Psychopath

THE MASK OF SANITY

Section 2: The Material

Part 1: The disorder in full clinical manifestations

6. Roberta

 

 

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6. Roberta

This young woman, sitting now for the first time in my office, gave an impression

that vaguely suggested-immaturity? The word is not entirely accurate for the impression.

Immaturity might imply the guarded, withdrawn attitude often shown by children in the

doctor's office. It was another, in fact, almost an opposite feeling that she gave.

Something less than the average of self-consciousness, a sort of easy security that does

not arise from effort or from pretense-some qualities of this nature seemed to enter into

the impression.

Roberta was just 20 years of age, well developed, a little overweight, perhaps, but

not greatly overweight. It was, as could be noticed on closer observation, a slight

carelessness about dress, a laxness of posture more than any real obesity, that suggested

an overnourished body. She was not pretty, but her looks were pleasant. Unlike most

20-year-old girls, she did not seem, with or without awareness, to be deliberately

counting her feminine attractions into the equation that probably occurs in every

personal contact between man and woman. This, perhaps, was what gave that first

vague and complicated impression of an adult who, in some rather pleasant way, is still

childlike.

It was a little surprising to hear her admit that she had resented being brought for

the interview because she felt her mother and father were overdoing things to try to find

something "wrong with her mind." There was nothing sullen about her and she soon

expressed satisfaction at having come

THE MATERIAL 47

and a willingness to stay in the hospital as long as it might be deemed advisable.

She admitted without reluctance that she needed help of some sort and that she

had "made a mess" of her life. She expressed interest in plans for a different future. In

speaking of her need for psychiatric treatment, something suggested that her conviction

of need was more like what a man feels who looks in the mirror and decides he needs a

haircut than like the earnest and sometimes desperate need many people feel in their

problems. The man who finds he needs the haircut is sincere in his conviction, despite

the fact that convictions about such a trivial matter are also, and necessarily, trivial.

In this interview and during subsequent weeks, Roberta discussed in detail and at

length hundreds of incidents in her life. Her history had been obtained from her

parents, who accompanied her, and additional material was available in letters from her

former girl scout leader, her Sunday school teachers, and others.

"I can't understand the girl, no matter how hard I try," said the father, shaking his

head in genuine perplexity. "It's not that she seems bad or exactly that she means to do

wrong. She can lie with the straightest face, and after she's found in the most outlandish

lies she still seems perfectly easy in her own mind."

He had related, in a rambling but impressive account, how Roberta at 10 years of

age stole her aunt's silver hairbrush, how she repeatedly made off with small articles

from the dime store, the drug store, and from her own home.

"At first it seemed just the mischievous doings of a little girl," he said, "a sort of

play-and her not realizing about its being serious. You know how children sometimes

tell a lot of fanciful stories without thinking of it as lying."

Neither the father nor the mother seemed a severe parent. In the opinion of

their pastor and others who knew them well, they had no unusual attitudes toward their

children. Roberta's brother and two sisters were all well-behaved members of the

community. The family was financially comfortable but not wealthy. There had been

no black sheep in the group for the several generations during which they lived in a

western

North Carolina town with a population of 10,000.

"We didn't want to be too hard on Roberta when we first noticed these things,"

the mother continued. "I've heard that too much punishment sometimes confuses a

child and makes matters worse. We talked it over with Mr. (the pastor), with the

superintendent of the school, and with all her teachers." There was nothing to suggest

that this girl had been

48 THE MASK OF SANITY

spoiled. The parents had, so far as could be determined, consistently let her find that

lying and stealing and truancy brought censure and punishment.

"She never seemed sly or crafty," the mother said, a little puzzled about how to

express the impression, "not like the sort of person you think of as stealing and being

irresponsible. Roberta didn't seem wild and headstrong." Yet she often used remarkable

ingenuity to conceal her misdeeds and to continue them.

As she grew into her teens, this girl began to buy dresses, cosmetics, candy,

perfume, and other articles, charging them to her father. He had no warning that these

bills would come. Roberta acted without saying a word to him, and, no matter what he

said or did, she went on in the same way. For many of these things she had little or no

use; some of them she distributed among her acquaintances. In serious conferences it

was explained to the girl that the family budget had been badly unbalanced by these

bills. As a matter of fact, the father, previously in comfortable circumstances, had at

one time been forced to the verge of bankruptcy.

