He Wanted the Moon Read online

  My thoughts dwelled for only a moment upon the nature of my surroundings. I was chiefly occupied with one intolerable fact: I was back at Westborough for probably a long stay. It would be many days before any word would reach me from the outside. I was in for the usual stupid psychiatric procedures—to go through once again what I had faced so many times before: an utterly meaningless period of confinement in a hospital under barbaric conditions inherited from a culture of darkness and ignorance. It seemed impossible that I could have been so stupid as to take any chances upon being caught in the same predicament which had seared my heart and soul so many times before, once again to have my mentality subjected to the destructive powers of loneliness, despair, idleness, filth, the ignorant dictates of below average doctors, lies and deception, the long absence from the strengthening power of work, isolation from all customary environment, disgrace.

  I turned off my light and lay in bed. I fell asleep but awoke in a few hours refreshed. The door opened abruptly and three attendants entered the room.

  “Come with us,” one of them said.

  I went along without argument or resistance of any type. Down the corridor we went, turning down a branch corridor at our right going towards the rear of the building. We passed through the shower room. There, bound fast in a straightjacket, was one of the demented patients whose nightly howling had disturbed me so much the year before. He looked pitiful and miserable as he pulled his head upward and forward to watch us pass through. Often he would jerk his head backward and forward in rhythmic sequence, his tousled blond hair, blue eyes and rounded, lumpy, scarred face made a sad and awesome picture; once encountered, never to be forgotten.

  On we went into the next room where I was ordered to remove my clothing. I complied quietly. A straightjacket was brought forward and I was instructed to put my arms into sleeves that were built in a solid rectangular pattern. I was then told to lie on a bed standing at one end of an otherwise empty room, next to the window. I followed orders without making any comment, but with a mounting sense of indignation and deep despair. The straightjacket was made of canvas and strong canvas ribbons dangled from its edges in pairs. These were tied securely to each side and to the foot of the bed. The sixteen or eighteen such pairs of ribbons formed powerful anchors to the bed, allowing slight motion.

  The attendants departed, leaving me alone with the light burning so that I could be watched through a large window from the adjoining tub room. I lay still for a while, trying to adjust myself to this new and most barbaric treatment. My dignity as a prominent practicing physician seemed to have been violated flagrantly. I felt insulted. A wave of despondency passed over me. I tried to imagine that the straight-jacket was just a sort of mental test to be met by getting out of it as quickly as possible. I recalled some of the tricks I had read about in the life of Houdini. I remembered that he could untie knots with his toes and I began to practice. In a relatively short time, I learned a great deal about how to untie knots with a big toe and the first little toe of each foot. Slowly and methodically I went from knot to knot, untying all kinds of knots, and soon I was almost free.

  Just as I was about to roll over and free myself entirely, three attendants entered and tied me down again, this time much more securely, leaving me little motion. Soon the attendants left, and—when they were out of sight—again I undertook to untie myself. It was a much more difficult task now that my motions were so limited.

  In releasing oneself from an expert straightjacket, one can do little work until one has freed the ankles and removed the pillow that is fitted behind one’s head. By making a heroic thrust of the head beyond a ninety-degree turn, one can just barely catch the cloth of the pillowslip in one’s teeth. Having then caught the cloth, one can then pull and loosen the material enough to get a thicker bite and then, by raising the neck forward—simultaneously with thrusting the head to the opposite side—the pillow may be pulled out quickly. Then, more gradually, it may be shoved across the bed and down upon the floor. With the pillow removed, the head falls back to a lower level and the neck will descend through the opening of the jacket. It is then possible to move downward in the bed. The ankles can then be moved enough to make it possible to free them. As the feet move downward, there is a little play between the binding sheets and by rotating from side to side, and moving up and down, the feet come clear.

  The next steps include loosening as many knots as one can reach after freeing the knees from the transverse binder. As one gets freedom of movement, some of the knots can be disposed of by putting the heel between the edge of the straightjacket and the iron rod to which the ribbons are tied. A sharp downward thrust of the heel will then sever the attachment of the knot from its function with the jacket. Some of the knots around the top of the bed can be untied with teeth, but not always. Sometimes the arms can be freed from the jacket sleeve by flexing the elbows, which may then rip open the seams and allow one or both arms to be freed. If either of the top edges of the jacket can be loosened by teeth, hand or foot, the neck can then be removed from its noose by twisting and rotating it in a complicated series of movements similar to the progress of the head of a child as it goes down the birth canal. It will then be possible to climb out of the opening at the top of the jacket or at some section along the side. There are many ways to emerge, depending upon how the straightjacket is applied, and it is an interesting and absorbing study to work them out. Almost every new straightjacket application represents a new problem.

  With patience and persistence, I soon had myself free. In came more attendants who fastened me to the bed with extreme diligence, using not only the canvas knots, but employing tight-fitting, heavy strips of sheeting across my chest, wrists and legs to limit motion even further. By a similar device my feet were strapped tightly together and then joined to the foot of the bed. Again I was left alone, and again I went to work, twisting and turning until I got my feet disentangled, then turning sideways and flexing my knees to get my legs above the rather powerful horizontal leg restraints. As I lay on one side, I was then able to work at untying the knots and could gradually loosen myself.

