The Flock

by Joan Frances Casey

  “No,” Lynn replied, “Dr. Wilbur said we were doing everything right. We have to work our way through this together, a little at a time.”

  Jo felt deceived. She thought she was being the “good patient,” and accepting the confirming second opinion without question. She expected honesty in return. But Lynn seemed to be holding out on her, manipulating her. She knew she needed Lynn and wouldn’t get angry. Jo’s parents had taught her long ago that it was not safe to get angry at someone she depended on.

  11.

  By the middle of August, Lynn was seeing us every weekday afternoon. Our sessions settled into a pattern. I went in, chatted for a few minutes about what had happened during the day, and then sped inside so that Lynn could work with the personalities who really needed her help. I usually reappeared at the end of the session to take the body on its way.

  I found that I didn’t mind giving up time for the other personalities to spend in therapy. In fact, I had an easier job maintaining control throughout the day when the others had an opportunity to interact with Lynn. I thought I was performing an important service by structuring my schedule so that I could get them to Lynn every day, but she wouldn’t let me stay uninvolved.

  “Renee,” she asked, “just how many of you are there inside?”

  I really wasn’t sure, and didn’t like my uncertainty. I thought that the only way I could survive was if Lynn understood that I was the most important personality in the group. Otherwise she’d support Jo or the others to the extent that I’d lose control over my life.

  However, as the months went by and I monitored what the others said during sessions, I was continually surprised at the new information I gained. I was honestly interested in what I was learning about the group, but concerned that Lynn would begin to discount me. So I spoke with more confidence than I felt.

  “I know there used to be a lot more personalities,” I said, “but they served their purpose and then disappeared, like Robin and Reagan. A lot of them are just leftovers from the past. I’m sure they’re gone for good now. You’ve already met the five who are around now—Jo, Missy, Joan Frances, Isis, and me. I think that’s probably it.”

  Lynn wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to know the names and functions of all the personalities who used to come out. As I tried to answer her questions, listened carefully to the bits of information that the other personalities could supply, and became more willing to share with her the gaps in my knowledge, I realized that the group of personalities was not as chaotic as I had first thought. The group seemed to have a structure all its own. I saw that there were different kinds of personalities in the group, and that each personality had its own sense of self.

  Joan Frances, Isis, Jo, and Missy all thought they had as much potential as I had for living life as independent beings. They were foiled in their separate existences, as was I, by the interference of the others. Yet it became easier for me to see how each personality would live her life if she were alone in the body.

  The Joan Frances personality would be neurotic, clinging to her need for Mother’s approval, but that need for approval would spur her on to success. Joan Frances would be as productive and unhappy as any other person who has an overwhelming drive to succeed but finds no joy in her success.

  Isis would be a dancer. Although dance instruction hadn’t begun until Isis’s creation at age thirteen, she had been teaching at the dance school and performing in community shows within a year after starting ballet lessons. Without the rest of the personalities to get in her way, she would be accomplished and bohemian, unapproachable, but respected by her peers.

  If Jo were alone in the body, she’d be a recluse. Content with her books, her ideas, and her daydreams, uncomfortable in social situations, she’d live a quiet but productive life in some academic greenhouse. She’d be one of the many intellectuals who are inept with people despite their brilliance as scholars.

  Even Missy, if she decided to grow up, could function autonomously. She had a range of moods and expressions that made her a full person in her own right.

  If I were alone in the body, I’d have lots of friends and be satisfied with my life as long as I felt people needed me. If I were alone in the body, I’d be happy.

  I entered therapy with Lynn because I wanted total control over my being. Now, almost six months into treatment, I felt less sure about being able to achieve this goal. The other personalities were getting stronger; I was seeing more of my own weaknesses. And I was becoming unsure that they would ever disappear entirely from my life. But I continued to cooperate with Lynn. I wanted her to like me. And although doing the things Lynn asked made me uncomfortable about my own future, I squelched my fears, as I had done in other relationships.

  Lynn wanted to know increasingly more about childhood, but the information any personality could provide was sketchy.

  Missy told her story from a perpetual five-year-old’s point of view.

  Jo had more experience of blank periods than of memories.

  Joan Frances admitted no blankness, no multiplicity, but provided only vague statements about the ideal childhood her mother claimed she had had.

  Robin and Reagan had disappeared months ago, after telling Lynn kindly but firmly that they had no further information to give her.

  Isis simply didn’t care.

  And I couldn’t remember anything before I turned fifteen. Lynn and I both suspected that my lack of childhood memories had more to do with my belated birth as a personality than with the aftereffects of drug use.