In school Roberta's work was mediocre. She studied little and her truancy was

spectacular and persistent. No one regarded her as dull and she seemed to learn easily

when she made any effort at all. (Her I.Q. was found to be 135.) She often expressed

ambitions, and talked of plans for the future. These included the study of medicine,

dress designing, becoming an author, and teaching home economics in a nearby college.

For short periods she sometimes applied herself and made excellent grades, but she

would inevitably return to truancy, spending the school hours in cheap movie houses, in

the drug store, or wandering through shops, stealing a few things for which she seemed

to have neither need or specific desire. She did not seem to be activated by any

"compulsive" desire emerging against a struggle to resist. On the contrary, she

proceeded calmly and casually in these acts. She experienced no great thrill or

consummation in a theft nor found in it relief from uncomfortable stress.

Twice in her early teens she alarmed her family by staying out all night, once after

a Sunday school picnic, once after a small dancing party. With what seemed like

disarming candor, she had told the girls at whose homes she stayed that her family knew

all about her plans.

Such conduct of course suggests that she might have been deliberately trying to

hurt her parents. If so, Roberta herself was quite unaware of such a motive. As with

her thievery, her truancy, and her running up of bills, no conscious drive of real

significance is found. Roberta insists that she loves her parents. "They've made some

mistakes with me," she says, "but I've made a lot myself. I appreciate all they've done

for me. Of course, I've learned my lesson now."

THE MATERIAL 49

One of this girl's most appealing qualities is, perhaps, her friendly impulse to help

others. In the hospital she showed tact and kindness in doing small favors for seriously

troubled patients. This did not seem pretentious; or in any way staged. At home she

had for years shown similar traits. She often went to sit with an ill neighbor, watched

the baby of her mother's friend, and rather patiently helped her younger sister with her

studies. In none of these things was she consistent. She often promised her services

and, with no explanation, failed to appear. An easy kindness seemed also to mark her

attitude toward small animals. She would stop to pet a puppy, take crumbs out to the

birds, and comfort a stray cat. Yet, when her own dog was killed by an automobile, she

showed only the most fleeting and superficial signs of concern.

"She has such sweet feelings," Roberta's mother said, "but they don't amount to

much. She's not hard or heartless, but she's all on the surface. I really believe she

means to stop doing all those terrible things, but she doesn't mean it enough to matter."

"Lots of times we thought she'd got on the right track," the father said, referring

to Roberta's brief period of interest in church work. When 17 years of age she had

voluntarily assisted the director of religious education for a couple of months and had

talked about making a career of such work. She had seemed sincere and her informal

talks to small groups of younger children in Sunday school made a most favorable

impression. Even while engaged in these activities, she was occasionally stealing and

running up big bills which, by many subtleties, she concealed for a long time from her

father.

"I wouldn't exactly say she's like a hypocrite," the father added. "When she's

caught and confronted with her lies and other misbehavior, she doesn't seem to

appreciate the inconsistency of her position. Her conscience seems still untouched.

Even when she says how badly she's acted and promises to do better, her feelings just

must not be what you take them for."

Having failed in many classes and her truancy becoming intolerable to the school,

Roberta, after several more petty thefts from classmates and teachers, was expelled from

the local high school. Her family sent her to a boarding school of her choice, from

which she wrote enthusiastic letters. Despite this expressed satisfaction, she ran away

from school and could not be located for several days.

After her return home it was found that she had cashed bad checks at school to

obtain money with which she kept herself at a hotel in a town near the school and not

far from her home. She knew several boys and girls there and bad spent some time with

them going to the movies and having dates. She had told a convincing story to the

effect that her father

50 THE MASK OF SANITY

was in town on business and that she had accompanied him. This explanation she made

so blandly and with such casual laying in of detail that none of her friends or their

parents suspected her of having run away. She borrowed sums of money from several

people during this episode, telling them about all sorts of entirely unreal situations

which made it necessary for her to have funds at once.

