776 The Votary

This is the musing of a layperson working with too little information, in an effort to explain to herself something she needs to understand in order to handle her own feelings. An excuse. A vindication. So this is more about me than about anyone else (as is everything else in this journal, for that matter - everybody should remember that).

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I've been doing a lot of internet research on a medical matter for a friend. Along the way, I came across something interesting.

I found a syndrome in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) that got me thinking. I don't want to get specific as to what it's called, and I have to use different terms to describe it, because if you go look for it, most of what you'll find out there describes the extreme cases, and naturally, it can get pretty sensational. What I'm thinking about isn't sensational. Just interesting.

The syndrome has three levels. The case that interests me is mild, at the lowest of the three levels. There's a name for people at that lowest level. I've been trying to find a good alias, and I've decided to use "The Votary", a term that implies committment and devotion.

The way it starts, The Votary grows up in a family where there are high expectations and little affection expressed. He (it's 10 to 1 a male) feels early on that he isn't good enough, that he is a disappointment to his parents, that nothing he does meets their expectations. He craves his mother's attention and approval, he wants softness from her, but he doesn't get it. He feels inadequate.

Usually between 4 and 10 years of age, The Votary is made aware of someone who has been lamed by an illness or an accident, who uses a legbrace, wheelchair, prosthetic, or other assistance. (Most people with this syndrome are now in their 50s to 70s, and had friends or family members who contracted polio.) His parents admire and express for the impaired person the affection, admiration, and softness that he wants so badly for himself.

Sometimes the child is expected to care for and assist the impaired person, whether they want to or not. Sometimes the child wishes that he himself was impaired, so his parents would love and admire and care for him, too.

Most Votaries grow up to be sensitive, caring, thoughtful, and altruistic adults with a need to be in a loving relationship. They have a strong need to care for others. Caring for others is the highest goal. It brings them fulfillment. It makes them feel worthwhile. It might even bring them the approval they crave. (Approval from themselves? Their parents? Society? Their Diety? A justification for their life, the higher calling above personal happiness?)

They are extremely aware of and solicitous toward handicapped acquaintances, and, seeing someone limping or wearing legbraces might even cause a physiological response. This is the key definition of the lower level of the syndrome - the interest in the lameness, the fascination with the condition, the need to get close to it, to help.

That's general. Let's propose a specific instance:

Along comes a woman. A woman wearing a legbrace, suffering the pain and fatigue of Post-Polio Syndrome, let's say. An attractive recent divorcee, at the moment when The Votary is going through his own divorce. A woman who needs assistance. A Votary who needs emotional support.

There's something called the Polio Personality. People who have had polio tend to be "Type-A" personalities. A drive to succeed, to overcome, to achieve independence, a perfectionist. The diagnosis of PPS can be devastating to someone who has worked so hard all her life to be "normal" despite her handicap. She's in a hard place.

The Votary puts her on a pedestal and sees her as someone to be admired for her strength and courage in overcoming a handicap. He is impressed by the way she copes year after year with her disability and gets on with life so well despite it. He is likely to idealize her. Helping her to cope satisfies a deep need in The Votary.

Helping with the legbrace can have sexual overtones. Physically assisting her when the brace is off is very sexual. So, in theory, the sexual chemistry has a double opportunity to work. Plus, there's her need of him and dependence on him, even though she doesn't want dependence. There's a sexual tension there, too.

Women who have had polio often do not feel sexually attractive, so she may be grateful to The Votary for his sexual interest.

Powerful, eh? Match made in Heaven.

Unfortunately, the literature says that a sexual relationship between The Votary and the object of his devotion is unlikely to end happily. It's not a meeting of two people - it's a condition with needs meeting a need with conditions. Either eventually she begins to suspect that he loves her condition more than he loves her, which would be painful to her, or she falls off the pedestal and he doesn't like what he sees, or her condition changes and he no longer gets the emotional reward that was the impetus and basis of his interest.

Unfortunately, by this time, the woman is dependent on The Votary, and he feels responsible for her care, and they are stuck with each other.

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Yeah, I know someone that this might fit. My head went boing when I read the part about the child's family dynamics - it's exactly as he has described his feelings. That's what led me into reading the rest of the article. A few days ago I asked, and he confirmed that when he was seven, his parents made him visit and play with a family acquaintance of his own age, a little boy who'd had polio. (He disliked the kid.) I was floored.

It explains so many odd things he has said to me. It explains the strange almost hypnotic fascination he has for her, even though he knows there's something wrong with their relationship, something "missing". It explains his involvement with me.

(The literature says that Votaries have an unnatural ability to detect impairments anywhere in their vicinity. I often have an almost imperceptible limp, due to the dead nerves in my right ankle. Most people never notice. I wonder if that had anything to do with his initial attraction to me.)

Of course, he won't see the syndrome if it exists. He has to deny it even if it is so, if this is what's going on. If one could see it while one is in it, it would be too psychologically confusing. One could not fall into it so completely if one were aware that's what's going on. But at the same time, he knows there's something wrong. He has said he's confused.

And --- that's what's on my mind today.

I'll think about something else tomorrow.