Call Me Datin

The month of ramadhan is a holy month celebrated by muslims all over the world. Fasting is not just a simple matter of not eating and drinking for 12 hours a day (a concept notorious among non-muslims) but encompasses many other aspects of life and one of the key philosophy of this month is moderation. In the spirit of this holy month, let us take some time to learn a lesson on humility.

A month ago, when i was doing my call duty, i received a phone call from my consultant informing me about the arrival of a certain wife of a Dato’ (better known as Datin), who was apparently accompanying his husband on a business trip to Penang. After two days of her arrival, she came down with a flu and was given some medications by her family physician. However, on that fated day, her condition got worse, she became very ill and was promptly brought to the hospital. I was waiting for her arrival in my room when I got a surprise visit from a senior physician who also happens to be a Dato’, informing me about the arrival of this Datin. We went down, together with my specialist and later consultant, who was also summoned from his home to attend to this Datin. After an hour of resuscitation, she was brought up to our intensive cardiac care unit (CCU). She was given some sedation down in the resuscitation room but regained consciousness as soon as she reaches the CCU. Upon waking up, the nurse attending to her, being her friendly self asked her this simple question, ” Mak cik, what is your name?” to which her answer was, ” My name is Datin A, just call me Datin”.

We attended to her in the CCU, doing our best to stabilize her while she maintained her diva persona all the time, to the point of calling all doctors blood suckers. Don’t get me wrong, she was a diva, sarcastic, demanding and proud but she was never mean. I’m sure if you get to know her better she can be a very pleasant lady. Her condition turned from bad to worse and after five days of illness, she succumbed due to complications of severe lung infection.

Moral of the story.

In my field of work, i’ve come in contact with various Dato’s, Datin’s and Tan Sri’s and have my fair share of meeting with the demands of these individuals we refer as VIPs or VVIPs (depending on how high you are on the social ladder). Our society created this title with the initial intention of honoring various individuals who have immense contributions and attained such achievements that made the whole country proud. However, through the years this title has been extensively overused, conferred to too many individuals thus loosing its initial grandeur. The exclusiveness of this title is brought further down by the outrageous acts of the Dato’s themselves, abusing this title whenever and however possible. The society that creates this social status in the first place, now loses faith in this title, attaching it to various negative stigmas, sex scandals, bribery, abuse of power and influence and various other forms of misconducts. The unfavorable acts of Dato’s children (better known as Anak Dato’) at one time became the favorite front page of tabloids and the plight of desperate Datin’s are re-enacted many times over the big and small screen giving the impression that all Dato’s by nature has an innate inability of keeping their dicks inside their pants in the presence of young and upcoming celebrities.

So, if that’s the case, how proud are you of having a Dato’, Datin, Dato’ Seri, Datin Seri, Tan Sri, Puan Sri or whatever seri you may have in front of your name? Do you feel that great being conferred that title that you are suddenly above every other human beings in this country? Are you that insecure that every where you go, you need people to call you by your title that your own name given by your parents is now irrelevant?

I have seen my fair share of title abuse in my line of work. The VIPs and VVIPs coming to a government hospital are given special privileges, otherwise not available to the general public. As rich as they are, they somehow felt compelled to use public health  services rather than going to the private sector which will guarantee value for money (that’s what they tell every one anyway). Here are some of the privileges they get from being a VIP or VVIP:

• They are able to set appointment dates and times to see any specialist, consultants or even head of departments at their own convenience. This makes sure that every time they come to the clinic they won’t have to wait for their turns like the rest of the general public. Their arrival will be informed earlier on so that, their files will be ready and ushered straight into the specialist’s room the minute they arrive. They favour specialists or consultants who are also conferred the title Dato’ or Tan Sri. Perhaps it gives them a sense of belonging, a doctor at the same height of social ladder would understand their plight better and more importantly, that doctor would have more power to pull some strings whenever needed.
• They are eligible to get all sorts of expensive medications otherwise not available to the general public. The general public some being so poor, they have to wait for SOCSO money or some requiring social welfare’s support are forced to buy these medications, the reason being the stocks available in the hospital are so limited that they have to really choose which patient may benefit most from these medications.
• They even have the privilege of having hospitals set up in their vicinities with the impression of improving the health services of the country. This usually happens near a general election. Every one knows why Hospital Kepala Batas was built in the first place, it was supposed to become the national center for cancer research before the untimely death a certain VVIP, who was suffering from cancer.
• They have the privilage of requesting the presence of all specialists and consultants to attend to them when they get admitted to the hospital irrespective of the time of the day. Even the hospital director personally attends to them when they get admitted. The specialist attending to these VIPs is given the task of updating the hospital director about their condition even if it’s 3 am in the morning. They are usually attended by not one but usually three and sometimes five consultants from different disciplines depending on how bad their health is or more importantly, how high you are in the rank of VIPs and VVIPs.
• All these special privileges not only apply to them but even their closest or even distant relatives, friends even the ones way back from kindergarten days, close neighbours or even not very close neighbours or neighbours of their relatives, their staffs or ex-staffs including their maids and drivers, or relatives of their maids and drivers or whomever that happens to know them even by their names. All they have to do is mention their names and they are entitled to special privileges just like the Dato’s ot Tan Sris themselves.

So is it great having a title in front of your name?

Hysteria (part 2)

So, what does Scully have to say about this case?