  Time after time I wiggled free. The attendants returned at regular intervals to bind me down by methods growing more and more complicated and ingenious. They seemed surprisingly good-natured about all the trouble I was giving them. This strengthened my conviction that I was merely being put to some sort of mental test. One of them—apparently the one in charge—engaged me in a conversation about Schopenhauer and various other philosophers as he assisted in the procedure of applying restraints.

  As the night passed slowly, I grew to enjoy the task of escaping from restraints and gradually acquired the satisfying conviction that I was doing about as well as Houdini himself might have done under similar circumstances (with no concealed files, scissors, or knives).

  Dawn came. I had not slept. The night shift attendants—a fairly decent group of fellows—went off duty and the day shift arrived. Tiny Hayes, one of the physiotherapists at the hospital, arrived along with a patient to take me to the toilet. Already my straightjacket was about free from its moorings due to my continued struggles. As my feet hit the cold cement floor, a wave of chilliness spread over me and with it, a wave of depression. Tiny and the patient, one on each side, guided me along to the toilet in the adjoining hydrotherapy room.

  As I arrived at the toilet, Tiny caught a strap of my straightjacket and wheeled me around.

  “Sit down,” he said in a loud, superior voice.

  I looked over one shoulder to get oriented, and then sat down upon a cold, unprotected, rather moist enamel toilet. The cold edge of the crude toilet seat seemed to cut into my flesh and it precluded any possibility of performing any functions.

  “Hurry up!” Tiny yelled as he and the patient stood over me.

  The situation was disgusting and humiliating. I arose with feelings of futility and walked back to the bed. A sense of anger seized control of me and, with a sudden twist of my body, I pulled
myself almost free, but Tiny caught a portion of my straightjacket—which still held my arms imprisoned—and jerked me around, catching me from behind, closing his forearm over my throat, choking and hurting me. He dragged me to the bed and made me fall down upon it by twisting my neck. As he sat to buckle me down again, I caught his left arm with my right elbow. He turned and struck me a heavy and powerful blow with the flat of his hand on my left cheek. After this, he proceeded to tie me down with expert skill.

  As soon as he left the room, I began to struggle to free myself. I could not tolerate these jackets. I could not restrain myself from resisting. When I was a patient at the Pennsylvania hospital, an attendant told me that he had watched me in restraints for a period of many days. He said that he had never seen me stop fighting restraints whether clearly conscious or narcotized.

  After about two hours of struggling I got myself entirely free and stepped out naked on the bare cement floor, free from restraints for the first time in about twelve hours. I then grabbed hold of one of the steel frames used to drape curtains for screening off sections of the room. I was trying to use the frame as a bar to force my way through the steel window frame, when Mrs. Delaney, one of the day nurses, opened the door and walked in.

  I was standing there, stark naked.

  “Why, Dr. Baird!” she exclaimed.

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying to cooperate but my body won’t seem to let me yield to this type of therapy,” I explained. “I seem to fight restraints with automatic muscular efforts beyond my control.”

  She then closed the door and returned in a few minutes with underwear, bathrobe and slippers. I was then allowed to take a shower bath and put on these crude garments. I returned to my room and was locked in.

  My memory remains quite clear for the events of the night and following morning. As I left the room where I was kept in restraints, lucidity of memory seems to persist, but as I stepped into the side corridor, a renewed sense of imprisonment came over me, and here my recollection of exact sequences fades. Things come back to me as vivid, indelible scenes that often return to be acted out again upon the stage of my mind.

  Soon after reaching my room, a type of treatment known as “constant restraint” was put into effect. I do not recall having done anything violent or uncooperative, and the nurses on the ward told me later that I had given ideal cooperation. Yet for some reason, unknown to me then and unknown to me now, I was subjected to the most exhausting, the most painful and barbaric treatment which I can conceive of in this modern age.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Westborough State Hospital, 1944

  The patient was very excited. He was in an over-talkative and overactive condition. He required restraint, resisted with vigor, and with his great strength, this was difficult. He destroyed a great number of restraint sheets.

  THE constant restraint procedure consisted in maintaining alternation between straightjackets and cold packs.

  “Take off your clothes!” Tiny shouted.

  I did so.

  “Lie down on this bed!” he yelled again in a needlessly coarse and antagonistic voice.

  I did so.

  Then began the agonizing experience of being wrapped tightly in cold sheets soaked in ice water that were folded according to various patterns and laid across the bed over a rubber mattress. The initial impact of these ice-cold sheets on the spine is pure pain. Every additional contact with cold sheets as they are wrapped around the body brings chills and continued discomfort. First the arms are bound tightly to one’s sides and then sheets are stretched in several layers across the shoulders, body, and legs, creating a trap that permits very little motion. Large safety pins are used here and there at strategic points to secure fixation. The process of wrapping Egyptian mummies must be similar. It’s a rough business and the sense of complete immobility is uncomfortable bordering upon terrifying. Any normal individual would suffer from the feeling of being held so tightly. The manic patient—with his constant impulse toward over-activity of mind and body—suffers many times more than the normal individual might.

