This actually applies to my own situation...

In the summer of 1973, four hostages were taken in a botched bank robbery at Kreditbanken in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of their captivity, six days later, they actively resisted rescue. They refused to testify against their captors, raised money for their legal defense, and according to some reports one of the hostages eventually became engaged to one of her jailed captors.

This struck some folks as weird, and as a way of coping with this uneasiness, as they started seeing more examples they named this class of strange behavior the “Stockholm Syndrome.”

Notorious in the United States is the case of Patty Hearst, who after being kidnapped and tortured by the Symbionese Liberation Army, took up arms and joined their cause, taking on the nom de guerre of “Tania” and helping the SLA rob banks.

The Stockholm Syndrome comes into play when a captive cannot escape and is isolated and threatened with death, but is shown token acts of kindness by the captor. It typically takes about three or four days for the psychological shift to take hold.

A strategy of trying to keep your captor happy in order to stay alive becomes an obsessive identification with the likes and dislikes of the captor which has the result of warping your own psyche in such a way that you come to sympathize with your tormenter.


More on this later. 11:03 PM

"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."
--Buddha 10:16 PM

What's the deal with this "new blogger" thing I was just bamboozled into singing up for? I just wanna post on my freaking blog that I have been neglecting for so long I doubt even my sister is reading it to know what I have been up to.

So, what am I up to?

My old dirty tricks.

I have a mean case of sleep inertia. In case you were wondering, sleep inertia refers to those moments after you are rudely woken up by your pager at work, and you wonder things like:
"What's that noise?"
"Where am I?"
"Somebody better answer their pager!"
A nurse will then ask you a question that may or may not be immediately life-threateningly important, and you're still trying to figure out where your patient lists are. You say, "Um, hang on a minute." And, there's the sound of rustling papers and blankets. Your shoes are somewhere around and you're running into things in the dark. Things like "blood pressure of 60" will get your attention. Things like "come and sign this useless piece of paper" will get you into a rage. Everything in between is a battle against saying "Yeah, sure, whatever."

I have been an intern for 8 months. I'm getting more comfortable. Every page isn't a crisis. I'm learning how to say "no" to the request for ativan for 80 year old patients who don't really need it. I know my role in a trauma. I have participated in a few codes. I have been exhausted, and elated, and covered in blood on a few occasions. I passed my in service exam. I think I have been broken in, officially. It has cost me, though. I have probably wept more this year than I did over any broken heart I have ever had. I look back on my days as a medical student with nostalgia, which is seriously warped. Anyway, there have been growing pains.

I'm on vacation this week. It's weird to be on vacation and not go anywhere. I have cleaned everything, washed all of my clothes, partied x2, and slept in until 2:30. What's next? I would almost rather have three weekends off than a whole week. There's not a lot happening on a Monday night in Toledo. I rented Babel and watched it last night. It was pretty good. I'm watching The Departed tonight, which I have been hearing a lot of people talk about at work lately.

Yeah. So that's it. 9:03 PM