8397 - Janis Joplin 1965 Autograph Letter Signed to Her Boyfriend on Surviving Her Addiction and Her “last showdown w/ fucked-upedness”

Janis Joplin 1965 Autograph Letter Signed to Her Boyfriend on Surviving Her Addiction and Her “last showdown w/ fucked-upedness” ALS signed "XXXX, Love (you win 4 [hearts]), Janis," eight pages, 5.75 x 7.75, September 2, 1965. Lengthy handwritten letter to her boyfriend, Peter de Blanc. In part: "Sigh, I hope you don't mind my calling you that, but I've always wanted to open a letter that way & that's the way I am feeling this evening so I've thrown all caution to the winds. Darling...I went to the Doctor today, and everything's great! Oh, Peter, I'm so damn happy. I was so nervous! I really was petrified. I kept wringing my hands & I started crying twice even before I got there. After I was there & talking to the Doctor, I finally figured out why I was so afraid, it was because this was sort of my last showdown w/ fucked-upedness -to see if I had really made it out or if it was still hurting me. And I really have made it, Jesus damn, I'm really alright & ain't nobody gonna make me ugly again! I am not anemic, there is nothing wrong w/ my liver or my blood & no gyn. problems that he can see now, although if I have any more problems, he said he would probably give me some hormones. (He suspects hormone imbalance because of the fact that I've never gotten pregnant). But talking about that kind of embarrasses me -as if I weren't really a woman or enough of one or something. But I suppose if I need them, I'd sure better have them. I'll bet if I do need them that if I'd known that about 10 years ago, my life wouldn't ever have been such a shambles. You know, maybe something as simple as a pill could have helped out or even changed that part of me I call Me and has been so messed up. Just maybe. But anyway, back to my Doctor's visit, he was very nice & young & interested & kept asking me about things. He's taken LSD & Ritalin a few times experimentally, & kept wanting to compare notes w/ me. (He told me that when he had taken it, he kept having sexual fantasies & I told him that Ritalin didn't do that it just heightened your interest in whatever you were interested in & then we both sort of smiled & he cleared his throat & we went on to other things...). He ran a blood test on me and I have no trace of mononucleosis...He said that I was really okay & I had survived the onslaught w/ no serious aftereffects. (But he doesn't know about this backlog of fear that I've got in my head, but that's another thing.) Except my tracks -which I did ask him about & he was shocked & he told me that they wouldn't ever go away. I've been sort of hoping that they would fade away, but he says no but that they will turn white later. He said that I was definitely fine...Guess I'll drive to the Post Office and mail this. Good night, baby, I love you. Call me Sunday?" In fine condition, with slight rippling to a few pages. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope hand-addressed by Joplin, who incorporates her signature in the return address on the reverse flap, "Miss Janis Joplin, 3130 Lombardy, Port Arthur, Tex." Before her rise as the electrifying lead singer of Big Brother & the Holding Company in the summer of 1966, Janis Joplin briefly stepped away from San Francisco at the urging of friends who had grown alarmed at her deteriorating condition. Described as skeletal and weighing just 88 pounds, she returned to her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, in 1965, aided by a small ‘going home’ fund raised for her bus fare. There, under the care of her parents, she entered rehabilitation and soon enrolled at Lamar University, embracing a more conventional appearance, including a fashionable beehive hairdo, and lifestyle. With the support of psychiatric social worker Bernard Giarratano, Joplin was able to get sober. During this period, she stayed in contact with her boyfriend, Peter de Blanc, whom she had left behind in San Francisco. De Blanc, then working for IBM in New York, traveled to Texas to ask her father for permission to marry her, and the couple became engaged in the fall of 1965. Joplin began planning for their marriage, but the engagement ended before the close of the year. By June 1966, she had returned to San Francisco, where she joined Big Brother & the Holding Company and launched her meteoric career. Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970 at the age of 27.