He Wanted the Moon

by Mimi Baird,Eve Claxton

  This strange, dreaming state may have lasted for only a few days. The thought delusions were realistic, convincing, horrible, but they gradually passed away. It would be impossible to recall all details of these agonizing days.

  One night I woke up and found myself in bed, the straightjacket gone. Two letters were there. Attendants came in and asked me if I wanted a shower or a bath. I took my letters with me, holding them as I took my shower. They were ruined by the soap and water. After the shower, I began to feel better and I managed, in a matter of a week or so, to make a rapid recovery from this strange mental state.

  When I first began to walk, the soles of my feet were so sensitive that I could hardly bear to stand up on them. Peter F. Perry was around most of the time to let me lean on him, my arm around his neck. I would tiptoe along in this way and gradually gained confidence, losing that extreme generalized hyperesthesia.

  Easter had come and gone. I made more and more friends among the patients. I thought about God, Christ and many spiritual values, as I had never done before. I recall seeing four airplanes flying across the sky, in the shape of a cross. I felt close to God, but did not feel happy. I wondered whether God would give me some special job to do, whether my sufferings might come to have some meaning, lead to some spiritual goal, some great destiny.

  MY next visitor came in the evening: Captain Charles I. Johnson of the U.S. Navy. I was never so glad to see anyone, as I was to see my very good friend, Charlie Johnson. I shook hands with him at once. I shook hands with him again. We sat and talked continuously for two hours or more. Charlie questioned me about the history of my case and he delved into possible precipitating factors: marital unhappiness, disappointment over not being in the service, and so forth. After our long talk he said, “I think we’re getting somewhere now.”

  As he left, Charlie promised to see Dr. Harry Solomon, chief psychiatrist at Baldpate, a private hospital, to try to arrange my transfer to there. I knew Charlie would do everything possible to help.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LATE one afternoon about ten days after his first visit, Charlie Johnson returned, bringing Harry Solomon with him. Charlie was hoping to persuade Harry to permit my transfer to Baldpate hospital.

  “Would you be willing to go to your family in Texas for a year after your illness is over?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes but I’d like to think that my own vote about such a step would be reckoned among the others,” I replied.

  Charlie then said: “During your illness, you have the reputation of being a pathologic liar.”

  The words fell hard upon my ears. I have a passion for truthfulness and I will never tell a lie if there is any way of evading the question, ignoring the question provoking the lie, or if there would be any way of checking up. I recognize that, about once a year, one may get into a difficult situation wherein something of the nature of a lie may be the best way out—and a thoroughly justifiable way out—but I pride myself upon being able to deal with such situations without deviating from the actual truth. It is true that I may tell a “tall story” once in a while, building up a good adventure tale around some unusual personal experience. Each such story, however, always has considerable basis of fact, and the added color is for the sake of humor, or for the sake of making a good story. I have done this twice in the course of the last three years, and never before in my life. I shall always wonder why Charlie said what he did. I believe that one of the foremost essentials to the development of power and clearness in thinking lies in the habit of telling the truth, knowing the truth, believing the truth, and thinking the truth. Any person yielding to lies and deception as the easy roads out of tough situations will usually get in the habit of careless thinking in general, and they will suffer the penalty of losing a keen intuition in regard to probability and improbability, truth and falsehood and even right and wrong.

  Dr. Solomon said several things of special interest to me.

  “The manic does not know what he is doing,” Dr. Solomon said.

  These words from Dr. Solomon taught me that even a man of his distinction, experience and education could fail to understand the manic. I can only say that, in my own case, my memories are quite clear of events taking place during the manic state. All of the things which I have done have been with the full consciousness of what I was doing and why I was doing such a thing. The quickness and impulsiveness of action and speech, however, can have a very disquieting effect upon others, and it is hard to maintain good judgment and full awareness of the effect of one’s actions upon others. But one is not in darkness and one is fully conscious of all that is going on. The only limitation on memory is that so many things may happen in such rapid succession as to impair recollection of details.

  Sometimes, however, I wish Dr. Solomon were correct and that one really didn’t know what one was doing. Then one’s consciousness would not hold one responsible for what one had done, and all memory of events taking place during the manic state would vanish. Then one could return to the normal walks of life, like an alcoholic who couldn’t remember anything he did while drunk. One could probably negotiate a return to normality with less probability of going through a depression. After returning to normal health, however, it is inevitable that the events of the preceding manic state will crowd back into consciousness and harass one. The feelings of self-criticism, shame, and embarrassment are true foes and they can become so violent as to inflict the deepest wounds, undermining self-confidence and making it hard to face the world. Unfortunately, Dr. Solomon, you do not understand the manic psychosis. I wish that your words were true. I wish that one could forget, or that one didn’t know what he was doing, that one had nothing to remember.

