The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 163ERASED RIGHTS, INVISIBLE DISEASES163other parts of the body. I treated two erased people who had their legs amputatedas a result of narrowed veins. We also saw stomach diseases and serious disruptionsof the central nervous system. In addition, many erased people who come to us havepsychological problems, ranging from various forms of psychosis to depression, whilesome of them are serious psychiatric patients. (Lipovec Čebron 2007a, 64–65)1.1.1 Psychological problems – “nerves,” “pitiespija” and “natempiranost”Given the high prevalence of psychological problems among the erasedpeople, it seems appropriate to devote more attention to this issue. Although inthe table above psychological problems are roughly divided between the categoriesof chronic anxiety and chronic depression, erased people’s descriptionsmainly elude standard nomenclature. In describing serious psychological distress,some resorted to metaphors involving financial terminology, e.g., “it [theerasure] had such an effect on him that he went psychologically … bankrupt”(Begeš, 89), or the film industry, e.g. “počil mu je film” (Zehrudin, 45), which literallytranslates as “his film got broken,” meaning “he’s come unglued.”It therefore seems that their narrations about psychological problems requirea different categorization, one that takes into account the illness perspective,which only rarely overlaps with the psychiatric diagnosis. The reason for thislies partly in the fact that only 3 of 23 persons altogether who talked about theirpsychological problems received professional help, and even these predominantlyused the illness-type description rather than referring to the official diagnosis.Some resorted to modified medical terms. An erased person, for example,used the coinage “pitiespija” (derived from the abbreviation PTSP, which is thelocal rendering of the English PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).B: Actually, the man was outright frightened. If he went to a shrink, he wouldprobably diagnose “pitiespija.”S: Paranoia?B: Not paranoia, pitiespija. It is a – a post traumatic syndrome. Because he experiencedgreat traumas. (Begeš, 89)One complaint emphasized by erased people is what they call “nerves” or“nervousness.” This widespread popular notion of distress is present in variouscultures, but it also varies greatly from one environment to the next, so it can beexplained only within the specific social context in which it appears. Frequently,the notion of (upset) “nerves” comprises physiological, psychological and socialexperiences, with the term “nervousness” denoting either a personal characte -ristic or a person’s emotional, physical or social reaction to a specific event (Helman2007, 301–2). Erased people frequently mentioned “nervousness” whendescribing their response to the erasure. The extracts below from the interviewswith Megajver, Tomislav, I., Indira and Ismeta (all pseudonyms) illustrate this: