Dr. Whalberg was the senior psychiatrist at the hospital and had been since 1983. The doctor was familiar with Bishop’s delusions even before Bishop had been admitted, for Dr. Whalberg had treated Bishop’s mother, rather unsuccessfully, which resulted in the worst of any possible circumstances when she slit her wrist. The suicide came soon after her rape. Bishop had the suicide note. How he’d gotten it was always a mystery, but he kept it with him, in his pocket. The note read:
Dr. Whalberg:
Since you have prevented me from seeing my son, I have no recourse but to take my life, for he is the only one who could have saved me from the terrifying visions of my rape. You must understand that although your efforts to divert my attention from who In to be may have made progress in your eyes, I have never, not once, believed otherw e him again one day, I am sure.
Jennifer Connor
The note was the reason Dr. Whalberg had taken such an interest in Bishop’s treatment. The delusions of the mother transferred to the son, delusions of grandeur with religious preoccupations.
Bishop was treated with lithium and therapy. Dr. Whalberg did his best to divert Bishop from his delusions with education on the disease of schizophrenia. And for a long while, Bishop believed in the education. He accepted his diagnosis. But Bishop had always feared his gift. He never understood why he had been given such power. Ultimately, he was petrified by it, for the gift was accompanied with waking nightmares of persecution and pain— his mother’s pain. So Bishop never resisted the treatment, never questioned the education, for he wanted no part in his gift. He wanted to believe it was all in his head, transferred to the brain by a life spent with a sick woman.