Kara Popps, MD.

Patient: Young women, a certain Johns wife.

Diagnosis: Diogenes Syndrome
Treatment: Intrapersonal Rehab

To the young man John,

I first and foremost apologize for my informal addressing, for your dear wife is too
estranged to share with me both her name, and your shared last name.
I started her prognosis on the grounds of her confinement in the colonial mansion, but
more specifically the room that is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow
(Gilman, 1-2). I have noticed your wifes passion for this wallpaper as the obsessive symptom of
Diogenes Syndromea disease of the mind often manifested within those who are alienated
and experiencing stress, such as your wifes current isolation and apparent separation from dear
baby it makes me [her] so nervous (Gilman, 2).
To further explain the nature of her condition, Diogenes Syndrome often causes a
deformed perception of reality, which I have come to understand as a long time condition of your
wifei.e. the way she frequently fancies seeing things (Gilman, 3). By isolating her in a room
with such grand possibilities for imagination, you have only furthered her case. Not only is your
wifes mind deceiving her to her outside world, but she has begun to imagine the walls of her
room to have bulbous eyes and breaths of pattern (Gilman, 3). The distorted reality she is
experiencing has turned into her obsession, and even possessive thoughts, of the walls.
Diogenes Syndrome is often characterized by a patients mental ownership of inanimate
objectssuch as your wifes disbelief and anger that you were looking at the paper and your
sister even having a hand on it once (Gilman, 5). Due to your infrequent interaction with her,
your wife has apparently sought personal contact with the wallshe claims to creep along the
baseboards in the smooch, and often associates her shadow with another woman behind the
pattern that shakes the wall paperreiterating her living impersonation of her room (Gilman,
4-6).
In my opinion, most of what makes us human is our ability to interact with one another.
The lonely life you have sentenced your wife to by shutting her away in this god forbidden room,
as well as taking her away from her precious child, is the first of offenses you have caused. I am
inclined to believe the endless phosphates and phosphitesand tonics you prescribe are only
adding to her exponentially increasing stress levels (Gilman, 1). While I digress the main cause
of her illness is not entirely devoted to your neglectful behavior, and it likely started in her
implied childhood isolation with the winks and knobs of our big, old, bureau (Gilman, 3), you
most likely have been the cause of such accelerated symptoms normally seen in patients much
older than herself.
For this reason, I do not prescribe any pill, injection, or therapybut human connection. If your
wife fancies seeing something, then take her to see it. If she believes there is a woman behind the
wallpaper, take it down and show her there isnt. You must be her guiding footsteps through her
recovery; you must be her tie to reality and show her what reality is once more. I would like you
to begin with reintroducing her to her child, slowly and day by day. Let her develop bond with
her infant instead of a pulsating yellow wall. In due time, take your wife to the park to see
people walking the numerous paths just like her vision wants to see (Gilman, 3). Make

Kara Popps, MD
Patient: Young women, a certain Johns wife.
Diagnosis: Diogenes Syndrome
Treatment: Intrapersonal Rehab

sure she stays active; give her small tasks that force her mind to change gears often in an effort to
break her tendency to latch onto a subject. Most importantly, get her out of that damn room.
I hope youll take my professional opinion into serious consideration, Id hate to see this
sweet, though quickly fading, young woman deteriorate any further mentally.