One of the posters on IMDb said this was explained in one of the books but I haven't read the books yet. Anyone in here know? "Milk" always equates to "mother" in the shrink's office so I always figured it was a cold-hearted mama thing. That theory was reinforced for me with the mother's character appearing briefly in Mr Monk and Little Monk. Anyone know for sure?

If I recall correctly, it was addressed as a bodily fluid in a glass, without any reference to a mother. (But I could be wrong -- it's been a while)

Now I always thought Monk was 'closer' to his mother, especially when he talked in "Big Game" about the trophies, and how she always came to his meets even when she was dying. But I guess she was rather rigid and kept at arm's length, and Adrian didn't think it possible to make her proud. Really tragic how Adrian and Ambrose grew up. (Oh yeah, fiction...right...)

I think the milk thing does have to do with it being a bodily fluid. Thinking of it like that, it is kinda gross. Animal bodily fluid.

Yes, I don`t think Monk can deal with drinking something from a cow`s utter. LOL

Yea ...think you guys are right on the body fluid thing...or that he has a bad memory of being breast fed as an infant?? You know he did remember his birth...weird huh??

I think that was back in an era when most babies in the US were bottle fed formula.

I don't know. It still doesn't make sense to me. I don't think his mother would have breast fed him--and a lot of mothers were doing that back then--no WIC programs then and mostly people with money were bottle feeding--formula's expensive. They showed her character as concerned and somewhat motherly but she was cold and sanitary. Remember when little Monk tried to hug her outside the school? I don't think that's a breast feeder.

Also, Monk's not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He'll eat what is basically a body but not milk, a bodily fluid?

Did anyone read the book that this issue was brought up in? Do you remember the title?

I've come to the conclusion that we Monkophiles need the Monk books in an online and searchable format.

But I did find it. It's in "Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu" (near the end of chapter 4: page 50 in my paperback version) Monk does indeed refer to it as a bodily fluid in a glass, and remarks that only a twisted person would drink it. As he then refers to it as unnatural, Natalie and an additional character named Sparrow try to convince him of the contrary, Sparrow by reminding Monk that breasts have a function, and Natalie by saying that she breast-fed Julie. As Monk looks away in embarrassment, Natalie even suggests that Monk may have been breast-fed, which he firmly denies with the sort of funny one-liner, "I don't drink my own bodily fluids--why would I drink someone else's?" The conversation ends with Sparrow flashing Monk and revealing her nipple piercing. (Weren't we just talking about that?)

I don't know. I wouldn't read too much into the mother thing in Monk's fear of milk. The whole thing about phobias is that they are irrational fears, and really don't need any rationalizing reason behind them. The root cause was most likely not some deep psychological analysis, but rather a bunch of writers sitting in a room, and one of them saying, "Hey, what if we made him afraid of milk, wouldn't that be funny?" And then the next guy suggests glaciers. What do glaciers represent?

My grandmother bottlefed all of her children who were born during close to the same time as Monk, but not because she was a very distant or uncaring mom. She is extremely OCD, I think every bit as OCD as Monk himself. But I don't believe it was sanitary reasons. During that time, a lot of moms were told that bottle feeding was actually better and healthier for the babies because the formula was well balanced and they were told that this way, they knew that their babies were getting the right amounts of everything they needed, and nothing that they didn't need, like medications that might cross over into the mother's milk. Plus, she could tell exactly how much they were actually drinking simply by looking at the bottle, and if she was nursing, she'd have no idea how much they were actually taking in and if her milk was providing them with enough of what they needed. It was her desire to make sure that they had exactly what they needed to be as healthy as possible that was behind it. And I can understand the concern about what might be in the milk and whether or not the baby is getting enough of all the vitamins they need. When I was nursing my children, I ate the most carefully balanced diet I have ever had at any other point in my life, eating things I didn't even like to try to ensure that they got what they needed, and when I came down with pneumonia when my daughter was a baby, the doctors promised me that the medications I was taking wouldn't cross over into my milk and that even if they did, it wouldn't hurt her, but I still expressed the milk and poured it out while she got formula until I was off of all medications and they had enough time to clear my system.

As for the milk as a bodily fluid as opposed to meat as a body thing, we see things like cows and goats being milked all the time on TV, movies, and books, and the milk coming out of the udder looks, as far as we can see, exactly like the milk that comes from the grocery store. We know that it goes through pasteurization and everything in between, but it still looks to us like it's unchanged. If we were actually there and could get a good look at what's in the pail or the milking machine before the pasteurization, or see it after the milk has seperated a bit or something, we could see that the consistancy is different or see other subtle differences in it, but that still might not be enough.

However, we don't often see the animals being butchered and the carcasses being cleaned or processed, so there is a big disconnect in our minds between a living animal and a package of hamburger meat or chicken legs in the grocery store. They don't even call it the same thing after it's been slaughtered and processed, in many cases. Cows are no longer cows, they're called beef, steaks, hamburgers, ect. Pigs are pork. We aren't as careful about what we call poultry and fish after the fact, and some people who identify as vegetarians will eat fish and poultry, they aren't vegans, but another variety of vegetarian whose designation I can't remember now, so I guess they don't bother many of us as much.

So anyway, the resemblance between meat as we see it in the grocery store and the animal it came from isn't so strong that we can't squint our eyes a bit and pretend in some part of our brain that it's not the same thing, and we don't often see the process of how we get the meat (slaughter, cleaning, butchering, ect). We see animals being milked all the time, even on children's shows, and we are reminded all the time that milk comes from cows (or goats) and the milk that we see on TV coming directly from the udder doesn't look very different from what we see in the grocery store, so it doesn't allow for that disconnect in out minds. It's called milk before and after pasteurization. Maybe that is why he can eat the body but can't bring himself to drink the bodily fluid. To him, it might seem very similar to drinking blood.

Ack. lol. It also does sound like he wasn't breast-fed though, but yeah--bodily fluid. Guess I gotta start reading the books. Wonder why they haven't brought it up in the TV series yet, accept that he's afraid of milk.

