Volume 6 Issue 8 August, 2016
Unmarried Female Patient!
I was a senior resident then .I was eager to learn & teach. There was an unusual patient. She was 28 yr. old, unmarried. She was brought with history of harassing a married man. She claimed that they were in a relationship and later he abandoned her for another lady. She frequently visited his house and was compelling him to marry her. Owing to the social embarrassment caused by her behavior, her family had brought her for Psychiatric evaluation. With lot of enthusiasm to work up an unusual case & teach the students, I had multiple interviews with her. I was attempting to elicit a borderline personality history.
Within next few weeks, I joined a medical college. To my surprise, this patient followed me to the new hospital and insisted on seeing me. Also she started expressing romantic feelings towards me. My efforts to send her back to the previous institute were in vain. Our psychologist, other doctors and even group ‘D’ staff, who tried to convince her to leave me alone & go back, failed. She was insisting that I loved her.
She started coming more frequently to OPD & would wait for me for long hours. Some days, I had to escape from OPD through back door. Later she traced my phone number and started calling me at home. My wife’s counselling also was futile. She would call my number 20- 25 times till midnight. Those days, I had developed phobia for phone ringtone. One day while I was starting my bike, she suddenly came & snatched my bike key & went away. I walked back
home helplessly. Next day she came back and returned the keys. I had tried to explore her personality and had become a victim of her delusion of love. Since then, I learnt a lesson to be very cautious with unmarried female patients and especially those with personality disorders.
Dr. Prashanth. N. R, Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry, Bangalore Medical College & Research Institute, Bengaluru. Email: nrudraprashanth@yahoo.co.in
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