u probably think I've just tried to
kill myself. It was simply a ruse to make you give me some attention.
When I make threats and tell you that my one object in life is to live
long enough to regain my freedom and lay bare the abuses which abound
in places like this, you simply laugh at me, don't you? But the fact
is, that's my ambition, and if you knew anything at all, you'd know
that abuse won't drive me to suicide. You can continue to abuse me and
deprive me of my rights, and keep me in exile from relatives and
friends, but the time will come when I'll make you sweat for all this.
I'll put you in prison where you belong. Or if I fail to do that, I can
at least bring about your discharge from this institution. What's more,
I will."

The doctor and attendants took my threats with characteristic
nonchalance. Such threats, often enough heard in such places, make
little or no impression, for they are seldom made good. When I made
these threats, I really wished to put these men in prison. To-day I
have no such desire, for were they not victims of the same vicious
system of treatment to which I was subjected? In every institution
where the discredited principles of "Restraint" are used or tolerated,
the very atmosphere is brutalizing. Place a bludgeon in the hand of any
man, with instructions to use it when necessary, and the gentler and
more humane methods of persuasion will naturally be forgotten or
deliberately abandoned.

Throughout my period of elation, especially the first months of it when
I was doing the work of several normal men, I required an increased
amount of fuel to generate the abnormal energy my activity demanded. I
had a voracious appetite, and I insisted that the attendant give me the
supper he was about to serve when he discovered me in the simulated
throes of death. At first he refused, but finally relented and brought
me a cup of tea and some buttered bread. Because of the severe choking
administered earlier in the day it was with difficulty that I swallowed
any food. I _had_ to eat slowly. The attendant, however, ordered me to
hurry, and threatened otherwise to take what little supper I had. I
told him that I thought he would not--that I was entitled to my supper
and intended to eat it with as much comfort as possible. This nettled
him, and by a sudden and unexpected move he managed to take from me all
but a crust of bread. Even that he tried to snatch. I resisted and the
third fight of the day was