So You Like to Think Your *bleep* Don’t Stink…
In college, my best friend had a roommate who was about as vain as a varicose. She was a model, and because she was compared once to Laeticia Casta, she really milked that compliment and acted like she was the shit. And she was the shit, literally. She suffered from colitis. I didn’t know what colitis was until I met this girl.
I also didn’t like her very much because she could be such an unlikable snob! She’d made some comment about this great find I had — a pinkish/purple suede trench with a rabbit fur detachable collar — and how it wasn’t cool because I got it off of the discount rack!
My friend who was pre-med at the time informed me about a link between colitis and narcissism, and this has always intrigued me. I found this to be very interesting. That Miss Almost Laeticia was so full of herself that she couldn’t even make it to the bathroom to poop. What an unfortunate medical condition.
I was reading “Psychogenesis and Psychotherapy of Ulcerative Colitis” by J. Groen, MD, and this doctor points out the following that he observed in his patients suffering from this condition:
1.) Well developed intellect.
2.) Exaggerated carefulness and neatness. (I remember her being really anal about cleaning up after parties.)
3.) Sensitive, and sometimes oversensitive.
4.) Narcissism is always present, sometimes even under false modesty.
5.) Egocentric.
6.) Ambitious to a limited degree.
7.) Fearful and cowardly.
8.) “they gossip and complain about who they hate but do not fight them”
9.) Great need for love, sympathy, and affection.
10.) Exagerrated, infantile conception of love.
11.) Male cases had an abnormal affection for their mother
12.) At first these patients are difficult to talk to.
Look at number 8! It sounded like an an article written by someone who got badly burned by a person with colitis, much like this article I read about Borderline Personality Disorder. It was in Psychology Today. The doctor wrote about an affair he had with a BPD patient who just downed a charcoal shake after an overdose. It sounded very bitter and as if he was writing the article to spite her.
The colitis article was also written in 1947. I am interested in reading more recent case studies. While I know that all people who have colitis aren’t egomaniacal clean freaks, I would like to explore the other side of that — do people who are full of themselves have problems with their bowels?
