Why Was AA Afraid To Be Found?

[Louis_Charles]

I do think there was some reason FS didn't want to be found, the same reasons she must have had when she jumped into the canal. Whatever it was must be a fascinating story we may never know. But as "Anastasia" she did seem to want lots of publicity. If she didn't she wouldn't have had the trial, wouldn't have gone to NYC, wouldn't have posed for all those pics like the parakeet ones.

I hate to be persnickity, but no about the parakeet picture. She actually refused to allow that one to be used. And I don't think that she actually "sought" publicity in the way that a modern celebrity does; after the claim was made it simply came her way as a matter of course.  There were periods of her life when she blipped off the radar and lived quietly until something stirred the pot --- Marcelle Maurette's play Anastasia, for example.

I actually think she found the publicity a bit unnerving, as anyone would, whether a Polish factory worker or a Russian Grand Duchess.

But if Summers and Mangold (to say nothing of Lovell) are to be believed, by the end of her life she found herself in the same trap as so many others who have achieved celebrity status. She needed the attention, and that's why I think she began changing the Story at the end, to keep their attention focused upon her. It's sad. Since the identity of Anastasia Nikolaevna wasn't truly hers, she came to depend upon outside validation to keep herself together. So much of her behavior seems childish to me, and that is one of the clearest indications that her development was arrested --- whoever she was.

[RealAnastasia]

The description of her behavior in Peter Kurth's book has Andersen pointing to pictures of the Imperial Family in magazines at Dalldorf and asking the nurses if they didn't see a resemblance. How is that not wanting to be "found"?

She wanted that someone would know who she was, but not for make publicity on the fact. The proof is that the nurses spoke after the case was known outside Dalldorf. The Patient asked the nurses not to tell other people that she was Anastasia and they did so, until the day that Clara Peuthert burst the news to Von Schwabe.

I consulted the case with a Psychiatrist who said me that all that AA did in Dalldorf was absolutely "normal" in her condition. Of course, if she was Anastasia, she needed to hide, but all human beings also need that someone else knows who she/he really is, to make confidences to them etc. Nobody could lie over and over about his/her personal identity. This is unbearable for all human beings.

AA remained almost a year and a half unnoticed ...But then, Clara Peuthert came to Dalldorf and the troubles started for Anna (And for me, who am insisting about her being Anastasia against almost all the other opinions   )

RealAnastasia.

[stacey]

Speaking of psychiatrists--and many of them "examined" AA over the years--I have a degree in psychology (not psychiatry, but.... ) and it strikes me more and more forcibly as I read accounts of AA's behavior that she suffered from a psychiatric condition not yet "recognized" during most of her lifetime. It's a condition known as "borderline personality disorder" and it seems to me that she fits the criteria almost perfectly...including the sense of paranoia she often felt. The way she would at first be "close" to someone, and then for reasons they seldom understood would suddenly decide that the erstwhile friends were suddenly her "enemies", the "hysterical" behavior, the lack of a sense of self which could make it so easy for her to assume the personality of another person--these and many other things strike me as typical of some with borderline personality disorder. Depression is common in BPD, as are "suicide attempts", self-injury, wild mood swings...and no, it is NOT any form of "madness", an idea which the psychiatrists who examined AA always rejected (rightly so, in my opinion.) And if she did have BPD, she wouldn't need much of a reason to be fearful and paranoid. It's all a part of the syndrome.