The Homosexual Neurosis

by Wilhelm Stekel

This went on for several years. Year after year the sister brought a new baby into the world and she could not tolerate her sister’s children in the old home. Every time a visit with the children made her so seriously ill that finally the mother begged the sister to find some other rooming place. The children were hardly tolerated in the house; they had to be kept in one certain room. The girl was always afraid that something in the house would be ruined. That this was not jealousy of her mother is shown by the fact that it did not affect her to have the mother visit the sister. In fact she joined the mother readily on such visits and behaved very pleasantly and quietly at her sister’s. Only when it was a question of the old home she became a storming avenging angel. Naturally she also wanted to have her mother to herself. Her boundless jealousy of the sister had apparently disappeared altogether and had switched over to the old home where the two had been once so supremely happy. Thoughts of hatred against the sister’s children and phantasies about doing away with them, also occurred. She thought of a subtle poison that could be given with the food in her home. Perhaps she feared the presence of her sister and sister’s children in the house for that very reason and the fear may have been a protection against her criminal tendencies.

She had loved truly but one person: her sister. The latter was everything in the world to her. She called her the second mother, her friend, her beloved. Her first thought when she awoke in the morning was of her sister, the endeavor to please her filled her life, and the last thing she did before going to bed was to offer a prayer for her sister. She was good and upright because she loved her sister and because she felt happy that her sister gave all her spare time up to her. She was trained by her, they went on walks together, her sister trained her heart. She was supremely happy and wished nothing more than always so to live beside her sister.

Then came the engagement and her sister’s marriage. Her heart bled at that terrible act of treason and her feelings hardened. She hated everything, she was against the whole world: against the mother who instigated the match, against the other sisters, who had also favored it, against the brothers who did not oppose it. Only an old nurse woman who had always stood by her and was her staff of support, exceptionally escaped her hatred remaining a sort of solitary ray of affection. But the house was filled with memories of the beloved sister. The pieces of furniture were mute but eloquent witnesses of her former happy love state. They should not be profaned by the presence of the unfaithful, changed sister! She hated the children, wishing they were dead and at the same time she was afraid she might hurt them. Two souls struggled in her breast: one a criminal, the other ethical. The sight of the children was repulsive to her. They bore the traits of the sister and of the man who had stolen her away.

Her whole possessions consisted now of her memory and the household goods, the old rooms furnished the necessary real background for her phantasies. “Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven out,” said Jean Paul. Her residence became to her a temple of memory, a sanctuary where every piece of furniture recalled the past happiness in which she still projected herself. For her days passed in dreaming and weaving of fancies. She idled away sweet hours and days continually dreaming only of her sister. Criminal fancies of poisoning all the others finally led her, by way of punishment, to fear poisoning. She quit eating anything at the table, as she formerly did. She suspected poison in every food. She began to vomit after her meals. She kept away from everybody except one woman friend who stuck to her faithfully and who shared her revulsion of feeling against the sister. She lived continually in fear she might kill her mother because the imperative (kill her!) kept cropping up all the time. She avoided men. All attempts to interest her in some man eventually to get her married off proved fruitless....

The home was her temple which must not be soiled. All her devotion and her affection were centered daily on that spot.

The case approaches closely the realm of psychosis.

After a course of psychoanalysis lasting about one half year she improved a great deal. She was able to tolerate her sister’s visits, was free of the obsessive thought of killing her mother, was again able to eat any food and her “nervous” vomiting ceased altogether. A very favorable offer of marriage she rejected. She still avoided men as resolutely as ever.

We turn to the next case.

75. Mr. R. T., a well-known poet, only 31 years of age, is also a victim of morbid jealousy and has already experienced very serious conflicts on that account. He was always fixed on his family and lived exclusively for his parents and other members of the immediate family circle. He clung particularly to the mother, with worshipful affection. At 18 years of age he began to fall in love with all his friends’ “girls.” He even fell in love with a street woman whom his best friend often visited. Already at that time he showed a strong jealous streak and he asked that woman to give up her unfortunate way of living. (That is a typical experience with young fellows who are fixed on the mother. They seek out a polar obverse to their mother’s character and associate with that person a fancy of being the savior. The savior phantasy covers, according to my investigation, merely the wish to save one’s self....) He was soon through with this love affair, although it had broken out with great passion, and had to leave Berlin because he could not get along with his parents. He always quarreled with his mother and that interfered with his creative work.

Meanwhile he became very famous and was earning a very comfortable income. He fell into the habit of spending his nights at restaurants and other amusement places in the company of friends and of returning home in the early morning hours. He woke up at noon and wrote a few hours during the afternoon,—that was his only work.