Social Security Document Submission: June 1993

Page 84 of Social Security Document Submission

Dear Stell,

Here are three more parallel incidents that may further clarify why people react to me the way they do. I wonder what these reactions mean. Each of the three incidents relate to “acting out.”

1. Early in the afternoon of October 23, 1991, prior to lunch, I was working in the terrace level in a private carrel a few yards away from Chris Robertson and Katherine Harkness, who were working at a computer terminal. The conversation between Ms. Robertson and Ms. Harkness was largely inaudible, but certain words aware repeated by both parties in a markedly audible tone of voice. I recall that he words “bates,” “hit,” and “fit,” in addition to other words, were used again and again with a particular vehemence. (In the context of other repeated words, which I cannot now recall, the words “bates” suggested masturbation and “fit” suggested a fit of rage.) When I asked Chris if I could move to a quiet area until I completed the particular task I was working on, she said, “Oh, I didn’t even know you were working there.”

[It was on the afternoon of the same day, October 23, 1991, that I met with Earl Segal, Esq., in his office, to discuss incidents of harassment and request a private office or reassignment to the Legal Assistant Program. I was terminated a week later, on October 29, 1991.]

[Puns that play on the homophony of masturbates/Master Bates and seamen/semen are quite old (recall the joke: "What's long and hard and filled with seamen?" See also Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels: "But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to fail."]

http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/pugwash.asp

2. On one occasion during my therapy with Dr. Brown, I entered Dr. Brown’s waiting area. Mrs. [Nancy] Brown walked past me with her head down, then said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” Mrs. Brown’s behavior conveyed the impression of a caricature of a shy person. (Mrs. Brown had a propensity to engage in acting out behavior when I entered the office. On numerous occasions she checked out my hood ornament when I walked in the door.)

[I found it odd that Dr. Brown's wife, Nancy Brown, worked as Dr. Brown's receptionist. Sometimes his adult daughter was present. Sometimes the family dog was present!]

3. On one occasion during my therapy with Dr. Brown, I got on the elevator with him in the lobby of his building. He was carrying a carton of sodas and was chatting affably with two young women who apparently worked in the building. As he was chatting he looked over at my hood ornament. When we both got off the elevator, he said to me, “I didn’t see you standing there.” (This anecdote, also sheds light on the nature of Dr. Brown’s sociability, suggesting its over-compensatory nature. Throughout my therapy with him he seemed to communicate the notion that sociability is the sine qua non of mental health.)

In these three incidents, the statement “I didn’t see you” appears to be an integral part of the acting out behavior and appears to identify the behavior as such; as Freud once wrote, in another context, like a stamp on an article that says, “Made in Germany,” See Negation. It is as if the individual were saying, "I was just engaged in acting out behavior and pretending you were not present."

GF

Page 85 of Social Security Document Submission

Dear Stell,

Here’s an interesting anecdote regarding my paranoia.

Back in the days when I used to go to work in the morning, I sometimes saw a fellow waiting for the subway at the Cleveland Park station. He was middle-aged, maybe mid-fifties. I always had the paranoid feeling that he was looking at me, and that he seemed to be esteeming me in some way. I thought maybe he was a little funny (and I don’t mean humorous). Whenever he saw me he looked at me the same way. One day I heard him talking to somebody. He seemed to be a normal fellow with a lively intellect.

Then, a few weeks ago I was watching the evening news on TV. A man was being interviewed who looked just like my friend on the subway. His name was Stephen Hess, and he works for the Brookings Institution. I looked up Stephen Hess in the telephone directory, and there was an entry for a Stephen Hess at 3500 Porter Street, which is just a few blocks from the Cleveland Park subway station. Even if Mr. Hess knew something about me I can’t figure out any way that he would be able to recognize me. So I have to reject the notion that he does know who I am; I and have to assume that it’s my paranoia at work.

_______________

Save this for the commitment hearing.

GF

[What's really peculiar is that in the year 1994, during the televised Senate confirmation hearings of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Hess was present. Stephen Hess helped prepare Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Senate confirmation hearings. Justice Ginsburg and her husband, Martin Ginsburg, Esq., reside in the same Washington, D.C. apartment building as Robert S. Strauss. The Ginsburgs are opera fans and financial contributors to The Washington Opera. Stephen Hess is the step-father of Sara Pozefsky, who is Justice Ginsburg's cousin.

Stephen Hess has served on the White House staffs of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, and has been an adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Bob Strauss served as U.S. Trade Representative in the Carter Administration, and also served as Middle East peace envoy; Bob Strauss was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1976, the year Jimmy Carter was elected President.]