“I . . . came . . . here,” he told the group in a voice hoarse, attenuated, and halting, “because . . . I want . . . to live.” As he described himself, his pre-disease personality lined up with what I have seen in everyone with his condition: what we have earlier called superautonomous self-sufficiency, the shutdown of feelings and the almost phobic refusal to seek help or emotional support from anyone.
