Suicide

Treatment

LINLEY
I went to talk to Dr. Madeleine Palmer.

WOODS
Who is that?

LINLEY
She was the psychiatrist of Mary Ann.

WOODS
Mary Ann did go to a psychiatrist?

LINLEY
Yes.

WOODS
Did Dr. Palmer know about Mary Ann's inclination to suicide?

LINLEY
Dr. Palmer treated Mary Ann for a couple of months:
- She came into my office. She looked around. She wasn't sure whether to commit.

WOODS
Commit? Commit to what?

LINLEY
Dr. Palmer continued:
- A lot of people come to me, unsure. Some of them are afraid that treatment could open old wounds they want to be closed for good. Others think that talking about one's problems won't solve anything.
The initial meetings are for many a means to find out whether they can work with the psychiatrist. They need to trust the psychiatrist. A lot of the treatment's success depends on trust.
Mary was thoughtful. She was troubled, I saw it at once, but she wasn't one of the patients I usually have who need someone to lead the way out of their mental darkness. Mary Ann had made her peace with something and needed someone to confirm her choice.

WOODS
What was Mary Ann troubled by?

LINLEY
Dr. Palmer told me that Mary Ann talked in her first meetings about not being able to have children.
- I treated some women who couldn't have children and were devastated. Some of these women feared that they would lose the love of their husbands and families. For these women having children is like fulfilling a purpose and the role of being a woman. They feel that they do not contribute to the family if they cannot bear children.
And then there are women who think about having children with a deeper meaning. They think about womanhood as a profound connection to a living being. They seek the experience of being a woman and identify themselves through this experience as a mother.
Marry Ann was the latter. She was curious about her life as a woman. She felt that being a woman means being able to have children and in bearing children a woman would become equal to men.
Mary Ann was raised in the belief that men rule society because they have a penis. This is a very common thought among women. Whenever a woman is subjugated to the second row by a man, she feels crushed and diminished. Women then assume that they are inferior to men. She gets fixated with the male penis and its implications for her life because the male penis keeps reminding her of the pain she feels for being a woman.
For many women who suffer from this inferiority complex the only way out seems to bear a child. This makes them in their belief equal to men because even if men rule the society, they still need women to bear their pedigrees.
It is then devastating for these women when they cannot catch up and surpass men.

WOODS
This means that Marry couldn't be a mother and therefore couldn't contribute to a society that only allocates her for bearing children?

LINLEY
Yes. Dr. Palmer explained:
- Women who cannot bear children mostly seek compensation. They want to rule over men and subjugate them as they feel subjugated. These women mostly become despotic superiors and bosses and are unbearable in the workplace.

WOODS
I know a thing or two about these women.

LINLEY
But Marry Ann couldn't compensate her perceived inferiority because she was "just" a secretary.
Dr. Palmer talked about a common change women like Mary Ann go through:
- Mary Ann started to detest her gender. This is common since a woman who cannot bear children is not seen as a woman in society. These women then detest this female role model and their inferiority and adopt a male bearing and behavior. They cut their hair short, wear trousers and dress like men and occasionally strap something between their legs that looks like a penis and look at themselves in the mirror and imagine themselves as men.

WOODS
Okay. But what does that mean? Mary Ann just dressed differently?

LINLEY
Not quite. Dr. Palmer told me that if the social conditions are favorable and admit it, women who feel inferior to men experiment with homosexuality.
- After three months into treatment Mary told me that she was seeing someone, a woman.

WOODS
Mary Ann cheated on David?!

LINLEY
Dr. Palmer continued:
- Mary Ann wasn't a real homosexual, she felt betrayed and wanted to escape her life. She didn't look at the women she went out with as potential partners she could live with, but rather as friends with whom she crosses social boundaries. She toyed around like a teenager.

WOODS
Who was this person?

LINLEY
I asked Dr. Palmer and she responded:
- At first, Mary Ann didn't want to reveal her name. She was still embarrassed and unsure whether her newfound fancy for the same sex is real or just transitory. But after a while, she revealed to me that it was her gynecologist.

WOODS
What? Dr. James is a lesbian?

LINLEY
I asked Rosanne from the local LGBTQ+ community about Dr. James. The LGBTQ+ community in this state is garnered around a few locations and people know each other. Rosanne has been living as a queer woman for more than 40 years. She knows everyone and helped me with my investigation. Rosanne said about Dr. Rose James:
- Rose is one of these personalities who collect women like a trophy. She has always a new girl on her side. I've seen her a couple of times in one of the LGBTQ+ bars and I saw her with this woman, Mary Ann! I immediately noticed that Mary Ann is straight. She looked like one of these teens who have read recently about female emancipation, decided to cut their hair short, wear jeans, and male sneakers and think they make a difference. She was in the wrong place that was for sure. She checked out her surrounding wearily. She didn't want anyone to see her. I knew it was just a fad.

WOODS
In her last photo Mary Ann posted on social media, she appears feminine.

LINLEY
Dr. Palmer revealed:
- It was just a fad. Mary Ann had experimented with it for a couple of weeks and then broke it off. It didn't satisfy her. She couldn't overcome her inferiority complex. For her, it was just two women making out, nothing serious and real.

WOODS
Does this mean that Mary Ann was driven into suicide because she couldn't have children?

LINLEY
I raised the same question during my conversation with Dr. Palmer and she told me:
- Mary Ann didn't want to commit suicide because she couldn't have children. I saw that she had made her peace with it. She talked about adoption and that she wanted to confide in her husband that she cannot have children.
But then a couple of weeks before her suicide I noticed a change in her. She was different. She was thoughtful and troubled. I asked her what was wrong, but she didn't let me in. She didn't trust me. I saw that she was in anguish. I tried to help her, tried to get her to open up, but she refused to talk about it.

WOODS
What happened?

LINLEY
We don't know yet!