Dialogue between nurse and patient in 1944 Agatha Christie book

Davey Do · Jul 21, 2023

"Sorry if I was rude."

"I accept your apology, because if I said, 'That's alright', I would be enabling your inappropriate behavior."

"Damned interference--all this damned interference..."

"I want to let you know that I understand your feelings of frustration in an attempt at conveying empathy through therapeutic verbal listening. Had I said, 'Now, now, that's not very nice', I would be judgmental and we nurses endeavor to remain objectively nonjudgmental."

"You nurses. You nurses! You're inhuman, that's what you are!"

"Nonjudgmental objectivity is easily mistaken for apathy, however, adhering to a practice of putting principles before personalities has a solid basis in providing quality care to those we serve."

"I tried to kill myself. You know that, don't you?"

"What's more important is that you know it, and now are dealing with the ramifications of your inappropriate behavior."

"Nobody's business but mine whether I threw myself off a bloody cliff or not. I'd finished with life. I was down and out!"

"It became someone else's business when you threw yourself off the bloody cliff onto an ambulance heading toward the state psychiatric hospital. It was an overt cry for help.

Since it's 1944, and psychotropic medications won't come into use until the 1950's, we will treat your psychotic depression with ice baths and insulin shock therapy.

So, drink down that nice, sweet lemonade that I brought you before you go into hypoglycemic shock and won't need any bloody cliff to throw yourself off of!"

Emergent, RN · Jul 21, 2023

Here's more of the conversation between the nurse and Neville Strange:

Quote

"Why shouldn't I kill myself if I want to? " he demanded.

She replied to that quite seriously. "Because it's wrong."

"Why is it wrong?"

She looked at him doubtfully. She was not disturbed in her own belief, but she was much to our inarticulate to explain her reaction. "Well--I mean--it's wicked to kill yourself. You've got to go on living whether you like it or not."

"Why have you?"

" Well, there are other people to consider, aren't there?"

"Not in my case. There's not a soul in the world who'd be the worst for my passing on."

" Haven't you got any relations? No mother or sister or anything?"

"No. I had a wife once but she left me--quite right too! She saw I was no good."

"But you've got friends sure?"

"No, I haven't. I'm not a friendly sort of man. Look here, nurse, I'll tell you something. I was a happy sort of chap once. Had a good job and a good-looking wife. There was a car accident. My boss was driving the car and I was in it. He wanted me to say he was driving under 30 at the time of the accident. He wasn't. He was driving near 50. Nobody was killed, nothing like that, he just wanted to be in the right for the insurance people. Well, I wouldn't say what he wanted. It was a lie. I don't tell lies."

The nurse said, "Well, I think you were quite right. Quite right."

"You do, do you? That pig-headedness of mine cost me my job. My boss was sore. He saw to it that I didn't get another. My wife got fed up seeing me much about unable to get anything to do. She went off with a man who had been my friend. He was doing well and going up in the world. I drifted along going steadily down. I took to drinking a bit. That didn't help me to hold down jobs. Finally I came down to hauling-- strained my inside -- the doctor told me I'd never be strong again. Well, there wasn't much to live for then. Easiest way, and the cleanest way, was to go right out. My life was no good to me or anyone else."

Quote

Davey Do · Jul 21, 2023

"Why shouldn't I kill myself if. I want to?"

"That is a rhetorically phrased passive-aggressive question with a premise of connotating that you have a right to kill yourself, when in fact it goes against the tenets of our Judeo-Christian society and the Laws of our Land.

With all due respect, Mr. Cliff Jumper, your behavior and verbalizations are that of a delusional narcissistic attention seeker. Since a delusion is defined as 'a false, fixed belief in spite of evidence to the contrary', I will end this discourse, for enabling you to continue on this course would be counterproductive to your treatment.

Since this is 1944, we can assure your safety from self harm with the use of that straight jacket you're wearing here in your rubber room, so unto you I say, 'good night'."

Emergent, RN · Jul 21, 2023

Davey Do said:

"Why shouldn't I kill myself if. I want to?"

"That is a rhetorically phrased passive-aggressive question with a premise of connotating that you have a right to kill yourself, when in fact it goes against the tenets of our Judeo-Christian society and the Laws of our Land.

With all due respect, Mr. Cliff Jumper, your behavior and verbalizations are that of a delusional narcissistic attention seeker. Since a

Since this is 1944, we can assure your safety from self harm with the use of that straight jacket you're wearing here in your rubber room, so unto you I say, 'good night'."

He was in the hospital for his broken shoulder. So he was on a normal hospital Ward. Of course, a broken shoulder probably entailed a long hospital stay in that day and age.

Correction on this character's name. He was: "Andrew MacWhirter--A complete down-and-outer rescued unwillingly from an attempted suicide, he happened to be on the spot some months later to perform the same service for a damsel in distress."

Davey Do · Jul 21, 2023

Emergent said:

He was in the hospital for his broken shoulder.

Yeah, Emergent, he broke his shoulder when he jumped off the bloody cliff onto the ambulance headed for the state psychiatric hospital but had to be transferred to a (A-HEM!) "normal hospital ward" for treatment of a diagnosed comminuted fracture of the right proximal humerus by means of an ORIF.

And please: Don't confuse me with the fictious facts.

Emergent, RN · Jul 21, 2023

I will bring you the last part of the dialogue shortly...?

Emergent, RN · Jul 22, 2023

Quote

The little nurse murmured, "You don't know that."

He laughed. He was better tempered already. Her naive obstinacy amused him.

"My dear girl, what use am I to anybody? "

She said confusingly, "You don't know. You may be--someday--"

"Someday? There won't be any someday. Next time I shall make sure."

She shook her head decidedly. "Oh no," she said ''You won't kill yourself now."

"Why not?"

"They never do."

He stared at her. "They never do." He was one of a class of would be suicides. Opening his mouth to protest energetically, his innate honesty suddenly stopped him.

Would he do it again? Did he really mean to do it? He knew suddenly that he didn't. For no reason. Perhaps the right reason was the one she had given out of her specialized knowledge. Suicides didn't do it again.

All the more he felt determined to force an admission from her on the ethical side. "At any rate I've got a right to do what I like with my own life."

"No, no,you haven't."

"But, why not, my dear girl, why?"

She flushed. She said, her finger playing with the little gold cross that hung around her neck: "You don't understand. God may need you."

He stared--taken aback. He did not want to upset her child-like faith. He said mockingly: "I suppose that one day I may stop a runaway horse and save a golden-haired child from death--eh? Is that it?"

She shook her head. She said with vehemence and trying to express what was so vivid in her mind and so halting on her tongue: " it may be just by being somewhere--not doing anything--just by being at a certain place at a certain time--oh, I can't say what I mean but you might just--just walk along the street someday and just by doing that accomplish something terribly important--perhaps without even knowing what it was."

The red-haired little nurse came from the west coast of Scotland and some of her family had "the sight."

Perhaps, dimly, she saw a picture of a man walking up a road on a night in September and therefore saving a human being from a terrible death. ...

Davey Do · Jul 22, 2023

Ah! The learned bitterness of some and the faith of a child in another!

This is an excellent excerpt you've chosen, Emergent, which makes for a really interesting read on different perspectives of human beliefs and behaviors.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Jul 23, 2023

Emergent said:

From Towards Zero by Agatha Christie

I love Agatha Christie's attention to the psychology of her characters and now will get this into my Nook pronto.Thanks!