Now I'm thinking about that standup who used to do the milk joke--I think it was David Brenner but I'm not sure now. He said the bravest man who ever lived was the one who first drank milk. He was standing in a field with some other guy and pointed to the udders hanging down underneath a cow and says "See that? I'm going to squeeze one of them and whatever comes out, I'm gonna drink it!" I laughed so hard, I nearly peed myself. rofl

I've never been a big fan of milk and the only way I would drink it was if it was ICE cold. I always had to have my glass in the freezer awhile before I would pour milk into it. After I found out why Monk wouldn't drink milk, I am embarrased to say that I haven't had any since. Everytime I see milk, I think "body fluid."
Although I don't have a problem with Ice Cream!

That brings up a good point--didn't I see a monkisode where he was eating cheese?

Cheese?...he ate pizza with his 'friend' Hal. Maybe he's only afraid of it when its still a 'fluid' as opposed to a solid.

I found it more remarkable that he ate pizza when he was allergic to tomatoes, which we learned in "Asylum."

That's true...maybe he ate the pizza like he 'ate' the nachos in Goes To The Office.

I learn something new everyday!!

My brother refuses to eat raw carrots (like the sticks), but he will occasionally eat cooked carrots. Weird, huh?

Coulda swore I saw an episode where he was eating what looked like cheddar cheese cut in even squares with a toothpick in each piece. I'll have to go through the episodes in my DVR. I don't remember the pizza episode--or rather seeing him eat any of it but the cheddar cheese episode, I do remember that.

That was Billionaire Mugger. He was at his desk looking at his files on Trudy's case and then looked at her picture and said something like "How was your day?"

We see him eating cheese cut into little cubes in Billionaire Mugger. There was pizza in Makes a Friend, but we don't see him eating any of it. I assumed that he didn't eat any of the pizza because there was no evidence that he did, the pizza only had a couple of slices missing, and if I remember right, was turned more toward Hal than Adrian. The crumbs were all on Hal's end of the table, but then you wouldn't expect there to be any crumbs or anything if Adrian had eaten any of the pizza.

Hmm. So he has no problem with milk used in making other foods? It's still a bodily fluid. That's got me scratching my head. He just won't drink it from a glass when it's in its original liquid form? When it's still in "mama" form? I have to say, I'm still leaning toward the whole "cold hearted mama" thing. I mean, Monk still knows there's milk in these other things he's eating. As an ingredient in cooking and baking, it's a little difficult to find things without any milk in them if you think about it. Ice cream and butter have to come off your list right away. It's a staple and it's used in a lot of things. We know the father wasn't all germaphobic or a neatnic or a perfectionist--that seems to have been his mother, and a mother who won't hug her own child? Oooh.

I remember the cheese cubes and thought that it was odd too.

I also thought it odd that in a couple of episodes he has eggs like in Friend and Game show I think. If he doesn't drink milk because it comes out of a cow why would he eat eggs that come out of a chicken?

Isn't it true that when you are phobic like Adrian is, some things bother you and others you can tolerate. I think we see him eating eggs (at least in the novels he does) and cheese squares or cubes - its a very neat food after all. I think we are trying to apply more logic to it than might actually exsist in an OCD person.
I can't stand seeing him use harsh cleaners or washing so much because that bothers me. I keep wondering if he isn't removing his own tooth enamel, drying out his skin, and leaving all sorts of toxic chemicals on every surface of his home.
Just a thought...

I don't think that his mother was awful, I think it was pretty obvious that she loved and cared about him in the only scene we've ever seen her in, she was very worried about leaving him at school. I also look at it like this, she was the parent that was there, she stuck around, even though raising kids alone is hard. Jack abandoned them, but sometimes it seems like people are blaming her for problems that Adrian has and comparing her to Jack and somehow, in these comparisons they seem to feel like Jack was the better parent. To be a parent, you have to be there, otherwise, you are nothing but a cell donor. Apparently, before Jack left, she was a different person, Adrian said after he left, she never laughed again. I think she was still a good person and a far, far better parent than Jack was after he left, but I think we were supposed to draw a parallel between Adrian and his mom, there- it's been said that after Trudy died, laughter was a very, very rare thing for Adrian, to the point that it almost never happened, and Adrian doesn't like to hug or touch or be hugged and touched by people, even people he cares a lot about. Somehow, that doesn't make him a bad person, it just makes him a sad person who was greatly damaged by the loss of someone he loved deeply. Imagine how damaged he would have been if, instead of dying, Trudy had *chosen* not to be with him anymore and had left him instead? Or if they had had children together and she just left Adrian and their kids one day with no explanation. It would have probably been even more devastating, to think that she had a choice and she chose to leave, i imagine it would hurt even more, that he would think that she just couldn't bear to be around him or their children anymore, that he was so unlikable or unlovable and distastful to her that she couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye or anything. Jack had a choice, he wasn't killed, he just ran away. Jack was the awful one in that scenario as far as parents go. I don't think he did anything for Adrian and Ambrose, he certainly didn't do anything to help their self esteem. He contributed nothing, or almost nothing positive to their upbringing and any success they had as adults and as people, I think, was in spite of Jack rather than because of anything he did or offered them.

Jack was not the 'good parent', the good parent was the one who was brave enough to stick around and do the best that they could to be a parent, even though she had to do it alone.

Sorry, I've just seen a lot of people put her down and even blame her for Adrian and Ambrose's problems, and quite a few people who have expressed opinions that Jack was somehow a better parent and if he had been there throughout their childhood that maybe they would have turned out different, but the thing is, he would have had to have been there, and he wasn't. And I kind of like the way they did turn out, because they are both very intelligent, sweet, caring men who don't abandon or drop people. They certainly didn't get that from dad. If there was some link between Adrian's fear of milk and the way his mom was, and the fear of mild was all that came of it, then I'd say that is a lot better than possibly he and Ambrose thinking it's okay to give up on people and leave your family when you get restless if Jack had been around even longer.

