Worse Torture Ever

This is the most devastating, torturous, and terrifying thing I could imagine.

Treating this patient, even knowing of his case, is difficult enough to cognize. To be his wife, to tend to this nightmare day after day, is unbelievable.



If you were Clive, would you want to be alive? On one side, it's a testament to a wife's love to take care of him despite the morbidity of his situation. On the other hand, there is something cruel about letting a man live this way. He's not bereft of consciousness, as someone in a persistent vegetative state is. He's not physically immobilized like someone with ALS or spinal chord injury. He is CONTINUOUSLY conscious, reawakening to his consciousness, every second, after every eye blink, it is a new world.

Could you imagine living this way? I think it is one of the most horrible existential punishments a human being could imagine.

reply to post by Astrocyte



I read the word "torture" in your headline and was thinking something totally different. At least he has a devoted wife who loves him and takes care of him.

I was thinking before I opened your thread about what the worst torture ever would be and I would have to say its the Judas chair.

There was a guy that everyday he woke up he was back to the day when he had an accident even when he was 80, when he woke in the morning he thought he was in his twenties and was shocked to see himself as an old man in the mirror.

Heres the guy I'm talking about: Henry Molaison

Wiki

Here the episode of "Dark matters twisted but true" that featured him:



Defo worth a watch.

reply to post by Astrocyte
I haven't thought of this case for years so thanks for posting it.

Whether it's a case of existential torture isn't clear to me as it invites several interpretations. For instance, he lives in a state of joyous love for his wife and that love is returned - heaven. Divested of memories, he's not prone to the reflections and melancholia of life's regrets or remorse - bliss.

Another way of looking at it is that he exists in a state somewhere close to innocence.

To place the condition nearer to existential torture, he'd need to be more self-aware of the condition.

However, looking in from outside, it's also a life absent of the knowledge of what he has and what he's achieved and we can agree that it creates empathy and pity. In that context, perhaps the existential torture is ours?

reply to post by Kandinsky


I totally agree with what you have said. Does the man look tortured?
All I can assume is that the OP fears being this way - he/she is tortured by the idea of ending up this way.
Waking up to a new world in each moment is what Christ recommended.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again – and again and again and again – he cannot see the kingdom of God."



Nice rewrite of the Gospel of John, itsnowagain.

The OP fears the future but Clive has no fear - which one is tortured and by what?

www.imdb.com...

That would be so hard to deal with ... all around !

Guy Pearce was in a good movie related to this. " Memento ".
check it out.

Originally posted by Timely
www.imdb.com...

That would be so hard to deal with ... all around !

Guy Pearce was in a good movie related to this. " Memento ".
check it out.

'Memento' is a brilliant film - but the character in it will not let go of the past. Clive does not need to remember the past or anticipate the future.
The character in 'Memento' is stuck in the past. He writes memos to help him remember but he can only see a few words or a picture to give him what he needs but due to (mis)interpretation he gets it wrong.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Hence the fifty first dates reference ( link ).

It would still be flabbergasting !

reply to post by Itisnowagain


You should read his diary entries. At some level, he seems to be aware of his situation. He writes again and again "I am conscious" or "I am awake". At other times he has told his wife "I have been dead for 30 years".

You simply can't build a life living this way. He's conscious - but to what?

reply to post by Itisnowagain

All I can assume is that the OP fears being this way - he/she is tortured by the idea of ending up this way.

There's not a single doctor or person who has worked with Clive, or others with severe retrograde or anterograde amnesia, who have not had the decency to acknowledge: "its a horrible way to live".

There is something intensely cruel about your sheer insensitivity to his condition. Maybe from your pristine philosophical high horse, he's in heaven. But for Clive, there's no doubt that he would have preferred not to have contracted meningitis and lost the ability to enjoy life with other human beings.

reply to post by Kandinsky

Whether it's a case of existential torture isn't clear to me as it invites several interpretations. For instance, he lives in a state of joyous love for his wife and that love is returned - heaven. Divested of memories, he's not prone to the reflections and melancholia of life's regrets or remorse - bliss.

That's one possible interpretation. But bear in mind - his wife doesn't live with him, she wouldn't be able to tolerate it. Also, Clive can get stuck in thoughts of "I have been dead for 30 years". Instead of being experienced as 'blissful', his wife describes it as an unbearable pain. When he speaks this way, she mentions something to get his mind off thinking that way.

It's true, that he still experiences the love for his wife. And I think what she has has done for him, on one level, has been remarkable.

But I also think it's important not to paint a simplistic picture of this. Clive is aware of his being dead. If it weren't for his wifes intervention (and the intervention of others), his days would be more painful than garrulous.

reply to post by Astrocyte


From reading this posting and the replies it seems obvious no one has yet seen "Johnny Got His Gun".
This is a movie from the 1970's with Timothy Bottoms. When thinking along the line of torture, it is worth the watch. If you do, notice the uniforms on his visitors.

As a quick synopsis: A young man in WW I is hit by a morter shell. He lives, kept alive, with no arms - no legs - no face. He has only his dreams and darkness.
I can't tell the end, it is more horrible than you really want to know here.