I
“As you are desirous of knowing more about my life and environment, I state concerning them as follows:
“You will remember that I told you that my step-father was a liquor dealer. Throughout all the time that he was in business we either lived over the bar-room or else right in the place where the liquor was sold. My step-father was a very heavy drinker, a man of violent nature, and decidedly pugnacious. As a child I have been scared to death by drunken brawls, and many nights have been dragged out of bed by my mother who would flee with me to the house of a neighbor for safety.
“I might say that until I was seventeen years old, I lived in continual terror of something going to happen. If he was arrested by the police, as often happened, our home would be a scene of turmoil until the case was settled.
“I remember one incident very plainly, when he came home one night completely covered with blood as the result of being held up by thugs, and another time when he left the house to subdue some quarreling drunks with a pistol and returned after an exchange of shots with his hand shot through.
“As a child, I was inclined to study, and associated very little with other children. My mother tells me that I talked early, but when about three years old I began to stammer. This trouble bothered me a great deal, and I used to worry about it all the time, especially in school when I would try to recite. I might add that even now, when excited, I am troubled in the same way.
“My step-father has been subject to nightmares nearly all his life; when asleep he would cry and moan and would be unable to move until some one would shake him out of it. He was terribly afraid of them, and I remember he used to say that he expected to die in one of them. I used to be left alone with him quite frequently, and I stood in constant fear of his dying; and if he fell asleep, as he frequently did in the day time, I would wake him or watch his respiration to see if he was alive.
“At other times I have been awakened in the night by his cries and would assist my mother in bringing him to consciousness. It was during one of these times that I became aware of my heart palpitating, and whenever he had such a spell, I would be in a state of fear and excitement for some time after. He would have these nightmares nearly every night and some times four or five times in one night, and I might add that he has them even now.
“I began to have attacks of dizziness in the streets, and finally one day, I had one, and all symptoms and fears of the attack came on in school, and from that time on I have watched my respiration and suffered from dizziness, mental depression, and sadness.
“You have asked me to tell you more in detail about the attacks or nightmares to which my step-father was subject, and which always frightened me greatly, especially when a child.
“My step-father had the habit of falling asleep quite often, even in the day time, and I have never known him to go to sleep without having an attack in some form. If one watched him asleep, as I often did, one could tell by his respiration when an attack was coming. His breathing would become slower and hardly perceptible, and finally he would begin to moan, and cry out; then, when shaken vigorously and spoken to, he would awaken in great fear and apparent suffering. If he had an attack, and we did not respond soon enough, he would be very angry and say that we cared not if he should die. We were so afraid of these attacks that we had trained ourselves to be ever on the look-out for his cries, even at night.
“It really seemed as if his life rested in our hands. I might say that sometimes these attacks lasted several minutes, before he could be awakened. He used to say that at such times he always dreamed someone was choking, beating, or otherwise torturing him. He had been told by some physician that he would ultimately die in such an attack.
“These attacks were sufficient to precipitate a small panic in the house. I know not a single hour of the day or night, but that I have either been called or awakened by my mother in her efforts to awaken him. With the attack over, I would be trembling all over, and my heart would be beating madly. I can remember these attacks from my earliest childhood, and it seems to me that on one occasion, at your office, I was startled just as these attacks used to make me.”
While in the hypnoidal state, patient exclaimed: “I am afraid. All my life I lived under terror.... This is just my disease,—fear.”