Honest Work

My patient Yonasan Goldberg, an adult male with treatment-resistant chronic schizophrenia, believes that I’m Eliyahu Hanavi and was ecstatic when I “vanquished” his bully of a neighbor, “wicked King Achav” (it turns out that really was his name, although Yonasan has a penchant for making up words and terms). I still haven’t discovered a sure-fire treatment protocol, but Yonasan is a nice guy and deserves a measure of happiness, even if the lines between delusion and reality are blurred.

PART III

After several weeks, I found myself getting lost in the various characters of dubious existence that graced Yonasan’s inner world, but interestingly, it was a phone call from his mother that helped clarify things in my own head.

“Dr. Freedman,” she gushed, “I must tell you that Yonasan can’t stop talking about how much you’ve helped him!”  I wanted to accept her compliment graciously, but truthfully, I wasn’t sure how much I’d really done.

“He told me how you vanquished wicked King Achav! What a wonderful thing you did telling our nasty neighbor to leave him alone,” she continued. “In the week since that happened, they both basically ignore each other, which is frankly perfect from my perspective. And Yonasan is having so much fun going back to the aquarium on his daily visits. But you know, those cuttlefish used to really undo him and ruin the experience. Now all he does is talk about how they’re friends again, and it’s all thanks to you, Dr. Freedman.