Haywire by Brooke Hayward (android based ebook reader .txt) 📕

“After that, I was living abroad for four or five years and when she—when that happened, I hadn’t seen her in such a long time. And I must say I really was stunned.…”

A few months later, I was told that Bridget was now at Austen Riggs. The reasons for her hospitalization were not entirely clear. She had spent that year as a freshman at Swarthmore. She’d been doing very well there and had a roommate she’d liked enormously. Father and Nan had gone to visit her several times, but on their last visit they had found her in a room by herself. When they asked her why, she said she didn’t know, she just preferred to be alone. She didn’t want anyone around her. And finally, she didn’t want to go back at all. The only place she did want to go was to Europe, although when pressed for details, she was vague. She appealed to Father and said she needed help; there was something the matter with her. She was vague about that, too.

Once again the old family retainer, Dr. Kubie, was called in to advise. Once again he advised Riggs. Mother supported him. Father did not. He contended that he couldn’t possibly afford it; Bill’s expenses at Menninger’s alone were driving him to wrack and ruin. (And what’s more, he wasn’t at all sure he was getting his money’s worth. Bill certainly didn’t seem to be appreciative; he’d just cut his way to freedom through a steel-mesh window screen with his cuticle scissors.) Mother said she felt so strongly about the positive benefits of Riggs that she would like to finance Bridget’s stay there by selling her own securities. Father said okay; what did Bridget think? Bridget said she thought it might be a good idea.

I, too, was asked what I thought. I said I was sorry; it bore out the old domino theory, which, for obvious reasons, I didn’t want to believe in.

At the point when Bridget made the decision to go to Riggs, nobody knew there was anything physically the matter with her. Later, when they reconstructed events, Father and Nan realized that she’d had seizures they’d never known about. There had been indications. When she’d come home at Christmas vacation, she’d sent word down on Christmas morning that she didn’t feel well and couldn’t get out of bed. They’d brought her presents up to her and had had a Christmas party in her room. Afterward, she’d slept for two or three days. Looking back, it even seemed possible that her fanatic secretiveness was in some way related. Perhaps she didn’t want her illness discovered; perhaps, for a while, she thought it might go away on its own.

After several incidents at Riggs in which she passed out and remained unconscious for forty-five minutes to an hour, she was transferred to the psychiatric wing of Massachusetts General. Everyone was alarmed; Mass. General was a closed hospital, and we thought if she ended up there she would be scarred for life. The results of the electroencephalogram and other tests were not conclusive. Bridget returned to Riggs.

I drove there twice to see her. The first time, she was living at the center itself; the second, in Stockbridge as an outpatient. On both occasions she seemed cheerful. Our past differences were overshadowed by the present situation; we did not discuss them. She introduced me to her friends and to several doctors, showed me around, asked me to stay to lunch.

She told me that she was making progress. At first she’d refused to talk to the doctors; she would sit in silence until the scheduled hour was up. Now she had a wonderful doctor, a woman, Margaret Brenman, who was the foremost hypnotherapist in the country. Margaret Brenman, incidentally, was married to Bill Gibson, the playwright (Two for the Seesaw), who had written a novel, The Cobweb, about a mental institution. Bridget said Dr. Brenman was the only person in the world she completely trusted. She had come to like Riggs and its routine; she was so busy she rarely had any time. She had become involved with local theatre production as a stage manager. One of her friends took me aside and praised Bridget’s efficiency; everyone was amazed that a girl with such a delicate air about her could be so immensely practical.

Bridget confided in me that the main reason she had wanted to come there was her fainting spells. They frightened her terribly, particularly now that there seemed to be no conclusive medical explanation for them. The first one had occurred while she had been at school in Switzerland. The Swiss doctors’ original diagnosis had been that she had a possible dietary deficiency; after all, as I knew (only too well), she had peculiar eating habits. She would go on hunger strikes. At one point, much to the school’s consternation, she had lived on nothing but cheese and chocolate for a month; at another, Pablum. However, the recent tests indicated that these spells might be caused by stress. But there was no way to predict them, to prevent them, or, once under way, to control them. In fact they had become more violent with time.

Because of this, she was glad to be at Riggs. She knew she had emotional problems as well, but the doctors couldn’t say which caused what. Did emotions precipitate the seizures, or did the seizures affect her mental stability? As long as she stayed at Riggs, at least, she felt protected from herself. If she collapsed and went into a comatose state, Riggs could handle it. And privately. She was pathological about privacy. She didn’t want people to know about her sickness, to discuss it, to witness it. She didn’t want to talk to Mother or Father about it, and she didn’t want me to, either. For the time being, she didn’t want to return to the outside world. She felt more vulnerable there, and if she should have another attack—she