Despite being intermittently consumed with Face book and You tube, I like to pretend that by not having TV, I am untainted by America’s trash culture - that I'm practically Parisian. And like other Europeans, I can get pretty freaked out by the latest in US entertainment.
Recently, I learned of the TV show “Dexter,” where the hero…(I can hardly believe I'm writing this).....is a serial killer. This popular show, as you're likely aware, has viewers empathizing with a sadistic sociopath.
As a pseudo expatriate and former psychiatrist, I must inform you, serial killers are not people you want your citizenry cheering on or aspiring to be. First - and I don’t mean this disparagingly - serial killers are not in touch with their emotions. Second - they kill people…lots of them.
For those "Dexter" fans who may have forgotten, humans have feelings - four of them in fact - MAD, SAD, GLAD and SCARED. Some humans do some of these better than others.
I wish I could say I've always mastered each of these. There was a time when I would only do GLAD and SCARED. Rarely would I do SAD and never ever would I do MAD - I wouldn't even do annoyed or slightly bothered.
Not unlike holding in a healthy sneeze, repressing anger can result in one's head exploding - unless of course your unconscious cleverly turns it into something else. My unconscious had plenty of choices - it could have cut off other drivers in traffic, made sarcastic remarks about strangers, yelled at my dog or ignored people I cared about. But even those were too hostile for my liking.
One MAD situation involved a document I needed for my board certification. I was at the mercy of an administrative assistant at Columbia where I'd started my psychiatry training before transferring to Louisville. Instead of simply mailing the piece of paper, each day she would say, “I am going to send it.” As the deadline approached, I never once called her a "#$%$&#$*&" - not even in the privacy of my own mind. I was certain she was enjoying my suffering – that she’d been instructed from the top to torture me slowly before destroying my career for prematurely leaving Columbia. Had she known the marriage I was leaving Columbia for would bring me far greater misery, she would have sped things up.
Looking for support on the eve of the deadline, I went to one of my supervisors – a woman whose ability to communicate MAD was unmatched by any psychiatrist I’d ever met.
Practically hyperventilating, I told her my situation before breaking down into tears. “You are so mad right now! That’s what women do when they’re mad - they cry," she said, irritated. No advice, no reassurance, just a hideously inappropriate comment about my unexcavated rage. Distracted by the thought that her timing was somewhat substandard for a psychiatrist, I left feeling much better.
Though that incident ended happily, thanks only to Federal Express, I had other MAD brewing - about something else. For this, my unconscious decided the best approach was to cuddle up under a warm cozy quilt with a hot cup of tea and surround myself with books about serial killers, all the while rationalizing that my interest was merely an intellectual curiosity - a philosophical need to understand “evil.” ....Please.
A leisurely working through of my feelings, however, wasn’t enough for my ambitious nature . After four years of residency, I had to give a Grand Rounds to educate the Department of Psychiatry and show my ability to integrate information on a topic of my choice. There I stood at a podium before an audience expecting me to start into a topic like, ‘Mood Disorders in Women” or “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.”
The first slide pops up…
“SEXUAL SERIAL HOMICIDE”
Because of my wealth of knowledge, I was confident. I spoke easily and even smiled as I remembered to say, “I know some of this may be disturbing.” I clearly was not disturbed - I was rock’ in or so I thought. I covered the history, demographics, possible biological and psychological causes of serial homicide, case studies with patterns of behavior, the horrific acts and what the choice of acts said about the psychology of the killer.
I never once considered that such a fascinating topic might not be particularly relevant to the daily practice of psychiatry. Did the audience of attending, fellow residents and medical student really need my lecture to diagnose and cure the next serial killer that came into their office seeking help? Did my expertise remind them to ask their patients, “How many people have you killed in the last month?” Did it improve their psycho-therapeutic interpretation - “The way you killed that person makes me think you tend to dehumanize… hmmm.....perhaps you have a problem with....humans."
“Interesting topic, Courtney. Just not something I expected you to talk about,” was the reaction. “That was brilliant,” never came. Thankfully, no one said to my face, “Hey Courtney, time to take a look at your anger” or “Aren't all the residents getting their own therapy yet,” or “Thanks for torturing us with those graphic details."
Not until a couple years later, did a mentor say, “When you were up there, I couldn’t help but think, ‘She’s must be angry about something,’”
I was angry. I was as mad as a hatter (not in the insane way those hatters were who breathed in neurotoxic mercury while making top hats for the industrialists). I was 31 years old, clock ticking and four years into a marriage where I felt ignored and disrespected - all which reads trivial compared to what victims of even mad hatters endured. But it was my life. It was how I felt. And somehow that research with all it’s extremes gave me with all my extremes a way not to explode or implode.
I did eventually become more familiar with my feelings and even became pretty good at asserting myself. Though these skills didn't help my marriage, they helped me. Years later, I can say with the self righteousness of a Parisian, I have no interest in books, movies or television shows that portray the suffering of another person or animal. Instead of trying to make sense of killers, I feel for the victims. And as those who watch "Dexter" know, that’s no fun. So, I'm left only with trying to make sense of myself and a culture that has an apparent need for a TV serial killer.