She seemed entirely untroubled, never by word or gesture giving indication that

she might have something to hide or to be seriously worried about. No adequate

motive for her leaving school could be brought out. Sometimes she spoke of dislike for

a teacher, again of some girl's having seemed snobbish, or, forgetting the other

complaints, explained it all on the basis of having been so homesick. Such expressions

she would later contradict thoughtlessly by praise of the school and statements to the

effect that she had greatly enjoyed herself there.

Since she first began to go out to parties, Roberta had given her parents many

sleepless nights. With the clear and accepted understanding that she must, like her

friends, return home by 10:30 or 11 P.M., she often did not turn up until 1 or 2 A.M.,

and once or twice not until far later. Sometimes she would while away these

postmidnight hours playing pinball and slot machines with several boys in small resorts

about the edge of town. Once she rode on a motorcycle with a young man to another

town fifty miles away and returned just before dawn. Disturbed by the usual talk about

sexual irregularities in young people, her parents had serious discussions with their

daughter. Privileges were taken from her, and, sometimes for a month or more after an

especially gross act of disobedience, she was not allowed to go out with her crowd.

Having long feared that Roberta would in such circumstances lose her virginity,

the parents, after her episode of staying several days away from school at the hotel,

prepared themselves for the worst. She, of course, denied any sexual relations, but she

also regularly denied stealing, truancy, surreptitiously charging things to her father, and

all her other faulty conduct. When she missed a menstrual period shortly after running

away from school, her parents were so perturbed that a medical examination was made.

Not only was there no evidence of pregnancy, but a definitely intact hymen was

obvious.

Roberta was sent to two other boarding schools from which she had to be

expelled. She entered a hospital for training to be a registered nurse but did not last a

month. Employed in her father's business as a bookkeeper, she used her skill at figures

and a good deal of ingenuity to make off with considerable sums.

Although she had a number of boyfriends and spoke of having often

THE MATERIAL 51

been in love, Roberta was not the typical flirt. Apparently she had only mild

experiences in kissing and necking, these activities seemingly vaguely pleasant but not

arousing any vivid passion. The war having been for some time in progress, Roberta

met scores of young soldiers from a nearby camp. She kept up a lively correspondence

with many of them after they were sent overseas or to other posts. She spoke of her

satisfaction in sending letters to these men who were serving their country and

expressed herself from time to time as being in love with one or another of them. One

of those with whom she corresponded most regularly was killed in an accident on the

West Coast and another during combat in Italy. She seemed little affected by these

incidents, though her expressions of regret were verbally appropriate. Apparently she

was unaware that under such circumstances another girl might have felt more.

In telling of her initial sexual experience, which had occurred about a year before

I first saw her, she seemed frank and by no means embarrassed. After her discharge

from the WAC, which she had entered with apparent enthusiasm and wonderfully

expressed intentions, she remained at home and, for a few months, despite relatively

small irregularities, appeared at last to be making a better adjustment. She often seemed

mildly bored but never pathologically restless or distinctly unhappy. She wrote many

sentimental letters to a couple of dozen soldiers, read True Story magazine, Little Women,

The Story of Philosophy, and comic books and attended movies and parties at the Red

Cross.

With no explanation to her parents she suddenly disappeared. To me she

explained that she had left with the intention of visiting a boyfriend stationed at a camp

in another state. She admitted that she had in mind the possibility of marrying this man

but that no definite decision had been made by her, much less by him. She had, it

seems, given the matter little serious thought, and from her attitude one would judge

she was moved by little more than what might make a person stroll off into the yard to

see if the magnolia tree had bloomed. She left with a little over $4.00 in her purse.

Getting off the bus in a town three hours' ride from home, she tried to reach the

boyfriend by telephone and ask him to telegraph funds to her. She could not at the time

reach him. She had realized her family might trace her if she continued by bus to the

city for which she had bought a ticket. This was the chief factor in her getting off where

she did.

Balked in her efforts to reach the soldier, she remembered another boy, now

overseas, who lived in this town in which she found herself almost without funds. She

decided to go to his family and spend the night with them. With the most artless

manner and with no sign of uneasiness or tension, she explained to these people that

she was hurrying to the bedside of

52 THE MASK OF SANITY

an aunt, that her father had been away on business when she left, and that there had

been a mistake in her understanding of the bus schedule. She found, she said, that she

would have to take the morning train from here to reach the bedside of her aunt. There

was much pleasant conversation and these people insisted on her staying for the night.

