accept her.
Rejection was plausible because of the seemingly cavalier way in which Sybil had closed the door on treatment, but it was more likely--and this hurt even more--that the doctor wouldn't remember her. The envisioned rejection was compounded by the fact that Sybil, who felt guilty for unjustly blaming Dr. Wilbur for failing to call Sybil before leaving Omaha, neatly converted that feeling of guilt into additional feelings of rejection.
Acceptance held a different kind of terror. If she were accepted, Sybil knew that she would have to tell the doctor about the end-of-the-rope feeling she had experienced toward the end of her three years in Detroit, her last residence before coming to New York. While she was teaching, she had seemed to be all right, although there were times in the classroom that she couldn't remember. The moment she left the classroom, however--it was too horrible to recall--strange, incomprehensible things had happened to her. These things were not new, had in fact occurred since she was three and a half and had filtered into awareness at fourteen. But in Detroit they had become not only more frequent but also more menacing. She was no longer able to endure the terrible burden of the secret she didn't dare tell, of the answers she had to improvise to implement the pretense of normality.
People she had never seen before would insist that they knew her. She would go to a picnic and have a vague sense of having been there before. A dress that she had not bought would be hanging in her closet. She would begin a painting and return to the studio to find that it had been completed by someone else--in a style not hers. Sleep was a nightmare. She just couldn't be sure about sleep. Often it seemed as if she were sleeping by day as well as by night. Often, too, there was no dividing line between the time of going to bed at night and waking up in the morning. Many were the occasions of waking up without going to sleep, of going to sleep to wake up not the next morning, but at some unrecognizable time.
If Dr. Wilbur accepted her, these things and many others like them would come up. This time, she promised herself, fearful or not, she would tell the doctor about them. Not telling was like informing a doctor that you had a head cold when you really had cancer.
Yet Sybil, not certain that she could bring herself to tell and knowing that if she didn't, the treatment would be devoid of reality, wondered whether resuming treatment was the right decision. She vacillated for six weeks before taking the plunge.
On the train the past faded. Suddenly it was the present that became compelling as Sybil faced the reason for her precipitous flight from Philadelphia. Each time one of these incidents occurred, and they had been occurring since she was three and a half, it was as if it were happening for the first time. Ever since she had, at fourteen, become aware of her situation, she had told herself each time that she would begin all over again and that it couldn't happen again. In Detroit the episodes had been overwhelmingly numerous, and yet, even then, she had braced herself to dismiss each one as the last.
This time, however, the illusion of the first time assumed even greater terror than it usually did because of the deep disappointment she felt this January, 1958--three and a half years since her analysis had begun--that an episode like that in Philadelphia should occur.
The train chugged into New York's Penn Station. Sybil clutched her zipper folder, left the train, hurried into a taxi, and finally felt relieved of the nagging apprehension, of the insistent remorse at what had happened in Philadelphia. By the time the taxi turned into Morningside Drive and approached the brownstone where in September, 1955, she had taken a second-floor apartment with Teddy Reeves, she felt secure and at ease-- tranquilized by her wish not to remember.
Teddy would still be with her family in Oklahoma. Sybil walked up the
Rejection was plausible because of the seemingly cavalier way in which Sybil had closed the door on treatment, but it was more likely--and this hurt even more--that the doctor wouldn't remember her. The envisioned rejection was compounded by the fact that Sybil, who felt guilty for unjustly blaming Dr. Wilbur for failing to call Sybil before leaving Omaha, neatly converted that feeling of guilt into additional feelings of rejection.
Acceptance held a different kind of terror. If she were accepted, Sybil knew that she would have to tell the doctor about the end-of-the-rope feeling she had experienced toward the end of her three years in Detroit, her last residence before coming to New York. While she was teaching, she had seemed to be all right, although there were times in the classroom that she couldn't remember. The moment she left the classroom, however--it was too horrible to recall--strange, incomprehensible things had happened to her. These things were not new, had in fact occurred since she was three and a half and had filtered into awareness at fourteen. But in Detroit they had become not only more frequent but also more menacing. She was no longer able to endure the terrible burden of the secret she didn't dare tell, of the answers she had to improvise to implement the pretense of normality.
People she had never seen before would insist that they knew her. She would go to a picnic and have a vague sense of having been there before. A dress that she had not bought would be hanging in her closet. She would begin a painting and return to the studio to find that it had been completed by someone else--in a style not hers. Sleep was a nightmare. She just couldn't be sure about sleep. Often it seemed as if she were sleeping by day as well as by night. Often, too, there was no dividing line between the time of going to bed at night and waking up in the morning. Many were the occasions of waking up without going to sleep, of going to sleep to wake up not the next morning, but at some unrecognizable time.
If Dr. Wilbur accepted her, these things and many others like them would come up. This time, she promised herself, fearful or not, she would tell the doctor about them. Not telling was like informing a doctor that you had a head cold when you really had cancer.
Yet Sybil, not certain that she could bring herself to tell and knowing that if she didn't, the treatment would be devoid of reality, wondered whether resuming treatment was the right decision. She vacillated for six weeks before taking the plunge.
On the train the past faded. Suddenly it was the present that became compelling as Sybil faced the reason for her precipitous flight from Philadelphia. Each time one of these incidents occurred, and they had been occurring since she was three and a half, it was as if it were happening for the first time. Ever since she had, at fourteen, become aware of her situation, she had told herself each time that she would begin all over again and that it couldn't happen again. In Detroit the episodes had been overwhelmingly numerous, and yet, even then, she had braced herself to dismiss each one as the last.
This time, however, the illusion of the first time assumed even greater terror than it usually did because of the deep disappointment she felt this January, 1958--three and a half years since her analysis had begun--that an episode like that in Philadelphia should occur.
The train chugged into New York's Penn Station. Sybil clutched her zipper folder, left the train, hurried into a taxi, and finally felt relieved of the nagging apprehension, of the insistent remorse at what had happened in Philadelphia. By the time the taxi turned into Morningside Drive and approached the brownstone where in September, 1955, she had taken a second-floor apartment with Teddy Reeves, she felt secure and at ease-- tranquilized by her wish not to remember.
Teddy would still be with her family in Oklahoma. Sybil walked up the
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