Billy Chooses to Live After a Suicidal Crisis

Billy Milligan’s choice to live came at a moment when public exposure and an imminent return to custody made survival feel uncertain. In the days before he was taken from the hospital, fear of what awaited him in prison and the burden of anger brought him close to despair. With the help of Dr. Marlene Kocan, he began to imagine a future in which that anger could serve a purpose; then he surrendered a razor blade he had kept hidden and said he wanted to live.

Public Exposure and Fear of Return

The crisis sharpened after the Harding report reached the newspapers. On October 4, Harry Franken of the Columbus Citizen-Journal published a second major story about Milligan, based on a report obtained from an unnamed source. The timing was stark: Milligan was due to return to the Franklin County Jail two days later. The report’s disclosure of Adalana’s identity as a lesbian personality left him afraid that other prisoners would target him. The prospect of being found guilty and sent back to Lebanon prison seemed, to him, potentially fatal.

His fear was not separate from the anger he carried. During his final session with Dr. Marlene Kocan, he said that he had accumulated hatred he could no longer manage. The immediate issue was not simply the uncertainty of a court outcome; it was the way exposure had made the next step in his confinement seem dangerous, while old abuse remained emotionally present. In that combination, the return to custody threatened to feel like a defeat by the person he identified as his childhood abuser, Chalmer Milligan.

Kocan’s Reframing of Anger

Dr. Marlene Kocan usually preferred a nondirective approach, allowing a patient to lead the work rather than prescribing a course. But with Milligan about to leave the hospital, she judged there was little time for that method. She proposed that he redirect his anger toward opposing child abuse: by living and working for that cause, he could challenge the memories and the man he associated with the abuse. In her framing, death would leave the abuser victorious, while survival could make possible a sustained effort against the harm.

The suggestion did not erase Milligan’s fear or resolve the circumstances awaiting him. Its importance was more immediate and concrete: it gave him a reason to consider life beyond the crisis. The appeal joined the private history he carried to a possible public purpose, turning the question from whether he could endure his anger into whether he could put it to use. The book presents this as a decisive intervention, not as proof that his distress had vanished.

The Hidden Blade and the Decision

Later that day, while speaking with Donna Egar in his room, Milligan reached beneath his bed and retrieved a razor blade that Tommy had taped to a bed slat nearly seven months earlier. The concealed object made the crisis tangible: it had remained there through months of hospitalization, and its presence mattered now because Milligan chose to hand it over. He told Donna Egar that he no longer needed it and wanted to live.

Donna Egar embraced him, with tears in her eyes. The exchange marks the clearest outward sign of his decision. Rather than keeping the blade hidden or treating it as an unspoken possibility, Milligan placed it in another person’s hands and stated a wish to continue living. The moment does not establish that all danger or despair had passed; it records a choice made within them. In the immediate sequence, that decision followed Kocan’s appeal to turn anger toward a cause and preceded Milligan’s departure from the hospital.

Farewell and Mixed Emotions

Milligan anticipated leaving without the comfort of a conventional goodbye. He did not want to attend mini-group, explaining that he needed to prepare himself to be alone and harden himself for what came next. He resisted farewell as something that might make the separation harder. Yet the group prepared cards for him, and when Rosalie Drake brought them, he let himself cry.

That response mattered to Milligan because he understood it as unfamiliar. He identified the sadness and attachment alongside his other feelings as mixed emotions, and described experiencing them as a normal human reaction he had not previously been able to have. The moment complicates the image of someone simply steeling himself for transfer: he tried to brace for isolation, but the cards and the care behind them reached him. His tears did not cancel his fear; they showed that fear and connection could exist together.

Departure and Significance

On October 6, the day he was to be taken away, Rosalie Drake came to the hospital despite it being her day off and despite expecting disapproval from some staff. She and Donna Egar walked with Milligan toward the administration building, where a sheriff’s deputy waited. Milligan appeared calm and in control, pacing in a blue three-piece suit as he waited. The orderly surface of the departure stood beside the emotional work of the preceding days: the fear of prison, the surrender of the blade, the decision to live, and the unexpected tears over farewell cards.

The episode ends with a commitment rather than a guarantee. Milligan had chosen to live and had found, at least for that moment, a possible direction for the hatred he could not manage. He was still facing removal from the hospital and uncertainty about what would follow. Its significance lies in the specific acts through which the choice became visible: giving up the hidden blade, accepting the possibility of a future devoted to opposing child abuse, and allowing himself to feel the pain of parting instead of refusing it altogether.