AUTOMATIC LETTER 73
Wednesday night

Dear Adam,

It was just tonight after a bad dream that I realized that I’ve never put
into words in a letter to you, one of the worst fears that a childlike Gloria
had. This was the fear of going insane and getting locked up for life.
As often as she was able to, she would ask if anyone of the family – the old
people had ever lost their mind, and no one ever questioned why a child should
inquire about this but she always told that no one had. Sometimes when fear
takes over the safety valves of the mind fails to operate and all kinds of things
happen when your mind tries to cope with big problems – things like nervous tics begin (like Gloria if she tried to lie to the “Other’ her left eye would
twitch) or a person can’t concentrate. Her grades began to go down at school
and she got scared and desperate when she’d get 95% instead of a 100%.
Trying to find a safe frequent change of shelter each night was a potential source of danger for a child, which exposed her to all sorts of danger.
Like the day when the “Other” asked Gloria, “Have you ever seen a live animal skinned? No, well tonight you are going to see one, but you won’t like it.”
Early that night, she was adrift again, facing more and more closed
doors – the barn door was closed – people weren’t home, she left for the
cemetery but her movement roused a dog to fierce barking followed
soon by others in the distance alerting people to an intruder and an old                                man came out to see at the cemetery – for lack of a better alternative she
returned back. She became desperate in her mind, and she feared that she
a little girl would break down, go crazy, and be sent to a mental institution.                              As her strange feelings got worse, she’d ask herself, “How long can
you stand this? What does it take to drive a person crazy?” She had never
known anyone who had a nervous breakdown, so she went to the library
one day and looked up the symptoms.
She found descriptions that fitted her so perfectly that she was more afraid
than ever – depression, crying for no reason, (like when she’d hide) anxiety,
nervousness, being afraid of people. She pictured herself locked up with bars
on the window and thought, “I’d rather be dead.” Then she’d feel so low that
death seemed like a way to get peace. An idea would tell her, “If you kill yourself,                     it will be all over. You wouldn’t have to live like this day after day.” So
she’d shut herself off in the forest and write down or say, “Gloria you’ve got so
much to live for,” and she’d make long lists of why she shouldn’t die. She did
this for months when she’d find a temporary shelter like a haystack or treetop.
I’m telling you this because she has started doing the same thing now
wondering if she’s losing her mind. Gloria needs your strength to reassure
her that she isn’t – I won’t let her mind go and you won’t let her either will
you??? You are our lifeline. You’ll pull us back if we get stuck, won’t you?
I’ll await any instructions you may have to give me, okay?
But on no account let us lose our sanity – we’re intelligent enough to
follow instructions so it needn’t happen that we’d have a mental breakdown                      help us please we’re afraid.

Gloria’s Helper