An elegantly dressed woman quickly dialed her phone and
nervously said, "Hello. Is this Dr. Allneu? Oh, good. Doctor,
you must help my daughter. There is something very wrong with
her.
"You tell me to calm down. Listen, when you hear what's going
on, you'll understand much better.
"OK, so I'll start at the beginning. I'm not really sure when
this all started but the last straw is this Pesach
craziness.
"You say I still haven't explained myself. I guess that I'm
too upset to speak clearly. You see, my daughter has such
mishugasim. She wears the same style of clothes for
more than two months and has absolutely no interest in
changing her look. Now is that normal? A girl her age should
take an interest in herself. She begs me to make the same
simple foods for Shabbos every week — you know, roast
chicken and potato kugel. How boring! And now this Pesach
thing is the last straw. She thinks, `It would be so much
nicer if the whole family would stay home and have a old-
fashioned seder together.' Can you believe it? Nobody
does that today.
"You say I should send her right away. You say it sounds
serious. OK, we'll be there soon."
At the doctor's office, a girl of about sixteen entered.
"Hello, I have an appointment with Dr. Allneu. I'm Chana
Pashut. My mother just called," the teenage girl
explained.
"Yes, my dear young lady. It seems you are giving your mother
quite a scare," the doctor said in a very somber tone. "What
seems to be the problem?" she inquired.
"Well I just can't get my mother off my case," Chana said
thoughtfully.
"Yes..."
"She's always wanting to change something. She is forever
shopping for clothes and is always criticizing me that my
clothes are outdated. Outdated? I only bought them two months
ago. She says they are practically antique. Here she is,
close to fifty years old, and wearing the same short style
skirt and crazy shoes that girls in my high school wear. If
polka dots come in next month, everybody has to run out and
buy a whole new spotted wardrobe. As soon as my mother buys a
new sheitel, she is off to the sheitel- macher
to have it dyed or permed, or cut. She is never happy with
anything for long!" Chana exclaimed.
"I see. And does this all bother you?" Dr. Allneu prodded.
Chana ignored the question and continued, "Every other year,
she starts to redecorate the whole house all over. She starts
with the living room and then continues with the rest of the
house. By the time she's finished everything, it's time to
start the whole process all over. If everything has been done
in a modern design, then she wants to go antique. If it's
been antique, she'll try Oriental or she'll want to change
the color scheme. There is always a reason. 'This is
outdated. This color isn't practical. This style is more
elegant.' She moves through the house, room by room. Well,
this time when she got to my room, I put my foot down. I like
my room the way it is and I have no interest in changing it.
I guess I'm lucky that at least after moving three times, my
parents finally settled on this house. I have one friend who
has moved nine times!"
"Do you really feel this is so bad?" the doctor questioned,
lowering her glasses down her nose, inspecting her young
client.
"Don't you? If I have to change my room one more time again,
I'd feel I don't know where I am when I wake up in the
morning," Chana tried to explain.
"What other complaints do you have?" the doctor asked, still
taken aback by the young woman's brashness.
"Take food, for instance," Chana was quick to answer. "Why
does it have to be such exotic stuff? Ingredients I can't
even pronounce. Weird stuff that comes out of strange boxes
that my mother drives all over town to find. Then all that to-
do before everything is set up just so. Sometimes it's
displayed so beautifully that no one has an appetite to
destroy it. It's just food. We're suppose to eat it, not
admire it. Finally, I got my mother to make some plain old-
fashioned chicken soup. So what did she go and do? She put
some blue food coloring in it — to give it some
'pizazz,' as she says." Chana looked kind of green at the
memory of the blue chicken soup.
"So you say you like your food plain and simple, hmmmm ...
Maybe we should do some blood work, maybe even a gastro and
make sure there are no physical issues to contend with, as
well," the doctor thought out loud. "Tell me, are there more
grievences, not just with your mother that are bothering
you?" the doctor inquired.
"Well, I don't know if you'd call these grievances, but I
really don't get the people all around me. Like my brother-in-
law. About seven months, ago he went out and bought a super
deluxe digital camera to take pictures of his new baby. Just
last week, he ran out to buy the newest model because it
supposedly has more memory and a clearer image. It's just too
much. Then there is the next-door neighbor. He is forever
switching his car. He must replace it every five months. He
needs the newest gadgets, color, who knows what. What's wrong
with all these people?" Chana asks exasperated.
"Your mother says that you are unhappy about the family's
Pesach plans," the doctor switched the topic. "She says that
you would actually like to stay home." The doctor looked
rather sick at the idea.
"I guess you also go away every year too, don't you, Dr.
Allneu?" Chana asked.
"Why, yes, I do," the doctor answered enthusiastically.
Chana started to list, "Let's see, Switzerland, Hungary,
Turkey, Disneyland, China..." The doctor nodded her head
eagerly at each name. "...The North Pole, the deep Congo,"
Chana continued. "The next thing you'll tell me is that
they're planning a big group tour to spend Pesach in the
pyramids in Egypt. Then you can reenact the whole story.
Maybe you can find some big film producer to recreate the
splitting of the Red Sea for the last day of Pesach," Chana
said sarcastically. The doctor looked puzzled.
"Dr. Allneu, what is wrong with you people? Why are you all
so bored? Why do you need so many changes to feel happy and
satisfied?" Chana asked more to herself. She could see it was
hopeless.
The doctor rose from her chair. "I see we have a serious case
on our hands. Maybe depression? Maybe even paranoia or manic
depressive? A schizophrenic, hmmmm?"
Turning to Chana she said, "We'll be needing a lot of
sessions to get to the bottom of this psychosis," the doctor
spoke with her most professional tone. "Now if you will
excuse me, I've been wearing these same clothes for the last
hour-and-a-half and I really must change before my next
client comes in. See you next week."
