ALS signed “x, Janis” and "xxx, J," seven pages, 5.75 x 7.75, November 11, [1965]. Content-rich handwritten letter to her boyfriend, Peter de Blanc, sending thanks for some roses, reporting that she has begun seeing a therapist and is taking anti-anxiety medication, explaining that she has developed a neurotic fear of relapsing into drug addiction, and desperately hoping for him to write or call.
In part: "First of all, thank you for the roses. They're beautiful. But, damn, such an underhanded trick! That's almost cheating, they're so pretty & they smell nice & they came in a huge box w/ a red bow…But anyway…They have me on Librium now & it's really helped emmensely [sic].
I must explain my frame of mind both last Sunday when I talked to you & in its development. Of course, I didn't really know this before a few days ago & I've been trying to sift it out. The tranquilizers have really helped & just talking to that guy who's my 'counselor' now has, too. And so, because of my new insight, I'm beginning to see that maybe I owe you a slight apology. (But don't think it was your damn fragrant roses.)
You know that I've been fairly adamant about my determination not to get fucked up again. Well, it seems now to have developed into a rather neurotic tenor. I never relax anymore. I [never] just talk to people. I [never] have fun—hell, I won't have fun. I seem to be really mortally afraid that things won't go right somehow & I'll end up back in that hellish jungle that I'm obsessed with. I'm constantly watchful & wary & really damn afraid. I'm…doing well in school because it's mortally important to me! But, god, this isn't right!
The reason I went to that counselor is because I had suddenly realized that I was building my stability & progress on sheer terror & that won't work!…I keep talking about 'one step back' being the end of me & everything.
Well, anyway, what I'm trying to say is, wow baby, I'm really desperately, dis-proportionately afraid! And, from my new slightly objective vantage point, induced by Librium & a few days easy breathing, I think I was maybe a little dis-proportionately afraid of you, too…
What prompted me to this decision was this—you hadn't been writing, which to me means you're brooding or messed-up somehow, & then when I called, you were really out of it, unable to help me when I needed it, & you had gone out & gotten loaded. I got some grass & tried to get loaded myself this weekend but couldn't. And I guess maybe I'm too hasty in assuming that LSD is more serious than grass, but to me it is.
So anyway, this is it—I'm much calmer now. No longer terrified when I talk to people & I'm going to try & get this irrational fear under control. So hell, what is this? An apology? Not exactly—an effort to explain my newly-discovered neuroses, I guess. I'd like to hear from you—answer this letter, don't write a new one, y'know what I mean? Reply. Reciprocate…
I'm really doing well in school…Making 'A's in 3, maybe 4, of my 5 classes. Write to me, Peter; I don't know what's going on anymore."
She adds a full-page postscript, signed "xxx, J," in part: "Just an afterthought, it's now a few hours later. The general consensus of the family is that I was rash. So, hell, I'm sorry, baby, still love you…Really miss you—hope you can still come down at Christmas. Good luck on your job & please try & let me know what's going on." In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in her own hand.
Before her rise as the lead of Big Brother & the Holding Company in the summer of 1966, Joplin had taken a break from her life in San Francisco, leaving behind a lover there: Peter De Blanc. De Blanc supported Joplin's determination to sober up by moving to her home town of Port Arthur, Texas, where she attended school at Lamar University. Their plan to marry was broken off when she learned that De Blanc was expecting a child with another woman. Joplin returned to San Francisco in June 1966 and joined Big Brother & the Holding Company to launch her legendary career. She would die tragically of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27.
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