Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I keep waking up in the night after hearing loud noises, but my wife (asleep beside me) hears nothing. Could this be the so-called “Exploding Head Syndrome” that I heard about on television, or do you think it’s just a common-or-garden nightmare?

Ted, Bath

Unless you’ve got a pet hamster who’s throwing bricks out of his cage in the middle of the night, it seems unlikely that there’d be enough loud noises to make you wake up on such a regular basis. On the other hand, it’s plausible that your wife could be sleeping through whatever it is that’s disturbing you. My own wife sleeps like she’s been dead twenty-five years. A Boeing 747 full of atomic bombs could crash into our back garden, and she’d be none the wiser the next morning. By the sound of it, though, this is probably all in your own mind. As for “exploding head syndrome”… I’ve had a few hangovers that might fit that description, but in your case it’s more likely to be a bad case of anxiety dreams. Try some relaxation techniques before bed, and let me know how it goes.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

After all the tragic shootings in America, I’m curious if you think it’s possible to tell in advance that a mentally ill person is going to “snap,” or if it’s out of anyone’s control?

Jake, Los Angeles

To me, it’s not a question of being able to tell when someone’s gonna snap, it’s the fact that it’s ridiculously easy for a crazy person to get hold of a gun in America. I mean, I should know: I’m a complete nutjob, and I own several guns. All I had to do was show the guy in the shop my ID and wait a few weeks. In England, on the other hand, a copper had to come over to my house and interview me before they’d let me keep a firearm. I’ve got nothing against guns in general, but if the government makes people take a test before they can drive a car, why not have the same kind of rule for when you buy a Glock? They say it ain’t guns that kill people, it’s people who kill people… but it seems to me like it would be a lot fucking harder for a lunatic to become a mass-murderer if he had to use an old frying pan instead of a semi-automatic.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

My 19-year-old son has started to suffer from panic attacks, usually during exams, job interviews, that kind of thing. Next week he has his driving test (third attempt) and I’m wondering, is there’s anything safe I can give him to calm him down?

Janet, Surrey

If it makes you feel any better, it took me 19 attempts to pass my driving test—and I only finally became legal in October 2009. Not that it ever stopped me driving, mind you: if anyone ever asked me if I had a licence, I’d just say, “Oh yes”… which was sort of true: I had a TV licence. About the nerves, though: I know exactly how your son feels. I used to get so intimidated by the examiner, I’d have a few of pints before getting in the car. But then I’d forget basic things, like which side of road to drive on. Eventually I went to my GP and asked him for some pills to chill me out, so he wrote me a prescription for a sedative. The box said, “WARNING: DO NOT MIX WITH ALCOHOL”—so to be safe, I smoked half a brick of Afghan hash instead. The good news: when I got into the car, I didn’t feel intimidated at all. The bad news: when I stopped for a red light, I nodded off. So to answer your question: yes, there are (legal) drugs your son can take—ask your GP. But nerves are better than being too relaxed for your own good.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

You often talk about “vibes” and “energy,” so it’s clear that you feel things that other people don’t… do you think people can develop intuition, or are they just born that way?

Sharon, Massachusetts

Most of the time it’s just common sense. I remember when Princess Diana was still alive, for example. I woke up one morning and said to Tony, my personal assistant, “You know what, something bad’s gonna happen to her.” And sure enough, a few days or weeks later, she was dead. It was terribly sad. Tony said me to later, “Whatever you do, Ozzy, don’t have any premonitions about me.” But the fact is, if someone’s living their life at 300mph, you don’t have to be a clairvoyant to see what’s coming. I think some people have better intuition than others, but there ain’t anything magical about it.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I recently had to speak in public, and I became so nervous my vision became blurred. Is this “hysterical blindness”?

Nicola, Cheshire

Panic attacks can do all kinds of weird things to you—I know, ’cos I’ve suffered from stage fright all my life. I went to see my GP about it once and he told me, “Trying getting a brown paper bag and blowing into it.” I said to him, “Apart from filling a bag with air, what the fuck is that gonna do?” He didn’t take too kindly to that. I see a therapist now to treat my anxiety—it’s been doing me a lot of good—although anything to do with your sight is so important, it might also be worth seeing an eye doctor. The problem is that your symptoms probably only appear when you’re nervous. So you might have to invite an audience and recite some Shakespeare while he checks you out.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

Every time I leave the house, I have to go back two or three times to re-check that the door is locked, or that the oven isn’t on, or that the burglar alarm is set. What’s wrong with me?

Karen, Surrey

A lot of people would tell you that you’re “a bit OCD”—in other words, that you’ve got obsessive compulsive disorder. To be honest with you, though, I think that might be over-egging it. Everyone seems to have OCD these days. But worrying about leaving the door open is normal, especially if you have bad short-term memory, like I do. I mean, no-one wants to come home and find a homeless bloke with his trousers down, taking a shit on the coffee table. But the reality is, even if you did leave the door open, nothing bad would probably happen. You’re over-thinking things. It happened to me the other night: I was home alone, and I spent the entire time crapping myself over every little rustle and creak. Then when Sharon came back early without any warning, I just about dived under the bed for my sniper rifle. It’s a good job I was too groggy to go any faster— shooting the missus would have earned me a right old bollocking.

DR. OZZY’S AMAZING MEDICAL MISCELLANY

Old-Fashioned Treatments… to Avoid

¦ Insulin-Coma. Back in the day, some bright spark thought that if they shot you up with enough insulin to put you into a coma, you’d wake up cured from drug addiction and/or schizophrenia. It worked brilliantly—apart from one small problem: the “waking up” bit. A lot of people didn’t.

¦ Trepanation. If you complained about “personal demons” in the Middle Ages, they’d strap you to a table while some fat, dribbling peasant wearing a potato sack went at your skull with a hammer and chisel. The idea was to make a big enough hole to “let the demons out.” Unfortunately, more often than not, half your brains came out with ’em.

¦ Hydrotherapy. It wasn’t a good idea to suffer from hyperactivity disorder, or any kind of disorder, in Victorian times. You’d end up locked up in the loony bin, chained to a wall, and blasted in the face with a fireman’s hose—until you “calmed down.” A lot of times you calmed down so much you didn’t have a pulse any more.