It's difficult not to draw parallels between Adrian and his mother but they're not on equal ground there--the mother would be the role model and Adrian, as a child, would be the benefactor of her example. The father was gone at that point I think--I can't remember at what age they said Jack left. I think that scene was to show where he got the whole germaphobic, steril, distant thing. She's just not a warm person. I never said she didn't love him. She was, in my opinion, cold and distant. I'd never presume to say she didn't love her son.

Yes they said she wasn't the same person after Jack left, but she had to have the seeds of certain qualities in her all along that were just amplified at what was a traumatic event, similar to what happened to Monk's OCD when Trudy was killed--preexisting qualities that were amplified. Children don't arrive in the world as complete personalities with their own sets of quirks. The quirks are learned, and for that, you go back to the parent(s) or guardians. He is his mother's son. It's not that she's bad. But she taught him what she taught him by being who she is.

If you think about not only all the things cooked and baked that have milk as an ingredient, but also all the things that milk is a major component of that are also main ingredients of things cooked and baked: cheese--millions of cheeses, butter, sour cream, yogurt, every single cream sauce on the planet--and it's a bodily fluid in all of those things. It's just very difficult to completely eliminate milk from a diet--even vegans stuggle to get all the milk out of everything. You can only do just so much with soy milk. He only seems to have a problem with milk when it's in a glass--when it's still liquid before anything's been done with it.

The bodily fluid argument was sounding pretty good until I realized I can only go just so far with it. Not only does cheese have that bodily fluid in it, but some varieties have live cultures in them just like yogurt. Sorry folks, I know I'm hard-headed but I think it's a mama thing. I wish they'd go into it on the TV show. As we all know, the books can stray--they take liberties apart from the shows they're based on. And even while saying it's a bodily fluid, the book gets into breast feeding, according to one of the posts above. They're kind of alluding to both there.

I'd love to see Hector as Adrian's new shrink getting into the whole milk thing very early on. It's such an odd phobia. Call me bullheaded but if the dude eats cheese, I gotta think it's a mama thing.

As many of you know, I'm married to a former farmer, and live on a farm. When my daughter was around age six, we went to my father-in-law's farm, where he and my hubby were butchering chickens. Hubby had pulled the truck into the drive so that they were behind it, and then sent my daughter into the house. What we didn't remember was that the house sat up far enough on it's foundation, that she could look out the window, over the top of the car, and watch the headless chickens running around. I walked into the house, in time to see her crying her heart out about the poor, beautiful chickens. She did not eat it for several years after that.
However, after the third year of raising calves for butchering, and sheep for carcass judging at the fairs, she was whole-heartedly eating lamb and beef. Lemme tell ya---sheep do not stay in the fluffy, cute little lamby stage. We had one brood ewe who weighed 120 pounds, and was mean. She'd butt me all over the barn when I went to inoculate her. She outweighed me by ten pounds, and stood 4'6" at the head. I felt like a soccer ball when I got near her.. Daughter fell once trying to get this ewe into a trailer to take to a show---the ewe jumped on her back.
BTW---we called the ewe BOB--short for Big Old B***ch. I cried when we sold our flock---I'd raised some of our brood ewes from two hours old on a bottle in my kitchen--but I laughed and counted the $$ when BOB left.

Meme

He did not learn to be germaphobic from his mother, OCD behaviors are not learned. When you have a child and a parent that are both OCD, most often, the child and the parent have different compulsions, different obsessions and different phobias. She might have contributed in a genetic sense, but that is the only way.

And she did not teach him to be emotionally distant or to not like being touched or hugged, either. At the age of thirteen, he still wanted to hug her. He was able to have a physically close relationship with Trudy (Little Monk). He did still shake hands up until Trudy was killed (Employee of the Month). If he did learn that from her, then it took at least three years after her death for the lesson to finally take hold. Jack left in ‘67 when Adrian was eight years old. His mother died in ‘94 (stated in Three Pies). Trudy died in ‘97. Joe Christy said that when he was Adrian’s partner on the force, Adrian was still shaking hands. Leland said in the Pilot that he took Adrian’s badge in ‘98 (pilot took place in Dec. 2001). He had OCD, but his mother didn’t teach him to have it, and it wasn’t out of control until ‘97 or ‘98, three to four years after she died.

So I’m sticking with it not being a ‘mama thing’ but being because once milk has been made into cheese or butter or cooked into something, it’s been processed enough that it no longer even resembles a bodily fluid, no more than a pork chop looks like a slaughtered pig. When you process and cook meat, the blood is gone or at least no longer looks like blood, and the germs have been killed in the cooking process. He wouldn’t eat meat that doesn’t look like it’s been cooked long enough, maybe cheese seems like it has been processed and ‘cooked’ long enough that to him, it’s okay. I wouldn’t drink blood from a glass, but I cook meat all the time that has some blood still in it before it’s cooked and it doesn’t bother me. I imagine that to him, milk is very similar to that.

I can accept that I’m not changing your mind as long as you can accept that you aren’t changing mine.

Meme, I had to laugh when I read why you called that ewe BOB, because my daughter had a comet goldfish that I called BOB for a similar reason. In my case it stood for Big Orange B*st*rd! I bought some smaller fish to put in the tank with BOB, and as soon as they hit the water, with my easily upset son watching, BOB opened his big mouh and swallowed one of them whole and I played hell trying to get the other three out of there before he could catch and eat them. And the lady at the fish store promised me when I bought them that they were big enough they would be safe and she didn't think a goldfish would be able to or would want to eat them anyway. She ended up refunding my money for all four, even the one BOB ate.

But I felt so bad for your daughter, with the chickens running around headless, that would traumatise me as an adult! And I like to fish, and I like to eat fish, but if I have to clean the fish, I can't eat them. It sounds to me like she got used to the idea of animals being slaughtered after a while, which sort of goes with what I was saying. We aren't accustomed to seeing that so when we first see it, most of us would have some trouble eating the meat, at least for a while, and some would never want to eat meat again.

