LTB: One Woman's Triumph Over Adversity

By Sharon Grehan-Howes

 

It was late October, 1998. Jane McDonald left the hospital where she worked as an Oncologist and looked forward to a relaxing dinner with her family.

 

Just an ordinary day.

 

Until something extraordinary happened.

 

Halfway through the meal Jane felt an odd sensation.

 

"I felt the walls close in around me, my family was talking to me and their lips were moving but I couldn't make out  the words, only sounds. The room seemed to spin and the sound rose to intolerable levels, before I knew what was happening I was standing at the head of the table screaming "Shut up, shut up all of you!"

 

Jane's breaking point came just as her daughter finished a story about play school and her husband started to talk about his day as a statistician.

 

"I've always loved my family, but I knew there was something missing. I just didn't know what until that night at dinner. All of a sudden  I realized that my family was the most boring family alive. I couldn't believe it, I fell to pieces. I remember my husband rushed to my side, gave me an Neo-Citron and ushered me off to bed.

 

"I thought that it was an isolated incident, but it was just the start."

 

Before long Jane found even the simplest exchanges hard to bear. She was unable to visit her neighbourhood convenience store any longer because of the proprietor's insistence upon talking about the weather and

d inner with her in-laws, once tolerable, became an impossibility.

 

"My mother-in-law is interested in miniatures." Jane says simply.

 

After a few weeks, Jane found it increasingly difficult to leave the house. She found the only joy she received was in television commercials. The short punchy messages were all she could absorb. She was unable to communicate with her family any longer.

 

"My husband took me to doctor after doctor. I was diagnosed as having everything from Lyme disease to Yuppie flu. One doctor even suggested that it might be gout."

 

Frustrated, Jane sunk into a deep depression until Jane's husband found Dr. Harold Reloy "Dr. Hal" on the Internet.

 

"It was a last resort, I have to admit I did not have high hopes. His web site had a dancing stethoscope and most of the links were dead, but I was desperate."

 

 

The doctor listened to Jane's story and immediately came up with a diagnosis. She was suffering from a Low Threshold of Boredom. (LTB)

 

"At first I was stunned, you never believe it's going to happen to you. This is the kind of thing that happens to other people. After the diagnosis I went into denial."

 

Jane closed herself in her room and lost herself in the world of ad imagery. Dancing hot-dogs and talking penguins became her world. Her husband tried to pretend there was nothing wrong. He hoped Jane would just snap out of it, but as the days spread into weeks he found he could not cope.

 

As a last desperate measure, he got the family together and they staged an intervention. Jane needed help.

 

"It was awful" Jane says. "I felt humiliated. I made a deal with them: if they would just shut the hell up I would do anything."

 

Through Dr. Hal, Michael was able to find a clinic that offered treatment for LTB.

 

"The first few days were a nightmare." Jane admits.

 

The clinic focuses on toleration therapy. Dr. Hal explains, "We like to take a positive interactive prosalve tolerant adaptive co-grain approach.

 

The patient is forced to watch the complete series of the original Big Brother and are asked to come up with five interesting quotes .The patients are then forced to read Britney Spear's autobiography "My Life So Far" followed by a lecture on child rearing by Kathie Lee Gifford.

 

"We find the time period directly after Mrs. Gifford's lecture critical: it is the make or break point. Luckily we have a suicide watch."says Dr. Hal.

 

Next comes confrontation and family members are invited in for a session.

 

"That was the worst part for me." admits Jane."It was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."

 

Jane had to summon up her courage to tell her mother-in-law that her Red Rose Tea miniatures were not only uninteresting, they were also ugly and worthless, next she told her husband that statistics are only interesting if they are made up.

 

The hardest of all was telling her four year old that while playschool was probably very interesting to her it was mind numbing to anyone else. No one cared who ate who's lunch, who went poo in the cloakroom, who could fit an entire Lego door in their mouth.

 

"It was very painful" Jane continues choking back a sob as she recalls the painful experience. "But it was a relief to find out the problem was everyone else and not me. It is taking some time but the phrase I use most often now is "that does not interest me." The first time I used it on one of my patients the look of hurt that crossed their eyes wounded me, but it is a matter of survival.

 

"Sometimes an encounter with TB (terminally boring) people is unavoidable so we've learned some tips to cope. We are taught to mentally bob and style their hair while they are talking--maybe give them a flip or a bouffant perhaps few streaks. If that fails I make lists starting with the basic food groups and if I'm in really big trouble I imagine the person naked as an organ grinder with a rabid monkey."

 

"3 out of 10 people across the US and Canada suffer from LTB and 3 out of 10 people are TB." says Michael clasping his wife's hand. "I found these stats alarming. When you look at statistics you always find that there is a small..."

 

"That does not interest me." Jane interrupts, smiling warmly at the man who helped save her.

 

© 2002 Sharon Grehan-Howes