23 September 1959

I must write. I must get this unhappiness out of my heart! I’m so blue and depressed I can hardly stand it. I want to scream. I want to weep. If I can’t rid myself of this despondency I shall go mad.

What’s the cause of it? FRUSTRATION!!! Just plain old-fashioned frustration. I’m sick of being sick! I’m sick of pain. I’m sick of illness. I’m sick of myself. I’m sick of everybody.

There is no health in my soul. I just can’t fight this feeling. It just gets worse. I can’t step out of it.

I hate life. I hate the trap of life. I hate living.

Actually, there isn’t too much wrong: Kurt feel shut out and far away from me. He feels neglected physically. I guess he senses something is wrong. But he is more interested in his own frustrations. Then, too, I satisfy few of his needs. I think he feels, in fact he says, he has problems of his own. I’m sure he has. So I can’t burden him with my feelings. What can he do?

Bill is Bill. Young – self-absorbed – growing up a bit, but very demanding. He voices his needs and persistently plugs for what he wants.

Nancy? Well she manages to enjoy life. Her hours are atrocious – her social life and activities very much more valuable than family, health, or anything else. She’s inclined to be very touchy recently.

If I could just make a lot of money in the market. But the money making I dream about seems very unrealistic. Blanche says I’m too impatient. I hate money worries and bills. As the time for a college decision by Bill draws closer, I’m almost beside myself with worry.

Also, Kurt is so opposed to a social life. Go to a movie; watch a TV ballgame, golf, or football and he is all right. But just ask him to visit (that is anyone but Steve [Treer]) and his displeasure shows a mile wide.

Caught as I am between financial anxiety and desire for human contacts, I am ready to bust wide open psychically.

It’s just gotten to the point I have no desire to live. I could just die because the picture is so mundane, so drab, so full of the press of other people who are not interested in my needs. Maybe it is the old psychological pattern again – frustration and unhappiness – perhaps it is the old feeling of not being important or appreciated. Perhaps it is just people. Both but if it is the people, I know who set the standards – the crummy relatives – it is small wonder what with being ill so long, with the indifference or lack of something around me, that I feel as I do.

I just am not getting much pleasure out of life and can’t pick myself up by my own bootstraps. And I can’t seem to write it out of my system.