Oh I can accept that--we're having a really good discussion in here, if you ask me.

Information at the Mayo clinic website suggests OCD has both neurological and psychological causes but they don't know yet what causes it, not definitively. Here's what they say:



Causes
What causes obsessive-compulsive disorder isn't fully understood. Main theories include:

Biology. Some researchers believe OCD is a result of changes in your body's own natural chemistry.

Environment. Some researchers believe that OCD stems from behavior habits that you learn over time. (This is the one that says it can be learned, as from a parent or anyone the child has a lot of exposure to.)

Insufficient serotonin. An insufficient level of serotonin, one of your brain's chemical messengers, may contribute to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some studies that compare images of the brains of people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder with the brains of those who don't show differences in brain-activity patterns. In addition, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder who take medications that enhance the action of serotonin often have fewer symptoms.

Strep throat. Some studies suggest that some children develop OCD after infection with group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal pharyngitis — strep throat. Some research suggests that an antibody against strep throat bacteria sometimes mistakenly acts like a brain enzyme. This disrupts communication between neurons in the brain and may trigger OCD. However, these studies are controversial and more evidence is needed before strep throat can be blamed.

I don't know why this copy/paste is being mangled when I put it in here, but here's the link.

OCD isn't strictly neurological--it can also be learned according to this source but lately, they are leaning toward seratonin levels and some connection with strep throat as possible causes. They haven't yet ruled out learned behavior. This site also says onset is between 10-24 years of age so that would put little Monk in the ball park at 13.

Milk sold over the counter has been homogenized--heated to a specific temperature to kill bacteria and to somewhat sanitize it. If he has no problem with cheese but he does have a problem with liquid milk--it is a visual thing. It looks like milk, getting back to the whole mama thing. In a shrink's office, this is always equated to mothers, motherhood, nurturing, etc.

With a mother being so fussy and distant, I can definitely see a woman who acts like that raising a son who developes OCD and germaphobia. Ambrose has a lot of similar peculiarities, though they are about different things--the whole newspaper/rat-packing/preserving the study things are definitely compulsive by definition, though I don't recall them saying he has OCD. You have to be both obsessive and compulsive in order to be diagnosed as OCD. I think she's 0 for 2 on kids. lol.

Breaking it down into two forms--as an ingredient in something else and as a liquid in stand alone form: In both forms, it's still a bodily fluid. In both forms it has been processed and "cleaned." So the only difference is the appearance. If the issue is that it's a bodily fluid, wouldn't that still be an issue once it was made into cheese? In fact, in cheese, the milk is curdled--extra gross, particularly if you've ever seen them do it. Looks just like boogers at one stage. To curdle milk, you have to spoil it. It has to be soured. Now you have a soured bodily fluid. Some cheeses even have mold in them--blue cheese, brie, roquefort, and camembert for some. I'd sooner think he'd be afraid of cheese over fresh milk.

Ooooh, I love when it gets interesting in here.

Okay, I just read a couple sites describing various cheese molds and how they curdle it and process it. Now I'm afraid of cheese.






Actually, I think I got off track. I wasn't trying to get into the whole OCD thing but rather just the whole milk-phobia thing which isn't obsessive or compulsive, but rather some kind of a phobia thing....um....if that's a phobia......thing. Did we just merge the two?

Ambrose has OCD, too, the pack rat thing is one way that OCD manifests itself. And I am pretty sure that Jack leaving was the catalyst for Ambrose's problems. He said in Three Pies that he is saving all the mail and newspapers so that Jack can read them when he gets back, and it's Jack's study that he's keeping locked and maintained like a shrine. He left the house before Jack's abandonment, and I think that the events of Home Again, of Jack showing up while they were gone to take Ambrose to the hospital only strengthened that; one of the very few times that Ambrose ever leaves the house in over thirty years, and he missed Jack's visit. I can easily imagine as a child/young teenager, Ambrose seeing their mother so distraught and struggling to cope with Jack's abandonment, thinking to himself that he won't do that to their mom, he'll step into the role of Man of the House for their mom's and Adrian's sakes, at least till Jack returns, and promising to himself that he won't leave like Jack did. This idea goes back to something that happened with my little sister; my parent seperated for a while when she was about four and my mom took us to stay with her brother for a couple of weeks. My little sister got it into her head that as long as she didn't take off her shoes, we weren't staying and that my mom would go back home. For the entire two weeks, she kept her shoes on, except at bath time when she screamed her head off till my mom got her out of the tub and let her put them back on. She even slept with them on. She wanted her daddy, so she refused to accept that it might be anything but a visit and wanted to be 100% ready the second my mom said it was time to go home.

The link you provided is the only link I have ever seen that said that OCD or OCD behaviors could possibly be learned, and I have never before seen anything that suggested strep throat as a possible link. Most of what I have read did say that the low levels of seratonan are the most likely cause, which makes sense to me, since seratonin levels being too low are also linked to depression and anxiety disorders as well. Every other site I have ever read said that it is not learned. Even if it is learned, things can be unlearned, and I don't think that something that has only started to become a problem after his mother died and that he can't seem to unlearn would qualify. But at the bottom of that page, under 'Related' is a link to 'Hoarding' which is the main way that the OCD manifests itself in Ambrose.

About the milk being a visual thing, yes, this is what I have been saying. In the liquid form, in a glass, it is visually identical, or almost identical to what it looks like fresh from the cow without any processing whatsoever, and this, to me, is why Adrian won't drink it. To him it looks unprocessed, or like it hasn't been processed enough. It still looks like a bodily fluid. It doesn't look like his mother. I once was unfortunate enough to be drinking a glass of red kool aid while channel surfing, and came across a very poorly made sci-fi/fantasy movie where a warrior told a woman that his people believed in drinking the blood of their enemies and encouraged her to drink a cupped palmful of blood from a large beast that they had just killed. I couldn't finish my kool aid (much to my family's amusement) and wouldn't touch red kool aid of any flavor for years after. I still can't stand orange kool aid after 16 years because of an unfortunate incident when I was sick after drinking it and threw it up(sorry, TMI). Even the smell of orange flavored stuff makes me nauseous even know, but real oranges or orange juice is fine. I think it's because I associate it with being sick and with another kind of bodily fluids.

