Hysterical Blindness

Conversion disorder.

When you can’t walk or balance very well and can’t make your way through the real world, but there’s no neurological or physiological explanation. When you can’t hear real sounds, but your ears aren’t broken. When you can’t see real images, but your eyes and retinal theater are fine.

Doctors cannot find a cause.

Conversion disorder has existed forever under different names. ‘Hysterical blindness’ is an archaic expression of it with echoes of insanity. Times have changed because nowadays medical science recognizes that this condition is not a mental illness but a neutral syndrome without a chemical or physical cause. Something is happening but you don’t know what it is.

Conversion disorder.

It also appears to have metastasized from an individual affliction to a collective one in 21st century America.

But what do I know?

A neighbor asked me about getting a Covid vaccine. Before I could respond, she said, “I’m not getting it—ever. I know so many people that got deathly sick after they got it, almost died.” A friend of a friend’s father got a shot and fell into a deep coma for five months, she reported. A distant relative in Colorado got one and collapsed from a heart attack.

A plumber working on my kitchen sink overheard a news report on my tv about angry people breaking windows and climbing through the glass into Congress. He walked over to watch the ubiquitous footage of men and women in red hats prowl the halls of Congress. “Those people,” he said, “They’re true patriots. They’re going to save this country.”

Conversion disorder. Hysterical blindness. Paranoia strikes deep.