Thinking with Bevereley Skeggs - Stockholms universitet

egular leave to visit a ‘male friend’, a friend who a year laterwas mentioned as her fiancé (‘Gustav’). In 1970, she told thechief resident psychiatrist that she once again was sufferingfrom sexual thoughts about women. In 1971, Anna obtained adoctor’s note to move in with her fiancé, although the couple hadtrouble finding a flat. In 1972, the patient record describes Annaas ‘a well-kept and proper 60-year-old, who looks considerablyolder’. It is pointed out that she ‘receives lots of help fromher fiancé with her clothing and things in general. She reallyappreciates him, “he is so kind”’.While Gustav kept dealing with the authorities concerningfinding a flat, Anna’s physicians were actively involved inhelping the couple. Calls to the housing authorities on theirbehalf proved to be successful – the couple were to move into ahome of their own. Thus, after having spent most of her life atvarious institutions, of which nearly 40 years of admittancesand releases from Beckomberga, Anna finally managed tohave a life that resembled the one that she had expressed alonging for in record entries dating as far back as the 1930s:with a life partner and a home of her own. This resulted insomething that sets her patient record apart from most otherlobotomy patients’ – it does not end with an autopsy protocolas the final institutional marker.VIIAnna’s relationship and her subsequent release enable the plottingof her medical and/or life history with a happy ending of sorts.I must emphasize that it is highly unusual and most unlikely tofind any happy endings in the case histories of the lobotomized.Neither do I know anything – besides what has been writtenabove – about the character of Anna and Gustav’s relationship.Due to late entries in her record I do know that Anna’s traumaticcombination of attraction to women and her repulsion by anythingremotely lesbian persisted.61