I guess I'm werid too! I don't eat cooked carrots...taste different to me. I will eat raw ones.

Maybe the reason Monk doesn't drink milk is because he got sick on it once and refuses to drink it in fear of vomitting...I feel that way about tequilla!

I miss the best discussions when I go to bed early on a Friday night. Is it too late to chime it? I hope not.

First of all, I really don't think that Monk's fear of milk has anything to do with the mother thing, and I'm not totally convinced of the bodily fluid connection either. Phobias don't have to have a reason, and I think the writer(s) were just brainstorming for bizarre things to be afraid of, and chose milk because it was something normal, innocuous, and wholesome.

That being said, there is a lot of ground to explore in his family relationships. I agree with Liv that Monk's mother (We don't know her name, do we?) was the better parent in that she stayed. I have no sympathies for Jack, except that he made a half-hearted attempt to get to know Monk during one episode, which is more than my father ever did. I think Monk's mother loved him, and wanted the best for him, but had some major problems of her own.

She did him no favor by keeping him or Ambrose at arm's length. The pictures of the family, all sitting rigidly and apart from each other were most likely meant to be funny, but have serious tragic overtones. I have a memory back in my head (probably something from Psych class years ago) about some hideous experiment to determine the effects of raising children without touch. I think some of them died, and the rest were all messed up. I'll have to go look that up. My guess would be that her dislike of being touched was caused by OCD and was somewhat inconsistent (otherwise how would Ambrose and Adrian have gotten there in the first place), and was aggravated by the problems in her marriage, and elevated to a new level when Jack left.

I really suspect Adrian and Ambrose dislike to be touched for a different reason. When someone goes without being touched for a long time (don't ask me how I now this -- it's another rough childhood thing), it can turn into a kind of hunger. The comparison with hunger fits, so let's continue it. Say you don't eat for a day -- you end up really hungry. By the next day, you still haven't eaten, but the hunger starts to dissipate. After a few days, you're weaker, but not particularly hungry. Then eat a big meal. You'll get sick. You're not really afraid of food, but you can't take it. I really think that both of the brothers react negatively to touch, not because of the OCD or any other factors, but because they're both too hungry for it. (I can't prove this obviously, but I can propose it, and support it)

Monk's touching Trudy, for example, started slowly, in the same way a fasting person needs to learn to eat again. A holding of the hand. Anything more would have been too much for him to take. I think (and what we've seen in flashbacks supports this) that a physical relationship grew between them very slowly, culminating in what I suspect was a normal healthy marriage relationship. Since Trudy's death, I think he's become silently hungry again, which is one of the reason's that I'm such an ardent shipper. I really think that man would be a lot better off with a good woman in his bed. But even if I don't get my shipping wish, I do like the fact that he's been able to hug his brother, and seems to be able to tolerate touch better from his friends, including Stottlemeyer at the end of "On the Run."

Well, I think that OCD comes with phobias, or there is a very strong connection between the two. I do know that two of the symptoms or items on the checklists that doctors use in screening kids who potentially have Asperger's Syndrome are irrational, exaggerated fears/phobias and obsessive compulsive type behaviors or rituals, like stacking things very neatly at a very young age, or lining up toys according to size and/or seperating toys according to certain criteria, such as the type of toy, the color, the size, ect. My son used to like to stack cans of soft drinks in very neat formations, like one on top of another or in pyramids (we always had to be careful opening a softdrink in our house and even had a cabinet set aside for the 'Open these last' cans that he had dropped or that had been knocked over and shaken up. He also started before the age of two seperating his toys and only playing with toys of a certain type for a while, then going to only toys of another particular type, like for a few days, it was only toys with wheels, then for a few days, only toy dinosaurs. Later he became even more specific and it would be only dump trucks and only triceratops, as random examples. He would also cry and not eat cookies, crackers or other 'finger foods' unless you gave him the same amount for each hand, like two cookies for the right hand and two for the left. And he would take them and stack them on his little table in two little neat stacks and eat one from one stack, then one from the other. I never taught him that, it was just something he did.

For that matter, my son doesn't like regular milk, unless it is in cereal or with cookies, but he loves chocolate milk. And I tried to nurse him, but he kept falling asleep only a few minutes into the feeding so he was always hungry and started to not gain weight. I found that feeding him with a bottle, he could stay awake for much longer and get full so he wouldn't be crying to eat again in ten minutes. I thought that my milk wasn't filling enough for him and gave up on it after a couple of months, but I was told later by one of the doctors that diagnosed him with AS that children with autistic spectrum disorders tend to become overwhelmed very easily with intimate contact and that him falling asleep was a defense mechanism. Nursing was too emotionally overwhelming for him, but when I fed him with a bottle, it was less overwhelming because of the reduced skin to skin contact and he was able to stay awake. I was still holding him, but there wasn't as much intimacy and not as much skin to skin contact, obviously. It wasn't my fault, it wasn't because I was emotionally distant, it was actually the opposite. He was that way from birth, the only baby I have ever seen who would cry till you put him down and left him alone. It took me months to figure that out.

For the record, and just to brag, now I am one of the very privledged few that he will voluntarily hug and one on a very, very short list of people he will tolerate a kiss from . He will occasionally allow my mom and mother in law to kiss him, but I am the only person he will allow to kiss him at almost any time, and I am still the only person he has ever kissed entirely of his own accord. I didn't ask him to kiss me, he has done so on his own, twice now, and as odd as it will sound, it still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and proud. My mom still beams over the fact that he hugged her once, spontaneously, four years ago. Displays of physical affection of any kind from my son are very rare and cherished things in my family. We aren't emotionally distant, cold people, but we do understand that it is difficult for him for reasons that have nothing to do with us and reasons he can't control, so we let him come to us mostly, and we ask him if it's okay before we hug or kiss him. Being asked first seems to make a big difference for him, it seems to make it easier, but that's not to say that he is entirely comfortable with it, even from me.

