The majority of our population is asleep, everyday is the same and is on a constant loop,
like robots. I was asleep for almost my entire life, I’ve lost memory of my childhood and even of
a few years ago. Something changed though, I got a job, I was in a relationship, I was becoming
more responsible. I was almost completely happy, but still somewhat asleep. Then my
relationship of 2 years ended with me finding there was another girl involved and my problems
at home got worse. Since then I’ve felt completely out of place, like I do not understand the way
the world works, my confidence has been destroyed, and I’ve been reevaluating almost
everything I believe in. My way of coping with this has been trying to find an explanation for
this feeling of being disconnected from everyone else. I’ve been watching youtube videos on
spiritual awakenings as well as reading books like “The Empath Experience” by Sydney
Campos. However, I don’t think this feeling will ever go away.
Colloquy written by Shirley Jackson has had some sort of impact on me, it made me take
a second to really try and understand both the psychiatrist and the patient as well as the husband.
The encounter between the psychiatrist and the patient in “Colloquy” was very quick however I
believe the abruptness of the conversation gives into the reasoning for why the patient was
seeking help in the first place. For example, the text says “Mrs. Arnold, the doctor said severely,
‘I want you to get a hold of yourself, in a disoriented world like ours today, alienation from
reality frequently-”, this quote sounds to me like the psychiatrist is saying to Mrs. Arnold that
she’s not the only one, or that there’s nothing wrong with her because it’s ‘normal’. When in
reality it isn’t, when I feel detached from the rest of the world I feel like everyone is evolving
except for me, and I overjudge myself heavily because I feel so behind. If I were to reach out to a
professional and I had gotten the same response Mrs. Arnold did, I would’ve felt even more
detached and I can’t imagine how much worse it could have been for her. The psychiatrist then
tells her that when cultural patterns start to change or “disintegrate” it is normal for a person to
feel like the odd one out, but he’s saying there’s no reason for her to think she’s insane, or that
everyone else is. The story really gets to me because she’s probably feeling the detachedness I’ve
been feeling but ten times worse and when she actually tries to seek out help they make it seem
like she’s crazy.
Mrs Arnold also says “I don’t understand the way people live, it used to all be so simple.
When I was a little girl I used to live in a world where a lot of other people lived too and they all
lived together and things went along like that with no fuss. She looked at the doctor. He was
frowning again.” I can really relate to this quote a lot because I can understand what she means
when the psychiatrist is making it seem like a confusing sentence. The way I can relate to this is
because when I feel disoriented I start to think about the way the universe works, and how
everything even started. I ask questions like how has technology become so advanced? What if
I’m dreaming right now? I question everything.
This patient went out of her way to get to a Doctor that she made sure wouldn’t contact
her Husband and was really trying to find help, or a solution to how she’s feeling, and all the
psychiatrist did was cloud her judgement even more. I never understood why telling a person that
the way they are feeling is normal, because it can make them feel like they are overreacting and
that they don’t need help which can worsen their mental state. The psychiatrist in this story
seems unprofessional, a doctor should never tell a patient who’s questioning her judgement that
there’s no reason for her to think the way she is.

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