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[Undated, late spring 1978]
Dear Jim;
I probably should have written this long ago. Because of what Debbi [Layton Blakey] has done, I should open myself up more.
It was at first a shock when she left because I always liked her, but now I would sooner kill her as hear her name. It is hard to believe that is the same person I knew. I also feel a lot of guilt for her leaving. I recommended she going to town, I was nasty to her on the radio, I didn’t pass on traffic from the day before she left that she was not keeping the money up to date (Debbie Touchette said Karen [Layton] left checks lying up unlocked also – I want to make sure I report all carelessness with money), she kept asking me several times if I thought she was compensating with this Cuban at this dance we went to at the Pegasus [Hotel] because Sharon [Amos] reported her she said (I told her that I didn’t think she knew how to handle the situation. I should have reported it because she was so afraid Sharon reported her.).
I want to digress to when I came in last February after being stuck with Mann. I was hostile toward you, I know, only I didn’t really analyze it at the time as being toward you. I was totally irrational in my thinking before I came in, but I blame a lot of it on Sharon Amos because when she wants to be right she does not give a damn about anybody else if it threatens her. I felt so alienated from you and from everyone at that time. I was beaten up by a madman that I was nearly ready to kill and when I called our house and was in tears telling Sharon that I thought she made me feel unwanted, she did not tell me what was going on, that I was not a part of the Gtn [Georgetown] work, that my opinions were unsound or not useful and that I felt alienated. Instead of listening to me, she confronted me about being unaccountable and bringing it onto myself because I was never around. I was irrational, but after spending one month with the madman, having less than a month back home and back again for another month, I suppose most people might feel alienated. I think simply in the interest of the cause and as a psychologist that she should have tried to pacify me at the time, but she never did admit that she was wrong in any way. I know that I was a great deal to blame because what she said was true, but I did and still do think that the reason she did not inform me of what was going on was because she was threatened by me. Mann was quite fascinated by me crying and kept walking back and forth when I was on that call. I never explained it to him, but he knew it was Sharon.
The last time was particularly horrible because there was a barrage of questions and
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Mann particularly trying to trick me into admitting being involved with [Foreign Minister Fred] Wills attacks on him.
Perhaps it was coincidental but I became a fuck-up after Sharon came to town. I never stopped working ever, but my motivations were not sound and I was hostile all the time. I do not like Sharon even now, but I think she is better in p.r. than anyone else. (crisis p.r. mostly). I think Sharon does not look at herself and is the most difficult person I have ever worked with in anything.
I brought most of my problems onto myself when I was in town. (I have never considered betraying in the context of leaving, but I have been a traitor and that I have thought in terms of suicide on three different occasions… but I work through it, so don’t worry. I know I can work out my own shit. I have done it for so long that when I get depressed or feeling real sorry for myself, I stop and think about how many times I have worked through it and it is only a matter of time until I work through it.) I am not telling you this for sympathy, because frankly I wouldn’t write it if it wasn’t worked through right now because I refuse to be another one of your burdens. I want to help not hinder.
I want to continue to digress so that I can leave these things behind. I was very upset when I was told that I couldn’t have Monique around when Mann was there in January. I took it out on Monique by not seeing her enough instead of expressing how I felt. I then felt a lot of guilt about it when I finally got home and then when I got out here and Monique was taken away from me in the sense that Annette is crazy and I would end up responsible for her death, I felt like I deserved it for not being a good mother. However now that I have been given a chance to make up for it by being a good parent, I may have to go to Georgetown. If I have to, I will go, but Joyce was so belligerent about giving the loft for me and Monique that she will probably move me out while I am gone. I am not asking for anything except that Monique not get thrown into some new environment again. She has stopped a lot of her tantrums but the change could throw her off again. Karen says she will stay in my loft with Monique but Joyce may still try to maneuver.
I have felt a paranoia off and on about why I have never been asked to go back into Georgetown to work. Then when I hear all of our discussions about not sending anyone unattached into town, I wonder what is wrong with me. The irony is that I don’t want to go into town. I just want to feel trusted to go into town. I don’t get along at all with
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Sharon and I hate having to meet people all of the time living an artificial life (in that you can never be yourself). I don’t think I can work with Sharon at all. If anything, I would be a good coordinator probably, but I cannot work with Sharon so I will try to be more pleasant on the radio.
It may be coincidental, but at the same time, I don’t feel trusted, I cannot do anything right and I feel very dumb. I have not made any suggestions or offered any information that I might think I know because I figure I must be wrong. I don’t even know how this insecurity started, but I had a terrible time working through it. I still feel dumb but I am not bothered by it.
I do not want any long drawn out discussions with you about any of this because I will only feel a lot of guilt for writing it. I have not written it before because I did not want to be another one of your petty bullshit problems, but if I do have to go in, I feel I know you some straight talk.
As I have no choice but to live, I am glad it is with you. Thank you for working so hard to give us socialism. You have given me the best 7 years of my life, but I will be glad when it is over. Thank you.
Paula