Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Exaggerated Self-Pity Self Is Poison Den Dell Syndicate Syndicate Features r f WHEN MY SISTER was three an and I almost five years old our loved Daddy was killed In a motor crash says say a letter ly lying lying lying ly- ly ing here on my desk Mother was left penniless but she resumed her old profession of teaching land find landwe and we had some happy years we three together Our little four tour room apartment was full tull of ot love and harmony and Lily LUy and I wanted only to be with mother for the rest of our lives When mother married the family family fam tam ily doctor a widower the letter goes gols on what whai has preyed to be bea a fatal injury to my development took place I was not conscious of it then naturally but the seeds of what grew to be absolute morbidity morbid morbid- morbidity ity were sown then Sense Of 01 Injustice Our stepfather loved Lily and me but two boy babies came to take our places and at 12 and 14 we were sent to boarding school Our happy country summers and the letters and packages es from Mother never never could remove our sense of deep injustice and it has colored both our lives Lily nev never r married and has worked for tor years in the county home for rental mental cases I have married twice unsuccessfully and arid now feel teel that while my present husband is an absolute angel I am too sick weary and disillusioned to be a good wife for him or good mother to my boys bOYI now 17 and 5 6 years old It was my psychoanalyst who searching painstakingly through my past unearthed this unhappy situation situation situation situa situa- tion in my girlhood and has helped i loo too ski lick and unify teeny me enormously b by putting the blame for tor this Injustice where it belongs belongs on on the tho accident that robbed robbed rob rob- bed me of m my father tather and my mother mothers I second marriage This is 11 only part of ot a 17 page 17 page letter letter let let- letter ter which I have not answered It takes more patience than I 1 possess to sympathize with such luch a woman And yet ih she is 11 typical of actual hundreds who write me every year that fancied slights alights injustices in in- justices and disadvantages far tar back Sack in to their perfectly normal everyday give take give and take up and up-and- and down American childhoods childhood have bave upset their rental mental balances balance for tor Ute life It has bas become the fashion to seek leek back for tor something Mother or Dad did or something they lett left undone and nd la lay today's stupidities resentments resentments resent resent- ments ment failures and flaws In char char- a all an to that M Must us Compensate For Fu Wrong Jut dut heavens which on one of 01 ofus ofus us u. hasn't suffered wrongs tar far deeper than these imaginary ones onel Diana lists here bere not once onre but all aU through our out younger ouner years Jural Parents Par Par- ent will have bave favorite teachers will put the blame on the wrung wrong Child chUd and young JOun bewilderment and ana confusion will lead children Into embarrassing and mo- mo raises Unless UnIe we make mike up our minds mindl at 5 tI or 01 7 1 or even earlier that that's that the way wal the stupid world of 01 grownups grownup It Is and develop sane orne sort ort of at shell bell philosophy or spiritual balance to offset ortt It we shall baU fro grow raN up like Ilke W Lily 1417 and Diana lopsided Diana lopsided buman human tuman bring being who wretched vr ith d e her destiny it is to complicate further u rather than help straighten out this enigma that is life lite Some of us die In auto crashes every year so that detail didn't particularly distinguish these little sisters rs Terrible but its it's the truth And as for a pretty mother at 29 taking a second mate for happy years of ot motherhood and companionship com was was that such a crime never to be forgiven Mother says another part of 01 Dianas Diana's letter was always trying to make us like Uncle Rob as we called caned her ber husband But we saw through her devices In other words you and Lily were ungracious little jealous jealous' minxes and did all aU you could to ruin your mothers mother's chances for happiness in her marriage Im I'm all for modern modem mo ern psychological methods when they deal with the problems of ot the immediate present Many good doctors and teachers and all good mothers know how to handle those cases that arise In connection with almost every childs child's development Their adroitness adroitness adroit adroit- ness in analysis and method is amusingly evident to those of ot us who can remember our own young vagaries inhibitions and fixations under As AI only only simpler names long as the psychologists take today to day tell teU their patients just what's wrong today then Im I'm with them But when they encourage us its us to dig into the past to discover that at four tour months ones one's bottle was late in arriving and at three years Mother said she already had kissed us goodnight and was going downstairs now now and and that these heinous beinous crimes crim lived on a and n d malignantly affected all oUr our later years then that is il sheer nonsense Silly You'll find all these Instances instances in In- stances solemnly portrayed in a recent moving picture that supposedly supposedly sup sup- represents a womans woman's experience experience ex ex- ex in a madhouse These are the causes that sent lent her there |