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I talked to friends about it. Everyone suggested psychoanalysis, and I always resisted. It was too Hollywood—everyone was being analyzed. I was afraid of the word psychiatry. But finally I just couldn't go on, and it took three years for me to get well. The longer you delay, the longer it takes. I should have gone to a doctor three or four years earlier."
God & Menninger. Gene first went to the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn., was discharged after 18 months in the care of her mother, who, Gene says, firmly told her that she was empowered to commit her. if necessary. Her mother's "courage" gave Gene strength to go to Topeka's Menningers when she felt ill again. There she settled down to learning how really to face the problems that had given her such deep anxiety. "They thought it would take two years to cure me," she says with deep admiration, "but it took only eight months.
"I learned so much, particularly discipline and patience. I didn't undergo analysis. It was psychotherapy and counseling that I needed. The quiet in a sanatorium slows you down, and you begin to understand things that puzzled you. I learned that the mind is the most beautiful part of the body, and I am so grateful to God and the Menningers to have mine back.
"I was so fortunate. My illness was a curable one, not cancer or something worse. It was something that I was responsible for, not anyone else's fault. It was up to me to do something about it, and I did. Now I'm looking for a movie part. I want to go to work, and the doctors think that I should never give up acting. You know that phrase, 'The past is prologue'? It's so wonderful and true. Perhaps some day I'll marry again and have a quiet, happily married life. But I'm in no rush. Whether it comes or not, I have more peace of mind than I've ever known."
* About a year later, a woman marine came up to Gene on a tennis court, reminded her that they had met at the canteen. "You didn't happen to get German measles, did you?" asked the marine. "I so wanted to see your show that I broke quarantine to come."