Christiana's Downfall

year : 1966

My relationship with henry has worsened, but my emotional attachment makes it incredibly difficult to break off the relationship. I fear, especially after my radical sympathectomy, that it would kill me if the relationship dissolved. 

His career is blossoming, and the more people become interested in him, it seems that he becomes less interested in me. Maybe if my name was posted on every journal discussing the TAT I too would experience this fame. 

I know he is seeing another woman. He has been for the past year or so. 

We are planning to travel to the Virgin islands in March of next year, but I fear that it will be an awful trip. 

***

In the decades following the creation of the Thematic Apperception Test, Christina's health began to worsen. Christiana Morgan suffered from high blood pressure and was eventually hospitalized. Doctors performed a "radical sympathectomy" which severs the body's sympathetic nervous system from the spinal cord. Because the sympathetic nervous system was altered, her body's activation mechanisms and her "fight or flight" reflex were diminished. Following the surgery she quickly developed alcoholism which further worsened her mental condition. During this period, her relationship with Murray continued, regardless of Murray's new relationship with a younger woman. He did not break off his relationship with Christiana, and his separate infatuation became too much for her. On March 14, 1967 on a vacation with Henry Murray, she drowned herself.