Conclusion

Summary

When are you going to perform the third transorbital lobotomy and cure me? In one month, two months, or perhaps, in three months? I must have asked you this question a dozen times, but the answer still remains elusive. And I want to know it so much. For I am just human enough, to wish to be cured of this paralyzing anxiety as soon as it is convenient for you to reoperate. Tell me when you will do it, and I will purchase a calendar, and mark every day off until the time arrives. That is what prisoners in jail are reputed to do while awaiting their freedom. But, in a way, I am not unlike them. For, their bars are composed of steel, while mine are composed of anxiety. However, they have one advantage over me. They know how much longer they have to serve. How much longer must I wait before the operation releases me?

Wilma Rogers wrote Walter Freeman this letter at the end of 1954, the same year chlorpromazine entered American psychiatric practice. She had tried many different medications, including various barbiturates, reserpine, chlorpromazine, as well as a trial with stimulants. She had briefly attempted psychotherapy with at least six different psychiatrists, and had undergone prolonged therapy with the renowned psychiatrist Lothar Kalinowsky. Freeman had performed her first transorbital lobotomy in early 1954. A few months later, Wilma wrote Freeman that she felt as though she was “a spectator, watching a never ending scene of human life, which I am prohibited from ever participating in.