"There was first of all the feeling of helplessness - a serious disease in itself. 

There was the subconscious fear of never being able to function normally again - and it produced a wall of separation between us and the world of open movement, open sounds, open expectations. 

There was the reluctance to be thought a complainer. 

There was the desire not to add to the already great burden of apprehension felt by one's family; this added to the isolation. 

There was the conflict between the terror of loneliness and the desire to be left alone. 

There was the lack of self-esteem, the subconscious feeling perhaps that our illness was a manifestation of our inadequacy. 

There was the fear that decisions were being made behind our backs, that not everything was made known that we wanted to know, yet dreaded knowing. 

There was the morbid fear of intrusive technology, fear of being metabolized by a data base, never to regain our faces again. There was resentment of strangers who came to us with needles and vials - some of which put supposedly magic substances in our veins, and others, which took more blood than we thought we could afford to lose. There was the distress of being wheeled through white corridors to laboratories for all sorts of strange encounters with compact machines and blinking lights and whirling discs.