He had trouble sleeping and was besieged by doubts and morbid thoughts. “Flight, fight, or neurosis,” he wrote on a loose sheet of paper years later during a similar period of depression, trying to describe the feeling. “ ‘Floating anxiety’ which attaches itself to anything and everything. Fear that E. despises me for being such a weakling.” It was scary for a man who prided himself on precision and rationality to feel like he was not in control of his mind or his body. He sometimes referred to this unpleasant condition as the “heebeegeebees,” which he abbreviated as “hbgbs” in private notes
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