Blackouts

A clipping titled “Psychopathologic Reaction Patterns in the Antilles Command” has bylines by three officers in the Medical or Medical Service Corps of the US Army Reserves. It discusses “striking psychopathologic reaction [patterns]” in Puerto Rican personnel of the Antilles Command (117).

Juan discusses the inclusion of “homosexuality” in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980. The amendment characterizes “ego-dystonic homosexuality” as a disorder, and Juan frames the criteria regarding “persistent distress from a sustained pattern of unwanted homosexual arousal” (118) as a trick—considering a person would struggle to view gay desire as positive if the concept is demonized. Despite lacking historical knowledge, Nene knows the effects of pathologizing gayness, given he himself was placed in a psychiatric hospital for his sexuality. Juan asks whether or not he ever thought himself “crazy,” referencing Nene’s attempted suicide. He then cites his original diagnosis in the 1950s—“Puerto Rican Syndrome” or ataques de nervios (literally, an “attack of nerves”)—which Nene initially takes to be a joke.

A clipping with the header “PATTERNS OF REACTION” discusses “Puerto Rican Syndrome,” which includes seizure-like loss of bodily control, aggressiveness, and/or “complete flaccidity.” The report from Rodriguez Army Hospital comments on the “special privileges” granted to patients who have such attacks.