Something Needs To Be Done

I can hardly remember anything about my stay in the Baptist Hospital and nothing at all about the nine shock treatments. I don’t remember having made the “red burlap flowers” that seem to be a part of the therapy program for mental patients. Neither do I recall that Eleanor, on her 21^st birthday in May, which was about midway into the shock treatments, brought me a dozen daisies. What a sweet thing for her to do… (Now, wasn’t that special!) But, mentally, I was beyond being able to take anything in; I could hardly function.

I can’t remember much about anything after that first appointment with Dr. Huggins, nor remember the remainder of April and all of May because of being given the shock treatments. It wasn’t just a Lost Week-End, it was more like a lost two months.

Eleanor, at this time, was in Columbia taking a course at Columbia College before her graduation and her wedding. She would come faithfully to visit and check on me. It was not easy for her… seeing her mother going downhill each time she would come. She needed to be concentrating on her school work and her wedding… not having to worry about her Mama.

When she would come, she and I would usually take a little slow walk down the hall together. But this one time, Friday, May 24, I was having an especially hard time trying to walk. I was just hanging on to the side rail in the hall in order to move one foot in front of the other. As I moved slowly along, taking one step at a time, Eleanor noticed that something was terribly wrong; I was dragging my right foot! Nobody else seemed to have considered that something other than depression might be the cause of my trouble! And it had even been noted already that I had not been responding to the shock treatments in the usual way!

It seemed very doubtful now, as to whether or not the shock treatments, as Jack had been assured by Dr. Huggins, “would be the best thing for Ashlyn and she would be feeling much better in time for Eleanor’s wedding”.

When Eleanor got back to her college dormitory she called Jack to tell him what she had noticed and that something needs to be done!

Second Appointment

Second Appointment

I can’t remember very much about the April 17 session but I’m sure I would have talked with Dr. Huggins about the fact that after Daddy died in 1980 a Mrs. Turner had been hired by my brother to live with Mother as a companion and take care of her, and that Mother had begun showing signs of senility, and that Mrs. Turner was going to quit because Mother was so “out of touch” with reality. It seemed that Mother would go to the back door and call my daddy who had been dead for some time, “Milton… ah… Milton”, thinking he was in the backyard tending his rose bushes. Then, later, she got where she didn’t trust anybody so she hid the silver goblets under her bed and her checkbook between the mattress and the springs. One time, when dressing, she put her slip on over her dress. When she reached the point that she was no longer able to control her bladder and required constant care, it became necessary to put her in a nursing home. She, then, would tell us that “they” were digging a hole at the end of the nursing home building and wanted to put her in it. And that “they” had poison in the paint on the ceiling which would fall, as she lay on her back in her bed, into her eyes and make them itch.

I would have explained to Dr. Huggins that Mother had hay fever every spring and that was the reason for her eyes itching. When we would tell Mother that there was no hole being dug at the end of the building and no poison in the paint on the ceiling, she would insist that we didn’t know what we were talking about. Before Mother died in ’72 she was transferred to Craft-Farrow in Columbia and Eleanor, being at Columbia College, would visit and check on her nearly every day. I can remember, at that time, hoping that I would never have to end up like mother did.

What’s Wrong?

It all started in the fall of 1973… I was 46 years old. The medication described by the Orangeburg County Mental Health Department didn’t seem to be helping me. I didn’t understand why I was depressed. I had no reason to be. I had married a loving husband after my graduation from Duke University and we had had four precious children, three daughters and a son, and were soon to have a son-in-law. What was wrong? I knew something was! But I didn’t know what.

Eleanor, our oldest daughter, had already set her wedding date for June 1, 1974, to be right after her graduation from Columbia College. I was trying hard to go to the bridal parties given for her during her Christmas holidays, but my general slowness in everything I did and my inability to cope with everyday situations was becoming more and more distressing to me… and my family. At times my mind would just go blank in the middle of a sentence and I wouldn’t be able to remember what I had started saying. As the wedding date drew nearer Eleanor chose the gowns she wanted her bridesmaids to wear and I, already finding it hard to make decisions, took far too long deliberating on which gown to wear as the mother-of-the-bride. Finally, I chose a pale green one… and later had my shoes dyed to match.

My condition steadily worsened. By late March, 1974, I was referred, by my family physician, to a psychiatrist, a Dr. K. Huggins in Columbia, SC for psychiatric evaluation… and treatment, if needed. I was given an appointment for April 1.

At the session, Dr. Huggins asked me some questions. Yes, I had already been on medication prescribed to me by the Orangeburg Mental Health Department. Yes, I had lost both my father in 1970 and then my mother in 1972. And, yes, I had felt so terribly frustrated cleaning out their large attic, trying to decide what to do with all of their many things. Should I throw this away… or not? Maybe I could use this myself… but where? … This to go to the Orangeburg Historical Society… or would they even want it? Give this to one of the children… but which child? So many decisions! Dr. Huggins wanted to see me again in two weeks. Before I left I was given a second appointment for April 17.