Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [51]
Gradually, I could sense myself slipping into a blue funk, but I felt powerless to thwart the downward slide. At home, I became a recluse. I hardly talked to Joan or the kids. I did nothing but sit in front of the television set, watching the news aimlessly for hours on end. I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up late each night, which only exacerbated my edginess the following day. Some days I’d go in to the office, only to leave early, bringing home a pile of work that I would then let sit untouched on the counter. Emotionally, I felt like a mass of tangled wires inside, and physically there was an inexplicable pain in my shoulder and neck that seemed to be intensifying with each day.
I considered going for help, but I didn’t know where to go or what to ask for. The Air Force provided medical care, so they might be able to help my neck and back problems, but if I sought treatment for my mental and emotional traumas, a report would surely make its way into my official permanent records, thwarting any hopes I might have for future promotions. The public’s perception regarding rehabilitation programs in the early 1970s was quite different from what it is today. Now, when a high-profile celebrity seeks help to overcome an addiction or depression, we pat that person on the back. In the early 1970s, certainly in the military, to let it be known that you were seeking professional help for mental illness or alcoholism or drug addiction was a death knell to your career and certain to ostracize you socially. No, I decided, I’d suffer through on my own, hoping things would get better, and that I could weather this colossal midlife crisis. But, in truth, I had little confidence that anything would improve.
Finally I went to see the base flight surgeon, Dr. Dick Slarve, a colonel who specialized in working with pilots. As a flight surgeon he wielded the power to ground any pilot, including me, whom he felt was not medically ready to fly. Dick had accompanied our group on the trip to Europe, and we had gotten to know each other. I liked him and, more important, I trusted him. I felt sure that I could talk to him about my inner turmoil as well as the physical pains I was experiencing. By this time I knew that I desperately needed help, even if my malady went on my permanent records, and I expressed that to Dick. Since coming to Edwards, I told him, I had begun to experience two problems: reoccurring episodes of the blues, and a very real physical manifestation of pain in my neck and shoulder. I thought perhaps that I needed a back operation because of the numbness I was feeling in my back and some of the sensations I felt in my arm, and to some extent in my leg as well. I knew that Mike Collins had undergone a back operation that had also alleviated a leg problem, and he had returned successfully to the astronaut corps. Maybe, if there was a physical malady, the doctors could fix it, and I could get back to work. I asked Dick about the possibility of going to the Air Force hospital in San Antonio to be checked out for my shoulder and neck problem—and perhaps any other problems.
We talked for a while, and he suggested that we call Dr. Carlos Perry at Brooks Medical Center in San Antonio. Dr. Perry was an Air Force doctor, but he could be discreet; he could oversee exams of my physical condition, and decide what was the best course for dealing with my mental distress. We set an appointment with Dr. Perry for October 26, 1971, in San Antonio.
A few days before that date, my West Point class of ′51 was gathering in New York for its twentieth class reunion. I had little desire to see old classmates, but it seemed like a good time for Joan and me to go home for a visit, and perhaps have the opportunity to inform our families that I planned to seek professional help. We didn’t want them learning about my going to Brooks secondhand. We visited Joan’s dad and stepmother in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, where I had a chance to have a good heart-to-heart