I feel that same way about artficially flavored orange candy or drinks for the same reason!

The thing with carrots could be either a difference in the taste after cooking, or the difference in texture, or both. My husband won't eat raw onions, but he does like them cooked in some foods. He complains if I don't put onion in with the vegetables that I cook with roasts or whole chickens, and likes hamburgers cooked with diced onions inside them, but won't touch a hamburger that has come into contact with a raw onion after cooking. I prefer raw onion to cooked, personally, because cooked onions seem slimy to me.

My son prefers to eat with plastic spoons and forks, or with his hands if that is an option rather than with metal forks or spoons. We aren't sure if it's because he doesn't like the way the metal tastes, or that he doesn't like it with metal comes into contact with his teeth or what the difference is. We have plastic, washable, reusable picnic cutlery for him to use at home and at school, they try to remember to make sure he has disposable cutlery available for him to use.

I never got this fear to be honest.

He eats other food which comes from a dirty animal so why not milk?

This, to me, actually seems more likely than even my own theory. The show is the only true canon, and no reason has ever been given on the show, and as you said, phobias are supposed to be irrational fears, and this does seem like a very irrational, and funny, thing to be afraid of.

No, we don't know her name, but then, I lost my own personal identity when my daughter, and later my son, were born. I became their mom. There are members of my own family (though distant relatives at least) who only know me as 'Gwen's Daughter' or mostly as 'Taylor and JP's Mother'. And yes, she (Adrian's mom) did the best that she could for her children, in spite of her own issues and problems. She was braver and stronger than Jack, and by far the better parent. And she wasn't perfect, no parent is, but she scores major, major points in my book just for being there and doing the best job that she was capable of doing under very difficult circumstances to be a parent.



Well, no, I don't imagine that this was the ideal situation for raising children, but again, I have to give her points for trying, for being there, and cut her some slack because I think the fact that she didn't abandon them and that she was apparently in poor health by the time Adrian was in High School, possibly even before, but she was still there, still took Adrian to see Tonday run when he was 13 or 14, went to all of Adrian's track meets, and signed his yearbook that she was so proud of him, and was there when he tried to take a trip by plane in his twenties all indicate that she did everything she was capable of doing and even pushed the limits of her own health (possibly both physical and mental health) to continue to do so. So she was a good mother, and a good parent. Holding it against her and thinking of her as a bad mother because she didn't hug Adrian in Little Monk, to me, is like giving me the label of a bad mother because I have debilitating migraines and wasn't able to go to all of my kids' soccer or softball games. I went to as many as I was capable of going to, even to a few that I shouldn't have been to and that I paid for later, health wise, but I did miss a few. I hope that they don't harbor any resentment toward me for those that I missed.

Yeah, I have read about this as well, and been appalled that they were willing to even conduct such experiments. But babies who are not touched, held, or cuddled very frequently fail to thrive, some do die, many don't develope the ability to trust others or to read other people's body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions instinctually the way that most people do. They tend to have weakened or compromised immune systems, to be much more sensitive to their environment so they find it more difficult to be comfortable, and they obviously have trouble forming emotional bonds and connections throughout their lives. They have seen this consistently with children who started out life in overly full orphanages where human contact is often at a minimum and mostly very detached and clinical, or who had mothers who suffered from severe and extended bouts of post partum depression. Skin to skin contact is essential to babies, as is eye contact, being cuddled, talked to and played with. Without it, they become very damaged adults.

But, I do think that she was capable of touching, talking to, and caring for Adrian and Ambrose when they were infants, that touching them was easier for her when they were babies than it was by the time we get our only glimpse of her in Little Monk, following Jack's abandonment. And the fact that Adrian attempted to hug her would seem to indicate to me that she must have hugged them at some point; he wouldn't have forgotten if there was never a memory of hugging her in his mind to begin with. You are right, OCD does usually manifest more strongly at some points in a sufferer's life than at others, it is very often inconsistant. Sometimes it is very strong and debilitating, and sometimes, it's as if it's not there at all. OCD runs in my family, and my grandmother has always displayed symptoms of OCD, though there have been times when they weren't quite as extreme as others. My mom has never been as severe as my grandmother, and for brief periods has even seemed to not show any symptoms at all, but those period were usually short lived. My sister has only had periods where the OCD seemed to be very obvious and out of control about three times in her life, for periods ranging from a few weeks to a couple of years, otherwise she just seems like a good house keeper, not a very high strung, nervous wreck of a person who is plagued by spontaneous panic attacks and who can't sleep sometimes and deals with it by organizing her laundry room at 2 in the morning. It comes and goes, often the worst bouts or times following a traumatic experience, like the death of my grandfather, or my sister being in an automobile accident. I think that their mother's symptoms became extreme after Jack left, but that they might have always been there before, just not as severe. As you said, the fact that Adrian and Ambrose even exist is sort of proof of that.



To further the metaphor, when you have been starved, once you can eat again, you have to stick with very bland foods, at least at first, because your stomach is too sensitive to handle anything too spicey or strong. That is one good theory/possibility. Another is that they are genetically predisposed to being very sensitive to touch, because their mother was. I made every effort to hold, cuddle, bond with and talk to me son, but even as a newborn, he had a very low tolerance for it. As I said, it took me months to figure out that when he was crying, holding him, walking the floors with him and trying to soothe him only made it worse, but if I put him down, he would calm down and stop crying. And for what it's worth, I don't think that Ambrose really has a problem with being touched like Adrian does. He shakes hands without a problem and without needing a wipe, and in the scene in Three Pies when he confessed to Adrian about Trudy running that errand for him, he was leaning toward Adrian, seeming to be begging Adrian to hug him by way of his postures and body language, and Adrian is the one who is reluctant to have real contact with him. I think the awkwardness that was displayed between the two of them when Adrian first gets to his house in Goes Home Again was because Adrian was so uncomfortable with the contact. He certainly didn't have a problem shaking, and then holding Natalie's hand in that scene if my memory is correct.

