XXVIII
For the first month of regained freedom I remained at home. These weeks
were interesting. Scarcely a day passed that I did not meet several
former friends and acquaintances who greeted me as one risen from the
dead. And well they might, for my three-year trip among the
worlds—rather than around the world—was suggestive of complete
separation from the everyday life of the multitude. One profound
impression which I received at this time was of the uniform delicacy of
feeling exhibited by my well-wishers. In no instance that I can recall
was a direct reference made to the nature of my recent illness, until I
had first made some remark indicating that I was not averse to
discussing it. There was an evident effort on the part of friends and
acquaintances to avoid a subject which they naturally supposed I wished
to forget. Knowing that their studied avoidance of a delicate subject
was inspired by a thoughtful consideration, rather than a lack of
interest, I invariably forced the conversation along a line calculated
to satisfy a suppressed, but perfectly proper, curiosity which I seldom
failed to detect. My decision to stand on my past and look the future
in the face has, I believe, contributed much to my own happiness, and,
more than anything else, enabled my friends to view my past as I myself
do. By frankly referring to my illness, I put my friends and
acquaintances at ease, and at a stroke rid them of that constraint
which one must feel in the presence of a person constantly in danger of
being hurt by a chance allusion to an unhappy occurrence.
I have said much about the obligation of the sane in reference to
easing the burdens of those committed to institutions. I might say
almost as much about the attitude of the public toward those who
survive such a period of exile, restored, but branded with a suspicion
which only time can efface. Though a former patient receives personal
consideration, he finds it difficult to obtain employment. No
fair-minded man can find fault with this condition of affairs, for an
inherent dread of insanity leads to distrust of one who has had a
mental breakdown. Nevertheless, the attitude is mistaken. Perhaps one
reason for this lack of confidence is to be found in the lack of
confidence which a former patient often feels in himself. Confidence
begets confidence, and those men and women who survive mental illness
should attack their problem as though their absence had been occasioned
by any one of the many circumstances which may interrupt the career of
a person whose mind has never been other than sound. I can testify to
the efficacy of this course, for it is the one I pursued. And I think
that I have thus far met with as great a degree of success as I might
have reasonably expected had my career never been all but fatally
interrupted.
Discharged from the State Hospital in September, 1903, late in October
of that same year I went to New York. Primarily my purpose was to study
art. I even went so far as to gather information regarding the several
schools; and had not my artistic ambition taken wing, I might have
worked for recognition in a field where so many strive in vain. But my
business instinct, revivified by the commercially surcharged atmosphere
of New York, soon gained sway, and within three months I had secured a
position with the same firm for which I had worked when I first went to
New York six years earlier. It was by the merest chance that I made
this most fortunate business connection. By no stretch of my rather
elastic imagination can I even now picture a situation that would, at
one and the same time, have so perfectly afforded a means of
livelihood, leisure in which to indulge my longing to write the story
of my experiences, and an opportunity to further my humanitarian
project.
Though persons discharged from mental hospitals are usually able to
secure, without much difficulty, work as unskilled laborers, or
positions where the responsibility is slight, it is often next to
impossible for them to secure positions of trust. During the
negotiations which led to my employment, I was in no suppliant mood. If
anything, I was quite the reverse; and as I have since learned, I
imposed terms with an assurance so sublime that any less degree of
audacity might have put an end to the negotiations then and there. But
the man with whom I was dealing was not only broad-minded, he was
sagacious. He recognized immediately such an ability to take care of my
own interests as argued an ability to protect those of his firm. But
this alone would not have induced the average business man to employ me
under the circumstances. It was the common-sense and rational attitude
of my employer toward mental illness which determined the issue. This
view, which is, indeed, exceptional to-day, will one day (within a few
generations, I believe) be too commonplace to deserve special mention.
As this man tersely expressed it: "When an employé is ill, he's ill,
and it makes no difference to me whether he goes to a general hospital
or a hospital for the insane. Should you ever find yourself in need of
treatment or rest, I want you to feel that you can take it when and
where you please, and work for us again when you are able."
Dealing almost exclusively with bankers, for that was the nature of my
work, I enjoyed almost as much leisure for reading and trying to learn
how to write as I should have enjoyed had I had an assured income that
would have enabled me to devote my entire time to these pursuits. And
so congenial did my work prove, and so many places of interest did I
visit, that I might rather have been classed as a "commercial tourist"
than as a commercial traveler. To view almost all of the natural
wonders and places of historic interest east of the Mississippi, and
many west of it; to meet and know representative men and women; to
enjoy an almost uninterrupted leisure, and at the same time earn a
livelihood—these advantages bear me out in the feeling that in
securing the position I did, at the time I did, I enjoyed one of those
rare compensations which Fate sometimes bestows upon those who survive
unusual adversity.
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