While alone she attempted to place another long-distance call to the soldier. She

still had in mind ideas about marrying him but had come no closer to a decision. The

call not being completed, she began to fear the operator might ring back. She also was

not quite sure her hostess had not overheard her at the telephone. After thinking of this

and realizing that her family might trace her in such a nearby place, she slipped off after

pretending to go to bed early, leaving no message for these people who had taken her

in.

Catching a bus bound in another direction, she rode for a few hours and got off

at a strange town where she knew no one. Not having concluded plans for her next

step, she sat for a while in a hotel lobby. Soon she was approached by a middle-aged

man. He was far from prepossessing, smelt of cheap liquor, and his manners were

distinctly distasteful. He soon offered to pay for her overnight accommodations at the

hotel. She realized that he meant to share the bed with her but made no objection. As

well as one can tell by discussing this experience with Roberta, she was neither excited,

frightened, repulsed, nor attracted by a prospect that most carefully brought-up virgins

would certainly have regarded with anything but indifference.

The man, during their several hours together, handled her in a rough, peremptory

fashion, took no trouble to conceal his contempt for her and her role, and made no

pretense of friendliness, much less of affection. She experienced moderate pain but no

sexual response under his ministrations. After giving her $5.00 with unnecessarily

contemptuous accentuations of its significance, he left her in the room about midnight.

Next morning she reached her soldier friend by telephone and suggested that he

send her sufficient funds to join him. She had not discarded the idea of marrying him,

nor had she progressed any further toward a final decision to do so. He discouraged her

vigorously against coming, refused to send money, and urged her to return home. She

was not, it seems, greatly upset by this turn of events and, with little serious

consideration of the matter, decided to go to Charlotte, which was approximately 150

miles distant. She seemed frank in admitting that she had no distinct purpose in mind,

was prompted by no overmastering thrill of adventure or fear that her parents might

consider her "ruined" or disgraced. She was, in fact, not conscious of any strong reason

for not going home or for having left in the first place.

Reaching Charlotte, she had little trouble finding small jobs in restaurants

THE MATERIAL 53

and stores. She supported herself for several days by working but found that her funds

barely provided for room and food. She thereupon began to spend the nights with

various tipsy soldiers, travelling salesmen, and other men who showed inclination to

pick her up. With all these she had sexual intercourse. From this she eventually began

to experience a moderate, half-warmed pleasure, but nothing like intense passion.

Despite extensive promiscuity since that time, she has never experienced a sharp and

distinguishable orgasm or found sexual relations in any way a major pleasure or

temptation. Nor has she felt any of the frustrations and unrelieved tension so familiar

in some women who are aroused but left unsatisfied. Her family, meanwhile, not

knowing whether she was dead or alive, was making every effort, through the police and

otherwise, to find her. These efforts met with success after about three weeks.

On meeting her parents she expressed affection, running to them and throwing

herself in their arms. At their prompting she found it easy to make use of the

formalities indicative of penitence but seemed remarkably free from actual humiliation

or distress. Neither the recent anxiety of her mother and father nor her own social

jeopardy overwhelmed or even greatly daunted her. She seemed little vulnerable to the

inevitable gossip that on her return beat like a tempest about town. As if armored by a

sort of innocence, she went her way freely-affable, unembarrassed, the picture of an

artless girl fond of others and expecting kindliness from all.

In this episode, as in most of her other behavior, it is not easy to see what such a

girl as this is driving at. If she had, through hallucinations, heard God's voice telling her

to leave home, or if she believed with the conviction of delusion she had been invited

by a princely suitor to spend the night in love, her conduct would be easier to

understand and would, in a very important sense, be more rational and appropriate. It

would also be easier to understand if she had been driven by sexual craving to sacrifice

social approval for an enticing hedonistic goal.

During her hospitalization she spoke convincingly of the benefit she was

obtaining and discussed her mistakes with every appearance of insight. She spoke like a

person who had been lost and bewildered but now had found her way. She did not

seem to be making any voluntary effort to deceive her physicians.