And I do think that a part of Adrian does crave physical contact and emotional intimacy, but a larger part of him is afraid to allow it, or allow much of it. Maybe it's because he's afraid once he gets a taste of it he won't be able to control that craving, and he'll want more and more until it becomes overwhelming and triggers a cascade of emotional reactions that he can't stop, such as crying, anger or some other emotional response he fears. Maybe he's just afraid of losing control more than being afraid of the emotional reactions themselves. Maybe he's afraid if he hugs someone, it will hurt too much to have to let them go, or hurt too much when they are no longer there to hug. But he has made progress, he allowed Natalie to kiss him when she was so overwhelmed with relief to see him alive again in On the Run, and allowed Leland to hug him at the end of that episode. He didn't even cringe or seem to 'pull back' in either instance the way he normally does when someone tries to hug or touch him, like when Julie has hugged him before on the show. It even seemed to me that he was, in a way, seeking something from Leland in that scene in the way that he walked toward him, the expression on his face, the way he pointed/looked up at the banner for no real reason. Maybe it was partly relief that Leland hadn't been killed when he disarmed that bomb so close to the banner, or because he has consistently looked to Leland for approval and drawn strength from it since the first summation scene in The Candidate, or because Leland has been his most consistant source of support since Trudy's death, and probably even before she died, in conjunction with Trudy. I have also noticed that in times of extreme emotional distress, Adrian seems more receptive and even grateful for physical contact, like the scene in Manhattan when he asks to be left alone with Warrick Tennyson. Leland seems to be the embodiment of strength for this show and for Adrian. He even leaned against Leland when he hugged him, similar to the way that Ambrose leaned into and against Adrian in Three Pies. And Leland has always made physical contact with Adrian, even when he knew that he didn't like it, as with that first handshake in The Candidate, you can tell from both of their reactions that Adrian is uncomfortable and Leland knows it, but he's determined. It could have been a status check on Leland's part, or it might have also been because felt that it was important that *someone* continued to touch him to keep him from shrinking back from humanity and the world altogether, or maybe he felt that the contact would help to ground Adrian and get his attention fully before going in to talk to St Claire. But it got easier as the seasons progressed, and gradually Adrian was able to accept contact from Leland and from a few other people without much of a problem. The first person I remember him shaking hands with without asking for a wipe or seeming to notice it was Wendy Mass and I have always found it interesting that he wasn't as comfortable touching Willie Nelson, or Sharona or anyone else he had known for a while and cared about as he was with shaking hands with a woman who was a confessed murderer, and he was only able to do it *after* her confession and explanation, not before. So touch, with Adrian, seems to be a very complex thing, and have a lot to do with respect or with being able to feel a strong understanding or connection with someone.



Yes, I like that he is gradually learning to allow it again, and to form connections and understandings that allow him to accept these brief touches and offers of comfort or contact. I mentioned Wendy Mass above, but I would also like to mention that even though he seemed hesitant and even a little panicked when Master Zi in Cobra, he was able to stand still and allow him to touch his chest, and he seemed to form a very strong connection and understanding with Master Zi in a very short time after that. He was also able, after finding the cocaine residue in the bike in Employee of the Month, to shake hands and make eye contact with Joe, because I think in that moment he felt he return of the bond, the undertsanding and the connection they had shared when they were partners, I think it has a lot to do with feeling like the person in question really knows him in that moment, understands and completely accepts him and even likes him as he is, as with Joe and Master Zi, and with Wendy Mass, it was because she too, understood the loss of loved ones and the anger of the injustice of the fact that the person responsible is able to walk the streets as a free man while she was left disabled, unable to ever again feel like a 'normal' person, and never be able to see or speak to the loved ones that this man took away from her. They understood each other, or at least, he understood her, this very large, motivating part of her.

I won't say the mama theory has been proven. It's obvious it hasn't. If I see a child exhibiting mannerisms and characteristics similar to the parent, I will always say that's where the child got them. This isn't the first place or time I've encountered resistance in that argument. That's a whole other post to explain that so I'll just move on.

However I will be so obnoxious as to say that the bodily fluid argument has to have been disproven unless there are serious continuity issues on the show. I'm sure I'll be pelted with lawn darts.

Two things are done to milk sold in commercial outlets today: Homogenization and Pasteurization.

Homogenization: The aim is to prevent or delay the natural separation of cream from the rest of the emulsion. The fat in milk normally separates from the water and collects at the top. Homogenization is the process of breaking up that fat into smaller sizes so that it no longer separates from the milk. This is accomplished by forcing the milk at high pressure through small orifices. Unhomogenized milk separates, the butterfat rising to the top and eventually curdling or becoming a disgusting consistency. Homogenizing makes milk even throughout. Monk likes things even.


Pasteurization: Pasteurization (or pasteurisation, see spelling differences) is the process of heating liquids for the purpose of destroying bacteria, protozoa, molds, and yeasts. Pasteurizing sanitizes milk. Monk likes things sanitary.


These two things, in and of themselves, would have Monk drinking milk--not on occasion, not only when pressed to do so, but rather all the time--almost exclusively.

Moving on to cheese: Here's a site explaining step by step how cheddar cheese is made. This cheese, like most cheeses, is processed with live cultures and bacteria, rennet--which is a natural complex of enzymes produced in any mammalian stomach to digest the mother's milk, and then aged for over a year--turning the block of cheese at regular intervals to cultivate a natural growth of mold on the exterior as described at the link above. The cheese is turned until, over the course of about 15 months, it goes from this




to this





to finally this









Monk would be repulsed. This is not some obscure european cheese eaten as a delicacy--this is cheddar cheese, which Monk eats after cutting into uniform pieces, endowing each perfectly symmetrical piece with its own toothpick.

Here's some irony for you: In order to make milk into cheese, you have to UNhomogenize it and UNpasteurize it. Monk would run from cheese like the demon's own child possessed. rofl!

