if you don't start eating soon, you are going to become severely ill, and there are a lot of people who are going to be greatly affected by that. Can you think who might be?"
"Well, Colonel Potter would be down a surgeon," BJ began, looking at the practical problems that might arise.
"But it would not only be the Colonel and the M*A*S*H that would suffer because you wouldn't be in the OR," Sidney told him, "Think of all those kids who might die because you weren't there to help them."
"They'd find another surgeon, there are plenty in Korea."
"And if they're not as good as you are? If they don't know the procedures, or if they freeze under the conditions, all the blood and suffering, what then?"
"I didn't know you branched out into emotional blackmail," BJ stated darkly, not liking the route that Sidney was going down. He himself had mentally been down that road, during quiet times of reflection since receiving the letter from Peg, and at the end of each road was the Still and a good few hours of drinking to drown his sorrows and try and forget.
Sidney got the hint, and said, "All right, let's move onto something else. Hawkeye would miss you, too, I mean you must know how deserted he felt when Trapper left, because he was left without a friend until you came along. Think of all the things you've done for him, like how many times did he say to you that he wouldn't know what he'd do without you? Well, it's true, he wouldn't. This war has taken its toll on everyone here in its own way, and if you weren't to recover, I have a feeling that Hawkeye wouldn't either, he'd probably lose the plot. He wants to help you like all the times you've helped him, but you're shutting him out. Let him in and see what happens," Sidney said, then deciding that it was time to bring out verbal force and to break through the cold wall that BJ had built up over the past through weeks with emotion.
BJ looked away, tears in his eyes, and Sidney could see what he was saying was working. He decided at that moment he would bring out the biggest of the big guns. "Last but not least, there is a little girl so many miles away that needs you, maybe not right now, but when she gets older she'll be asking her Mom what happened to her Daddy, and someone is going to have to answer that question. There is also someone who is going to have to be there for that little girl, for when she falls and scrapes her knee, when she falls out with her best friend, when she wakes up from a nightmare, when she goes through her first break-up, and for many more times after that, and I know from being a father that I wouldn't trust any other guy except me to be there for my kid when they go through all those things, wouldn't you?"
BJ was now in full flow, tears streaming from his eyes, and Sidney knew that he had broken that wall that had kept back all the emotion in him. He also knew that even though BJ was crying then, in the long run his method had been the least hurtful. He moved from his chair and crouched next to BJ's bedside, so that he could embrace and pat BJ on the back, to give him some strength and support.
After a moment BJ let go, and with a half-laugh asked, "How did you do that, Sidney?"
"You did the first part of it yourself," Sidney said, typically modest about the work he did. "You figured out why exactly you had decided to stop eating. For the second part, I just reminded you of a couple or three things that you had to live for, and you did the rest."
"What did I do? I just sat there and listened," BJ said, wiping the tearstains from his face.
"Exactly. You listened to someone, and you took it in. You won, BJ," Sidney said, congratulating him softly. "You may not know where you stand with Peg right now, and its okay to feel bad about that, but it doesn't mean that you have to give up on everything else in your life, because you have so much to live for, you just forgot about it for a moment, that's all. Now, you're still not totally cured, I mean you have lost a lot of weight and you have a lot of strength to get back, physical and mental, but you're out of the starting blocks, buddy."
BJ looked up, ready to face the world and all it could throw at him once again, before he turned to his friend and said, "Thank you, Sidney."
~~~~