“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” This is a scene in the classic Matrix movie. Since the first time I watched it, I tell myself I will definitely choose the red pill. Yes, the truth, why would anybody not pick the same. I don’t want to live in a computer simulation.

Until recently, when I was reading Irvin Yalom’s story “Love’s Executioner”, for the first time, I’m not so sure anymore. A bit about the background here. Irvin Yalom is a renowned pychotherapist by his existential approach, i.e. dealing with the ultimate concerns such as death, loneliness, freedom, and meaninglessness. He’s also a great writer. Love’s Executioner is one of his books on some of his really interesting therapy cases.

In that particular story, the patient Thelma is an old lady in her seventies, having severe depression symptoms, and exhibiting obsessive behaviors. She said she had helplessly fallen in love with her old therapist Matthew ten years ago. But after a brief period of “love”, Matthew left her and cut her off. Since that moment, Thelma had been living in the void, and had progressively become more depressed. In her own words “I have lived for 27 days”. After that she was obsessed of getting Matthew’s attention in order to validate the realness of the 27 days, so as to further validate her life experience on earth. To meet her need, she said it could be as simple as a coffee meeting every month with Matthew. But Matthew’s complete non-response was literally killing her.

Well, Matthew obviously crossed the line, but leaving Thelma suffering alone towards suicide for that many years sounds cruel. Over the years, Thelma had seen numerous therapists, and Irvin was her last hope. Her sessions with Irvin was stagnating. In the end, Irvin’s last resort was to organize a three way session with Matthew. During that session, it was revealed to Irvin that Matthew at the time was working out his own psychosis. Earlier, he went to India for some intense spiritual training, but unfortunately collapsed mentally and was hospitalized. Right out of his hospitalization, he bumped into Thelma while still not in his clear mind. He tried to give Thelma anything she wanted, including love and sex, to become oneness. But that became too overwhelming, and more than what Matthew could afford, so he withdrew. It’s clear all of this experience is not a romantic love, and all had been explained to Thelma many times. Apparently Thelma couldn’t accept it. After the confrontation with reality during the three way session, her condition became worse, and she decided to stop the therapy sessions altogether. In her own words “Too much medicine kills the patient”.

This is obviously not a successful clinical case. But a few weeks later, Thelma contacted Irvin again, and her condition became dramatically better because Matthew agreed to meet her once a month for coffee. “What?!”, I can image the look on Irvin’s face when he received that call. Ironically, this case was reported hugely successful by measure of patient’s symptoms, if not the most successful case in the academic study Irvin was conducting.

Here’s one point from the story: what if facing reality is so painful that it rips all pleasure and meaning from one’s life, and sends one into obliteration. While illusion may it be, provides hope and joy to one’s life, especially for those in their final days. Is reality still that important? To be clear, Thelma was on a self destruction path if Irvin didn’t pull her back, and I didn’t mean being a psychic is anything worth celebrating. It’s the result of the therapy that’s thought provoking. Thelma did become much better symptom wise, but psychologically sicker at the same time.

When I was pondering the choice between red pill and blue pill, I was a teenager, and I’m still young. Facing reality may be painful temporarily, but that may give me an opportunity for real experience for the rest of my life. But if I were Thelma in the case above, I’m not sure if I could summon the courage to swallow the red pill, especially when the blue pill is so readily available. I know that sounds coward and shameful, but we are not all heros. Most of us are normal humans beings. Our living on the earth is a collection of experiences. What’s wrong with accepting our cowardliness as basic self defense against existential crisis, especially in severe adverse circumstances?

If both red and blue pills are available to pick, I think picking the red pill is more aligned with our general value system, and I think choosing reality also pays huge respect to the very being of a human. But what about the blue pill for illusion? During the last moments of life, if that gives us more comfort and assurance, and help us defend ourselves against the terror of death, would that still be a poor choice? And how exactly is Thelma’s believe of her false love experience different from the more commonly accepted afterlife promises? I don’t have the answers, not sure if I ever will. I’m really curious if Irvin ever had more reflections on this case.