Hysteria is an old term used to describe a medical or more specifically psychiatric disorder which is now known as somatoform or dissociative disorder. The term originates from the Greek word, hystera, which means uterus, hence the notion that this disorder exclusively effects women. Hippocrates in the days of yonder hypothesizes that suffocation and madness arose in women whose uteri had become too light and dry from lack of sexual intercourse and, as a result, wandered upward, compressing the heart, lungs, and diaphragm. It’s probably a way of the uterus telling the woman, “since you’re not using me i might just get out of this rotting body” or maybe, “since you’re not getting fucked yourself, i might just make my way out and find my own penis to fuck me”. Wow, I’m getting emo just trying to explain this weird thing to you. Let’s take a deep breath and start over.

Oh my god! Just check out these facts i got from wikipedia. This is how they used to treat hysteria in the past. Did you know that until the late 19th century, physicians were still stuck with Hippocrates’ idea that hysteria is a disease of sexual dissatisfaction. Typical treatment was massage of the patients genitalia by the physician and later vibrators or water sprays to cause orgasm. I somehow doubt that, i’m sure the physicians those days had a blast fucking every single women brought to their clinic for hysteria and women those days used hysteria as an excuse to get fucked by any hot doctors they can lay their hands on,” Doctor, please fuck me, I have hysteria”. Talk about weirdness, you must apologize me for my emotional outburst, i think i’m going mental. Ok, let’s start over.

The hysteria experienced by the students of Tanjung Lumpur is a manifestation of psychiatric disorders now known as somatoform or dissociative disorder. In simple words, somatoform disorder is a disease whereby a person experiences a symptom lets say chest pain, which is severe enough to cause distress but after extensive investigations, no significant cause is found to explain the symptom. Dissociative disorder on the other hand, is a condition where a person experiences a state of disrupted consciousness, memory, identity or perception of the environment. One of the most famous form of this disease includes multiple personality disorder. The hysteria we usually hear of in Malaysia is classified as Dissociative Trance Disorder which is defined as single or episodic alterations in consciousness that are limited to particular locations or cultures. Similiar examples include the “trance” state experienced by bomohs, pawangs and their associates (we call it “menurun” in malaysia which refers to the condition when a spirit, religious figure or a deity possesses the body of a bomoh during seances) or when a person goes berserk while performing “mak yung” or “kuda kepang”. This does not include the “trance” state you experience dancing to trance music while being high on “poppers”.

Let me share with you this interesting fact about somatoform disorder:

Freudian psychoanalytic theory attributed hysterical symptoms to the subconscious mind’s attempt to protect the patient from psychic stress. Subconscious motives include primary gain, in which the symptom directly relieves the stress (as when a patient coughs to release energy pent up from keeping a secret), and secondary gain, in which the symptom provides an independent advantage such as staying home from a hated job. More recent critics have noted the possibility of tertiary gain, when a patient is induced subconsciously to display a symptom because of the desires of others (as when a controlling husband enjoys the docility of his sick wife).

So, let’s ask ourself this question? Is the hysteria episode experienced by the students of Tanjung Lumpur really a manifestation of a psychiatric disorder? If that’s the case, the best person to handle these cases are psychiatrists and psychologists and not bomohs and pawangs. We usually take things for granted, using short cuts, trying to look for ways to solve things with minimal efforts and expecting fast results without trying to look into the heart of the matter. If the school administrators actually spent times with these students and try to figure out their actual problems and the true reasons why they acted out the way they did, i’m sure they can prevent more students from breaking into hysterias.

Looking into Freaudian theories on hysteria, let’s ask ourselves these questions? Was the hysteria an act of achieving a primary or secondary gain?

Freudian psychoanalytic theory attributed hysterical symptoms to the subconscious mind’s attempt to protect the patient from psychic stress. Are these students suffering from some form of stress in their school? Are they victims of school bullies? Students staying in boarding schools are subjected to all sorts of bullies ranging from downright violent to the more subtle sexual type especially by more senior students or even the “rotten apples” among their peers or worse, their own teachers?. Is this hysteria a rebellious act against the school authorities which is deemed as oppressing by these students? Not knowing any better way to vent out their anger and frustrations, they resorted to staging out a “mass hysteria” as a another form of rallying against the superior force of the school’s administration. In a way, hysteria is a more sensational way of staging a rally and a sure fire way of catching the media’s attention. Hysteria may also be a way of venting out frustations without getting penalized on the grounds that you’re “mentally” or “spiritually” sick. Or is hysteria a way of climbing up the social ladder? An unpopular girl being frustrated of being unpopular for so long decided to change her status by turning herself into “hysteria girl” and in order to maintain her popularity, she has to repeatedly become hysterical hoping that by doing so, she may gain extra attention and even special treatment from her teachers and especially her peers.

In a more conspiratory manner, is the hysteria an act of achieving tertairy gain?

What could possibly be the tertairy gain from staging this mass hysteria? Is the hysteria part of a plan to relocate the school to a better or hipper environment? If that is so, who concocted this idea in the first place? The student or might it be the school authorities themselves? Was the mass hysteria a reaction by fellow students upon seeing the special treatment received by the first student that went hysterical? Or are these students coaxed by their fellow students to go berserk just to make themselves centers of attraction? They can now form a group called “Hysteria Girls” and should be considered for parts by any filmmakers wishing to make another movie with a supernatural theme (seeing how this genre has gained immense popularity after the initial ban by FINAS was lifted years back allowing hordes of trashy horror movies to flock the market). Or are they continuing this episodes of hysteria a response to the media’s (especially tabloid) craving for more sensational hot stories especially on supernatural subjects. In this age of cruel and depressing reality, we seek to escape ourselves into the magical and wonderful realms of supernatural beings, thus making the slightest buzz of supernatural sightings materials for the front page.

I’ll leave you to ponder on these questions. Speculations makes the world sensational but only the truth no matter how bitter and hard solves the matter. Let us hope that the episodes of hysteria ends here and no more schools will be effected by this outrageous act.