  Restriction of motion is not the only source of pain. After the sheet wrapping and safety-pin-transfixing has been completed, transverse binders then bind one down further—across the chest, hips and legs. These are run across the body, beneath the steel bars at the sides of the bed, and back across the body, then pulled very tightly by the combined strength of two men, one working from each side. One attendant on the right, for example, will put his knee on your right shoulder and then holding the cross binder, will pull upward while pressing your shoulder down. The binder slips around the side bar of the bed and the sheet feels compressed. This attendant then holds the binder securely while the attendant across from him repeats the process. This is done by each of the attendants several times. The ends of the binders are placed across the chest and pressed down with enormous and powerful safety pins. The same procedure is repeated for hips and legs. Finally, one or two blankets and a sheet are placed over the wrapped body and a pillow under the head.

  Everyone leaves the room. The door is locked. The shock of sudden coldness rakes the body with chills. Before long this deep sense of coldness begins to wear off and the body becomes heated. This heat quickly heats up the wet sheets, and the warm blankets prevent the escape of the heat. Soon, one feels hot and feverish. A great sense of restlessness comes over one.

  From the beginning of each pack, the calf muscles feel uncomfortable, and no effort to change position will relieve this discomfort completely. Pulling the toes up, and then pushing them down, lessens the discomfort. One perspires profusely due to sheet insulation, retained body heat and violent physical exercise. As a result salt is lost and muscle cramps develop (as is well recognized in industries where workers labor in a hot atmosphere). In my own case, these cramps were noticed chiefly in the calf muscles, which were uncomfortable from the start. These cramps grow increasingly severe and become constant, agonizing.

  While enclosed in a pack, the patient is required to pass his urine and feces into the pack—a diabolical ruling. I was always able to retain feces but I was forced to allow my bladder to empty after distention became painful. Once, when upset, my bladder sphincter seemed to go into spasm and, from the reclining position, I could not force it to open. Over a period of two or three hours, I suffered from increasing pain due to bladder distention. I begged and pleaded to be released so that I could empty my bladder, but I was merely told by Mrs. Delaney to pass the urine into the pack. It was explained to me that most patients derived pleasure from urinating while in packs.

  It is difficult to get out of a pack, but possible to do so, and I have wriggled out of many of them. During the struggle to get out of the pack, the sense of being overheated is most uncomfortable. Heat builds up rapidly, due partly to the heavy insulation of the body, and partly to the violent exertion of struggling. Thirst becomes at first extreme, and then almost unbearable. Sometimes a nurse will bring water if one yells loudly enough, but usually one waits for what seems like an interminable period before water is brought.

  After struggling in a pack from two to ten hours, one grows weak from loss of fluid and salt, from constant pains, from the disgusting feeling of lying in one’s urine, from extreme thirst. The suffering is beyond the imagination of anyone who had not endured it. I feel sure that many times I found no sleep except in attacks of unconsciousness from which I would awaken probably in a few minutes. After these attacks of unconsciousness, I had the weird delusion of having slept for months or even years.

  I can recall many occasions when I would suddenly break into a cold sweat and great drops of perspiration would pour out upon my forehead, nose and cheeks and run in rivers down across my face and neck. I believe that these phases of sudden, extreme, cold-perspiration and these attacks of unconsciousness represent dangerously severe stages of exhaustion.

  After many hours, I was always so weak that I could hardly raise myself from the bed. Sometimes an attendant placed his
hand behind my head and raised me to a sitting position. When I then tried to stand, I usually found that my leg muscles were so cramped, and the rest of my muscles so weak, that I could not stand up. While being taken to the bathroom, I walked along stooped over, half crawling, with my knees bent and attendants holding me up. The next privilege was to sit on the toilet, sometime clean, and sometime smeared with urine and feces. As soon as I had finished at the toilet, and washed my face and hands, I was returned and placed immediately in a straightjacket without being allowed any period to recover from weakness, cramps, exhaustion and disgust. With the straightjacket came another type of suffering to succeed the one just endured.

  For several successive days and nights this torture was continued. My body and mind fought on savagely and ceaselessly, but automatically. In spite of extreme sensations of exhaustion, I found no sleep, except in brief spells of what I believe was unconsciousness. I was never allowed any food except while under restraint. Usually Mrs. Delaney or Mr. Burns fed me—occasionally Tiny Hayes. Mr. Burns was more considerate in the feeding procedure than either Mrs. Delaney or Tiny Hayes. Tiny was usually brutal; Mrs. Delaney only a little less so. Breakfast was just a bowl of thin hot cereal without cream or sugar but with a little milk. A tablespoonful of this gruel mixture came at one’s mouth before the previous mouthful could be swallowed. If one did not open and swallow what was offered quickly enough the stuff would usually be emptied partly around the mouth, and it would run in disgusting little rivers down the cheeks onto the neck, finding its way into pack or jacket.