(G.V.): Does her look become very wild to you? Do other people think she looks wild?
(H.): Yes, her expression spreads fear because it’s a fixed stare. (G.V.): Fixed?
(H.): A fixed stare that is difficult to interpret, difficult to under-stand, and indicates that she does not know what she is going to do. This is what causes others to be frightened of her.
(D.): For example, once in that condition, she asked my sister to scream with her and hit her back.
(G.V.):To hit her back?
(D.): Yes, to hit her back. This had never happened before. It was during the final phase of her last attack.
(G.V.): How many children are there in the family? Two?
(D.): Four. There have been situations in which my mother was not able to recognize the people who were visiting her or whom she was visiting, for example, her doctor. At that time her percep-tion of color also changed. At one stage when she was improving, my mother walked past the television, which was usually on, and she saw everything as blue and red.
(H.): There was also a change in her perception of taste and smell.(G.V.): Can you remember this yourself?
(F.P.): In 1981, I had the feeling that I was in a gas chamber. (D.): For example, there’s one herbal cream which my mother used – it was her favorite cream – but in that particular condition it was something that she suddenly couldn’t stand any longer. She said it smelled like apples.
(H.): I would like to go back to 1981, to the acute period when my wife and I talked about the aspect of demons, which was mentioned earlier on. I’d like to refer back to one particular situ-ation in 1981. Usually I’d tell my wife, at a later date when she was better, what I’d witnessed during these psychotic attacks; but this particular scene I withheld from her because I thought it was especially terrible: In 1981, at the height of her crisis, she threw herself on the floor in front of the fireplace and beat her hands on the carpet out of desperation and hopelessness, and