Bodily fluid + molds + live cultures--bacteria + rennet (enzymes obtained from a mammal's stomach--gross) Monk would go to obscene lengths to keep cheese out of his house. He would get a vial of holy water and a crucifix. He would get an old priest and a young priest. He would bleach the house front to back, throw out all food that came into contact with it, and use a pressure washer to hose out the refrigerator.


Between milk that has been sanitized (pasteurization) and made even for texture (homogenization), and consuming cheese that is just downright gross--Monk would choose milk every single time.

The bodily fluid theory just doesn't wash unless they never had him eating cheese on the TV show--which they did. I think the issue was poorly researched prior to being brought up in the books. One simply does not jibe with the other.

The visually symbolic significance to milk is.....drumrolll please....."mama" !!!!

Ironically enough, peeking around on the internet I discover the second predominant symbolic significance to milk is "purity." Of the two--mama and purity--which one is Monk getting hung up on?

Milk is both even and sanitary--two thinks the Monk just loves to excess. Got milk?

No, still not buying it, but I'm bored with the debate. I've said all I have to on the matter.

Thanx Liv. I hope you don't think it was an argument but it sounds like you're mad. Sometimes it's hard to tell someone's mood or tone on a message board but I was having fun and loved reading your comments. I thought it was a really good discussion. Thanx for posting on it.

Sorry. As I explained in the PM, painful breathing and asthma medicine make me a cranky pants. My kids, dogs and husband will atest to the fact that I have been the opposite of nice or even rational today. And you really can't always guess someone's tone or intent when you are communicating with text.

Drugs aren't always your friends. And I feel like an elephant has tap danced on my rib cage, if it make up for my grumpy 'tude at all.

I feel ya Liv. I live with that tap dancing elephant every day and th combined effects of all my allergy/asthma drugs can turn me into a 'madwoman' at the drop of a pin on the linoleum floor. It's a bitch to live every day of my life sucking in air I can't exhale. I hardly ever wear a bra or anything tight around my waist because it constricts my ability to breath.

@ those who question nature vs nurture:

I am the only one in my immediate family who has panic attacks, agoraphobia and live in a severe chronic anxiety state. I have a daughter with some of the physical aspects of anxiety, ie, irriitable bowel syndrome; I had a niece with panic attacks (now deceased) but neither of my sisters had these problems and neither did either of my parents. However, depressive dysthymia runs rampant in our family and most of us are on some form of a seritonin reuptake medication. I could give you a million reasons why I have the whole nine yards of the disorders and why my sisters do not but it would fill up a book, let's just say I was raised differently than my sisters were by the same set of parents but under different circumstances. So nurture played a huge part in how I developed compared to how my sisters developed. The depression and allergies are aspects of inherited tendencies - by virtue of nature.

When it comes to specific phobias I don't have any like germs or foods or animals/reptiles but I understand the irrational fear that brings on a phobia. To take the example of milk. It doesn't matter that milk is pasturized, sanitized, etc., and it doesn't matter that cheese is grown with bacteria cultures. How many readers do we have on here that have a phobia to germs to such an extent they wash their hands until they are raw or won't use a public restroom yet they love cheese and gulp down yogurt? Is it rational to be phobic of germs yet eat cheese? Is it rational to scrub your toilet daily when the germs are your own or those of your family members who you kiss and hug and have close contact with?

I don't find it odd that Adrian has an irrational fear of milk but can eat cheese. It's the nature of the phobia beast. Some might find it odd that I can go shop within a half mile of my house but can't cross certain roads to shop at another store without having a full blown panic attack. There is nothing different about the stores except the location, they are all set up pretty much the same way, they all carry the same foods but what is it about that road I can't cross? It's just a road like any other. There is no rational reason to explain an irrational fear - it just is what it is, a phobia unique to me but not to others. Those roads never did anything to me, I never had an accident, near accident or any type of incident on them that would make me afraid to use them and that is probably the same for Adrian and milk. Afterall, he drank some type of milk as an infant and small child but somewhere along the way he developed an irrational fear of milk that has no explanation the same way I developed my irrational fear of certain roads that I use to travel on all the time.

Just my 5 cents worth.

I wonder how someone with a milk phobia can eat cheese. I've seem to recall Monk eating cheese in an ep.

I think the milk phobia would have made sense to me if they had never shown him eating cheese. Maybe he doesn't know how it's made. lol. Phobias can be hit or miss, but his germaphobia seems to be consistent across the board. Love to see an episode about this. Some guy gets killed in a cheese factory. Hijinx galore.

I don't know that his germophobia is consistent either. For example, his constant touching of posts and poles and lights. I know that is his compulsion and not a phobia, but after he touches them, you would think his germophobia would kick in. Post and poles are probably exceptionally dirty, and you never see him looking for a wipe after he touches them.

I don't consider this a flaw. I have a slight phobia to telephones, and sometimes it's more severe, and sometimes it's hardly noticeable at all. I don't know why.

I do think a cheese factory might be a good murder location. But some personal advice, peoples, never live downwind from a cheese or ice cream plant. You'll thank me later.

That'd be AWSOME GALORE...for no other reason than that I HEART CHEESE!

After he touches poles, he wipes his hands on his coat/jacket. They show him doing that in some of the openings. That one compulsion pushes through the germaphobia so he has to do it, but then wipes his hands off on his coat--which would drive me nuts. The pole-touching thing is the thing that looks slightly autistic to me. I had a cousin with severe autism and he did stuff like that all the time. It was a kind of "grounding" thing--hard to explain but it was like tethering to something in the room or outside. Like grabbing a railing on a stairwell. I don't know why Monk does it but that's the reason I got for why my cousin did it. My aunt finally had to institutionalize him two years ago, though she was told to do that when he was a very small child. He's in his late 30s now and with my uncle dying and my aunt getting up in age, she finally had to admit that she couldn't care for him anymore. Tore her up to do it. He was having violent outbursts and is so severely autistic, he couldn't comprehend that he was hitting his mother. Sad.