DEALING WITH THE REOCCURENCE OF MENTAL ILLNESS

I was about fifteen years old, and scared to death.  I had no idea what to do.  I made a decision.  I told Mama that I was going to walk to town.  Somehow I scrounged up about 75 cents. At that point I had never talked on a telephone more than two or three times in my life.   The only way I knew to make a call was to go to the telephone office in Clyde. When I got there I found the office locked.  There was an operator on duty inside, but she was locked in for security purposes.  However, there was a pay phone in the foyer.  I called the operator on the pay phone and told her that I wanted to speak with Burl Bales at the Park Hotel in Odessa, Texas.   She told me to put money in the slot.  I think I put everything I had, and she put the call through to Odessa.  I told Daddy what was going on, and I suggested that he come home as quick as possible.   I walked back home and went to bed.  About 6 o’clock the next morning he and Murl drove up in the yard.

We got past that crisis, but the time would come when we had to make some difficult decisions. We drove to Hico, and members of Mama’s family gathered in an attempt to persuade her to go to Galveston.  Even though she was irrational, she understood that part of the plan, and she was adamantly opposed to it.  Neither Daddy, her siblings nor her parents could persuade her differently.  I remember sitting on the porch and trying my best to explain to her why she ought to do it.  To my great surprise she agreed.

The next day Daddy, her brother Durward, and I’m thinking her sister, Melba went to Galveston with her.  They refused to take her.  They said “John Sealy hospital serves the entire population of the state of Texas.  We can’t take anyone the second time.”  He went on to explain that he felt her condition required hospitalization, which meant that she would need to be sent to a regional mental health facility.  For us that meant Wichita Falls.