Marilyn Monroe’s Psych Ward Hell

The tragic life of Marilyn Monroe included a hellish stint inside a New York sanitarium — detailed in a six-page letter that she sent to psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson!

The National ENQUIRER has previously revealed Marilyn's disturbing past as a suicidal prostitute before becoming a big-screen icon. An expert also declared that Marilyn exhibited signs of “borderline personality disorder," with The ENQUIRER exposing how the star stirred up a political dynasty after once calling up Jackie Kennedy to boast of her affair with JFK! Marilyn's doomed quest for love also included lesbian affairs with her fellow Hollywood stars!

But the letter to Dr. Greenson — dated March 1, 1961 — reveals more hidden torments, including a desperate attempt to fake a suicide bid from what she described as her "cell." Marilyn had been confined at the Payne-Whitney Psychiatric Clinic at the request of another psychiatrist. Dr. Marianne Kris had put her in what Marilyn described as a ward for "very disturbed patients" and in a setting far removed from her glamorous Hollywood life. "I mean cement blocks and all," the star wrote.

"I sat on the bed trying to figure if I was given this situation in an acting improvisation what would I do," revealed Marilyn. "So I figured, it's a squeaky wheel that gets the grease. I admit it was a loud squeak, but I got the idea from a movie I made once called 'Don't Bother to Knock.' I picked up a light-weight chair and slammed it, and it was hard to do because I had never broken anything in my life — against the glass intentionally."

"It took a lot of banging to get even a small piece of glass — so I went over with the glass concealed in my hand and sat quietly on the bed waiting for them to come in," Marilyn wrote. "They did, and I said to them 'If you are going to treat me like a nut I'll act like a nut.' I admit the next thing is corny but I really did it in the movie except it was with a razor blade. I indicated if they didn't let me out I would harm myself — the furthest thing from my mind at that moment since you know Dr. Greenson I'm an actress and would never intentionally mark or mar myself. I'm just that vain."

Marilyn's bid for attention, however, didn't help her stay at the clinic — as she was moved to another cell and was confronted by a new doctor. "He told me I was a very, very sick girl," wrote Marilyn, "and had been a very, very sick girl for many years. He asked me how I could possibly work when I was depressed. He wondered if that interfered with my work. He was being very firm and definite in the way he said it. He actually stated it more than he questioned me, so I replied: 'Didn't he think that perhaps Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin perhaps and perhaps Ingrid Bergman they had been depressed when they worked sometimes but I said it's like saying a ball player like DiMaggio if he could hit ball when he was depressed. Pretty silly.'"

Marilyn was married to baseball legend Joe DiMaggio at the time, and he finally stepped in to arrange for Marilyn to be released from the clinic. Marilyn's letter includes a nod to her complicated relationship with her husband.

She writes of receiving flowers from Joe during the Christmas holidays. "It was Christmas night," said Marilyn. "I called him up and asked him why he had sent me the flowers. He said first of all because I thought you would call me to thank me, and then he said, besides who in the hell else do you have in the world."

The doomed movie star seemed to agree with Joe's brutal assessment. The letter to Dr. Greenson indicates how she remained troubled by her very personal demons. "Last night I was awake all night again," she wrote. "Sometimes I wonder what the night time is for. It almost doesn't exist for me — it all seems like one long, long horrible day."