Soon after she returned home, reports came, all indicating that she was

continuing in her old patterns of behavior. A secretarial position was obtained for her

in Spartanburg, S.C., with a large corporation. She was quick and effective in her work

and was liked by all for her simple, friendly ways. Soon her landlady began to worry

about her moral status as evidence accumulated that she let various men who were

casual acquaintances come up

54 THE MASK OF SANITY

to her room. She showed a good deal of skill in avoiding detection, and her manner

made it hard for such suspicions to be taken seriously. She was so calm, so free of

anything that would suggest a passionate nature, so polite, and so proper that

irregularities of this sort were all but inconceivable to those she met. At last it was

evident that this apparently candid and well brought-up girl was turning the place into

the modest approximation of a brothel. Before the kindly landlady could steel herself to

have a showdown, Roberta disappeared owing a month's rent.

She had, with her convincing manner, succeeded in drawing a sum of money

from a loan fund the employees of the company had built up for their convenience.

Having obtained this, Roberta did not show up for work and was not heard from for a

couple of weeks. Shortly thereafter she returned home. She told little of the real story

to her parents but convinced them she had left her job under honorable circumstances.

This was believed until the facts at last caught up with her.

Other positions were obtained for her in various towns and at home. Each time

her failures were similar and always without adequate motive or extraneous cause. She

returned for psychiatric treatment on several occasions, always saying she had been

helped and expressing simple but complete confidence that it was impossible for her to

have further trouble.

Despite her prompt failures she would, in her letters to us at the hospital, write

as if she had been miraculously cured:

You and Doctor _____ have given me a new outlook and a new life. This time we

have got to the very root of my trouble and I see the whole story in a different light. I

don't mean to use such words lightly and, of all things, I want to avoid even the

appearance of flattery, but I must tell you how grateful I am, how deeply I admire the

wonderful work you are doing. … If, in your whole life you had never succeeded with one

other patient, what you have done for me should make your practice worthwhile…. I wish

I could tell you how different I feel. How different I am. But, as I so well realize now, it

isn't saying things that counts but what one actually does. I am confident that my life from

now on will express better than anything I can say what you have done for me-and my

admiration. … It is good to feel that as time passes, you can be proud of me and as sure of

me as I am sure of myself … whether I go on to college or follow up my old impulse and

become a nurse; if I become a business girl or settle for being just a normal, happy wife,

my life will be fulfilling and useful. … If it had not been for you, I shudder to think what I

might have become.

Additional letters, which she continued to send from time to time, were filled

with similar statements. Occasionally she mentioned difficulties but never a serious

discouragement. She continued in behavior such as that mentioned

THE MATERIAL 55

previously, and the actuality of her conduct and of her situation seemed not to weigh in

her estimate of her present or future.

Though she realized I had been informed of recent episodes quite as bad as those

in the past, on several occasions she wrote requesting letters of recommendation for

various positions she had applied for or was considering. More than once blank forms

appeared in my mail with notices that Roberta had given my name as a reference. It was

interesting and not without an element of sad irony to note that these forms made

specific queries about "good character," "high moral standards, reliability," "would you

employ the applicant yourself, realizing the position is one of considerable

responsibility," etc. Roberta seemed sweetly free of any doubt that such

recommendations would be given without qualification and in the highest terms of

assurance.

With this young lady, as with many other similar patients, the psychiatrist is

confronted with the family's serious questions: What are we to do now? What would

you do if you were in our place? These are questions for which I have found no

satisfactory answer. Such a girl causes more harm to herself and to others than the

average patient with schizophrenia and a more tragic sorrow to those who love her. It

can scarcely be said that she is safer outside an institution than the average patient who

hears imaginary voices or that she can more satisfactorily be cared for at home.

When a physician is asked such questions week after week by honest people who

for years have struggled futilely with such problems, he becomes at length rather firm in

the conviction that any agency capable of taking an initial step to change this situation

should be aroused from its scrupulous inattention.

 

Next: Section 2: The Material , Part 1: The disorder in full clinical manifestations, 7. Arnold

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts         Psychopath           The Mask Of Sanity

 

 

Section 2, Part 1

 

 

 

 

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