Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [31]
“This evening I told Dean with a smile that I would not be able to come,” Felix wrote. “I told him that there was an important reason, and he of course, misunderstood me.
“How can I tell anyone what the real reason is? Can I say to my friend, ‘Sorry, Dean, I cannot go because of my self-consciousness.’ It would make me utterly miserable. The girl would think I was crazy. I would have to laugh, and it would simply be too painful for me. This is what I would have had to say. How impossible my existence is.”
Felix also wrote about a letter he sent to his older sister, Evelyn, in which he tried to explain his state of being.
In this letter, I expressed what has long been turned over in my mind, i.e., the anger and guilt which I direct towards my parents for having made me what I am, a helpless, utterly self-conscious and miserable individual.
Instead of the closeness I once felt for my parents, there is now anger and resentment. The guilt, which I once felt for their sake, I have emplanted [sic] in them. Mother’s letters now leave me with a cruel kind of coldness. In the letter, I announced my determination to sever, although not entirely, relations with Harrison [Felix’s hometown in New York].
Perhaps this sounds dramatic, yet it must be so. I also told EV [Evelyn] that I felt myself to be basically a simple individual who has by accident had a complex personality thrown on his rather weak body. And this is exactly my feeling. The simplicity and sometimes naivitee [sic] of my desires, thoughts and pleasures are a violent contrast to the complexity of my psychic structure. It is as if my psychic existence and my true nature were two separate entities joined by a foolish or blind will. Where I asked to choose between discarding my simplicity and my personality, there would not really be a choice.
At twenty-three, Felix was slowly coming apart, yet, his silent suffering only magnified his problems. He had never dealt with the psychological trauma he suffered as a young boy in war-torn Europe. There was much secrecy surrounding the horrific crimes of World War II, and there was no counseling available to the tens of thousands of victims. Those lucky enough to have survived received no special treatment.
Everybody was expected to go on. And outwardly, most did.
In September of 1955, the navy transferred Felix back to a base in Brooklyn, New York, for shore duty. He was unhappy with the assignment and unhappy to be back home. His only consolation was that he could resume therapy with Dr. Goldstein. According to the doctor’s records later obtained by the U.S. Navy, Felix attended ten sessions with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist recorded that he was “agitated,” “depressed,” and “concerned over sexual problems,” “lacked an interest in a career,” and “was preoccupied with philosophical and cosmic concepts.”
A sexual history complied by Dr. Goldstein during his sessions with Felix disclosed that Felix began masturbating at the age of twelve, but “masturbated with guilt” and “felt confused regarding sexual facts until fifteen years of age.” He began dating at sixteen, and by the age of twenty, was involved in a relationship with a well-to-do aspiring actress. We’ll call her Fannie.
Felix’s guilt over masturbation and confusion over sexual gender were not remarkable since about 50 percent of American males reportedly experience those same feelings, according to experts. What was unusual was that, since puberty, Felix had been obsessed with his sister, Evelyn.
“Incestuous fantasies involving his older sister have preoccupied him since adolescence,” Dr. Goldstein noted in his official report.
It is interesting that Evelyn was fifteen when Felix began to fantasize about her—the same age that Susan was when she first went to see him in 1972.
On Friday, October 14, 1955, Felix met with Dr. Goldstein but his