  This led me to wonder whether a doctor who had been manic once or more times might not have insight better equipping him to understand and treat the manic. But where is such a man to be found? It would require the combination of going through the illness, and making a complete and perfectly lasting recovery. In my own case, it would require making a far better recovery than has been manifest in the last few years and it would require changing over to the field of psychiatry. This would involve a great financial loss and other adjustments that might be most difficult.

  After a rather long talk with Dr. Solomon, he seemed to conclude that I was mildly depressed. As I stood there, he came forward and put both hands affectionately upon my shoulders and shook me a little as if to try to impart some degree of Courage. After this I took Charlie and Dr. Solomon to my room and showed them the adjoining porch. Dr. Solomon recognized an old patient on the porch and went out to speak with him.

  As he did so, Charlie turned to me.

  “You have sold yourself to Dr. Solomon,” he said. “I believe he will take you.”

  BY now, I was quite well again, calm and quiet. I had regained poise and showed no symptoms. The day came for me to go downstairs again. Before going downstairs, I knew what was in store for me: I knew that I must endure again all the same sources of fatigue, stress, strain, and indignities. As I came down to the lower ward and entered the nurses’ office, Mrs. La Point greeted me as before, roughly and coldly. I spoke to her as cordially as possible. After putting my things in the hall closet, I moved on down the corridor and went into the bathroom to comb my hair.

  Angelo Cephalo followed me and tried to make me read a letter he’d just received. I declined to do so.

  “I’m not interested, thank you,” I told him.

  I said this not just to be discourteous but because Angelo had contributed to a portion of the strain that had caused my setback. He had said strange things to me that I tried to comprehend but couldn’t. He would walk up to me and look at me intently, with a facial expression of mixed anger and annoyance.

  “I haven’t my whole life to stay around this place,” he’d say.

  He seemed to imply that his stay at Westborough had something to do with my stay there and that it was up to me to get us all out.

  I knew before I arrived
again on the lower ward that Angelo, Mrs. La Point and many others would be powerful sources of distress to me. I was determined to resist all influences tending to upset me. I left Angelo in the bathroom and went out onto the porch to say “hello” to some old friends.

  During the days that followed, I learned how to maintain spiritual equanimity in spite of an atmosphere of constant irritation. Angelo did his best, following me around and complaining loudly and unpleasantly about the food, hospital conditions, and so forth. Once at dinnertime, Angelo was sitting across from me, protesting about the food and making unsavory remarks. I exploded, clutching the knife at the side of my plate, and rising from my seat in anger. Then I quickly settled back and ate my meal in silence. I had made some very caustic remarks. I cannot exactly remember what they were.

  One old man, a wealthy Italian, sat at the breakfast table one morning and ate his cereal with loud slop-ish sounds, making many unnecessary and disgusting noises. My reaction to this was to make similar gustatory noises while drinking my milk. This same old man had a way of sitting in a chair and passing intestinal gas with loud reverberations, all very unnecessary. He had a horrible face, only one or two dirty teeth remaining, a large, frequently protruding tongue, brown eyes, thick head, heavy beard, large bony frame, clothes filthy, but hands finely shaped, soft and delicate as a woman’s. He never said much, laughed boisterously, showing his teeth and filling one with mild feelings of disgust. He was a weird but unpleasant-looking character. His hands however seemed to indicate fine birth and talent.

  The radio broke down and was taken away for repairs. It never came back.

  I played pool a little but found that, now that I was normal, my game was very poor.

  Except for two or three outbursts, I kept my peace, moving away from Angelo when he came around, staying alone most of the time, maintaining a policy of friendliness, but tending carefully to my own business and staying out of other people’s affairs. I walked the corridors at frequent intervals and took an active part every morning in sweeping and mopping the floors, emptying ashtrays, and so forth. I read many books: The Robe, Grapes of Wrath, West with the Night. I read In the Steps of St. Francis again, devoured the daily newspapers Herald and Traveler, and enjoyed my daily mail. I wrote fewer and fewer letters. I came to the realization that, in spite of the fact that my correspondence meant so much to me, my letter writing was being held against me. I reduced my letter writing to the barest minimum, and, when I did this, I received more privileges very quickly.

  During the days when I was reading The Robe, Mrs. La Point would come every day to the porch.

  “Dr. Baird, come and get your robe!” she cried out. A great deal of this teasing and hazing went on constantly. My bathrobe, slippers and pajamas were kept in a locker room that was only opened as necessary for a patient to get what he needed. At the end of each day, the room was opened so that all of us could get what we needed for the night. I don’t know why Mrs. La Point so often came and made that loud announcement, “Dr Baird, come and get your robe!”

  During my return sojourn on the lower ward, I was assigned to a ten-bed dormitory and slept second from the window. One day, a Negro appeared on the ward. It so happens that this Negro was assigned to a bed opposite mine in the dormitory. I knew that being thrown in company with him would not bother me. He was a quiet, well-educated Negro with a light-chocolate color. During the first few days he always seemed to stay at a distance from me as he wandered around on the recreation porch. Gradually I made his acquaintance. We talked about poetry and religion. He read my book In the Steps of St. Francis.

  Clare Johnson sat in the toilet for hours every day and worked with a file and a knife handle, making a key for the door. One morning he had a strong odor of liquor on his breath. I have often wondered where he got the liquor.

  The gray-haired middle-aged man who had always wept when I beat him at checkers was still on the lower ward when I came back there. Soon after my arrival, I walked up to him.

  “Would you like to play a game of checkers?” I asked. “Do you suppose you could play without weeping?”

  We played several games; he wept no more.

  ABOUT ten weeks from the date of admission, after ten weeks of constant confinement, I was allowed to go outside with a group of other patients to enjoy the fresh air, walking and basking in the sunshine.

  My first day out was an occasion to walk ceaselessly in a circle of concrete walks in front of the auditorium. Dr. Boyd came along and watched me a moment.

  “It’s the greatest thing in the world,” he said.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “The open air,” he stated.

  One afternoon, after walking a great deal alone and with Dick Condon, I sat for a few minutes on the auditorium steps to listen to the orchestra play some pieces I liked. This orchestra was composed of a pianist, a drummer, and a violinist. They did very well together. Miss Francis, a nurse and Director of Entertainment, as well as occupational therapist, came out and asked permission of the attendant to bring me in. I was coaxed to play the piano and did play a few pieces I remembered. The members of the orchestra praised me, perhaps excessively, but they made me feel a touch of happiness.

  MY private psychiatrist, Bob Fleming, came out to see me, bringing with him my brown Palm Beach suit. As he walked along slowly in the morning sunshine, all his clothing—from hat to shoes—was dark and grayish in color, rather drab. He was a little stooped as usual, and he cast about himself a somber, lugubrious shadow. His face was dark, his eyes dark, his features expressionless. He looked strongly Northern, taciturn, fathomless, like some wicked perpetrator of an evil plot. My heart did not beat in gladness as I saw him coming. He had never answered any of my letters.

  It was his third visit in eleven weeks. He sat and talked, seemed very nervous, acted as if he’d rehearsed his speech and faltered here and there, as if he’d forgotten some of his lines.

  I began describing to him the extreme torment of treatments by means of straightjackets and packs.

  “The only way I could tolerate these measures was by working out a game to get out of them as quickly as possible,” I said.

  “They were a relief, weren’t they?” Bob asked, as if to imply that these harsh and brutal methods had relieved some nervous tension.

  I made no answer to this comment. It proved to me how little insight into the barbarities of state hospital methods could be exhibited by anyone who hasn’t been through them.

  “I’d like to see you go back to your practice,” he remarked. “When you’re on the job, you are one of the best-adjusted doctors in Boston. Dr. Lang won’t let you leave now, but we can get you transferred to Baldpate. He can’t prevent that. Once we get you to Baldpate, I believe we can get you back to your practice very soon.”

  “How long will it take to arrange the transfer?” I asked.

  “Only a few days.”

  This conversation took place in my room.

  “You can bet your bottom dollar that every word we said was overheard,” I said as we walked out.

  “How do you know?” asked Bob in an obviously nervous pitch.

  “Oh, in various ways,” I replied. “I have opened the door several times unexpectedly and found patients and attendants standing around and listening. This has only been when I had visitors.”

  EARLY one afternoon soon after Bob’s visit, the attendant came to my room.

  “I don’t know whether it’s good or bad news,” he said, “but you are to be transferred to Baldpate in an hour or two.”

  It was six weeks after Charlie Johnson and Harry Solomon had come to me and said they’d arrange it in ten days. A suitcase was brought over and I packed my things. Later an attendant took me to the office where I obtained my watch, wallet, driver’s license, draft card and a check made out to Baldpate for the $97 I had.

  Dr. Rickless came by.

  “Are you really going to write that book?” he asked.

  “Why, yes, c
ertainly,” I replied.

  “Well, be as easy on us as you can,” he commented as he went through the door.

  “Goodbye,” I said softly.

  Outside a limousine was waiting with a driver and one assistant. We drove away. After about ninety-five days at Westborough, ninety-five days of mingling pain, discomfort, suffering, loneliness, ninety-five days that I shall never fully understand, it was a relief to sit there in a comfortable limousine, a pleasure in itself just to move along the Worcester Turnpike and rest my eyes on the countryside with its vastness and its springtime loveliness after being confined for such a long time.

  It was a pretty day. As we drove through Chestnut Hill, I wanted to ask the driver to stop at my house so that I could see my children, but I did not make the request. I felt sure it would be against the rules and I did not want to ask special favors. We drove through Boston to the Newburyport Turnpike, and on to Baldpate.