  But I had an idea. “Lynn, do you think the group’s medical history would help?” Medical records could fix with certainty what schools were attended and where the family had lived at various periods of childhood. The records of emergency-room treatments and hospital admissions might even corroborate the stories of abuse.

  There was one obstacle to getting the records. Nancy worked in the small group practice where Jo had received most of her medical treatment. I could not request the records without Nancy’s knowledge. So I decided to enlist her help.

  I called Nancy that evening and told her that my internist in Chicago had asked me to have my medical records sent. Nancy said she didn’t see why that was necessary. Having guessed that this might be her reaction, I told her the signed release was already in the mail. Nancy promised then to take care of it.

  A month later, when the records had not arrived, I called Nancy to inquire about them. “Oh, your doctor didn’t get them?” she asked, sounding surprised. “They must have gotten lost in the mail.”

  I suggested that she send copies. “We didn’t make any copies.”

  Frustration flared in the sharpness of my voice. “Don’t you usually make copies of records you send from your office?” Well, yes, they usually did, but Nancy had told the office staff not to bother this time.

  Lost or destroyed, the records were gone. The sudden lack of history frightened me and the other personalities as well. Even the maternally dependent Joan Frances had a difficult time accepting what she called her mother’s negligence. The rest of us suspected that Nancy had destroyed the records. Lynn seemed to have no doubt about what had happened. She had never questioned the stories of abuse, and she said that this incident suggested that Nancy herself was afraid that something from the past might come out.

  Now my own lack of memory bothered me as it never had before. I accepted that the other personalities had lived fifteen years without my involvement, but I didn’t trust their memories. I wanted to verify the truthfulness of their accounts. Had Nancy and Ray really been abusive, as the other personalities said, or had innocent parental actions been misinterpreted through the eyes of a child? Something in the records might have helped me answer this.

  The Jo personality was also troubled by the records’ disappearance. She refused to believe that her father had hurt her; she refused to believe that her father would have allowed her mother to hurt her. She had no choice but to think that Missy and the other personalit
ies were lying about the childhood abuse. Jo had counted on the medical records to back up her contention that nothing bad had happened to her.

  Lynn seemed convinced that Jo had been abused, and now Jo had no way of proving otherwise. More than ever, Jo just wanted those other personalities to go away and leave her alone.

  DIARY    August 16, 1981

  I have been attempting to increase communication among the personalities. I am concerned that they now seem to be growing further apart rather than closer together and I fear that my efforts have only increased resistance. In addition, I am unable to find the “memory-trace” or “internal-self-helper” personality that Dr. Wilbur said would be there. Renee seems threatened by the holes in her knowledge and worries that I will think less of her and her importance to the group if I know how large these gaps sometimes are. Jo apparently feels completely helpless to deal with any of it.

  It seems clear to me that, since my consultation with Dr. Wilbur, my patient interprets any change or new direction in treatment as a threat. Somehow, mistakes I might make based on my own ineptness are less frightening for her than mistakes I might make based on the advice of an expert! There seem to be a number of factors contributing to her fear.

  Jo is isolated because of the rarity of her disorder. Not many people know anything about multiple personality. She cannot discuss her problems or treatment with colleagues or friends without encountering disbelief or lack of comprehension. This leaves her extremely and painfully dependent on me and on my view of her. Being forced to take so much on faith puts her in a vulnerable position, without any kind of a support group.

  The fact that Jo’s mother is a medical professional makes trust, always an issue in treatment, inordinately difficult. The consultation with Dr. Wilbur only added to the difficulty, because any communication between Jo’s mother and the doctors Jo saw during her childhood meant big trouble. No confidence the little girl offered was respected.

  Jo is also aware that I have never treated a multiple and is continually dealing with her fears that, on the one hand, I don’t know what I’m doing and that, on the other, I’ve been handed a master treatment plan by Dr. Wilbur, with which I will manipulate her.

  I think I need to retreat to a less confrontational stance and concentrate on building trust between me and the various personalities.

  12.

  DIARY    August 28, 1981

  I am gaining more and more confidence in my own instincts for treating Jo and the other personalities. With her, as with my other patients, I find that my therapeutic approach works only when I really believe in what I am doing.

  I am honestly fond of all of the personalities I have met, and I respond to each of them sincerely. I treat them as individuals. I am well aware that each personality is struggling in her own attempt to trust me.

  Little Missy cuddles with me and sometimes whispers, “You love your new friend” (she still refuses to use the first person in referring to self), but she is occasionally afraid that I tell her mommy her secrets.

  I’ve developed a friendly “acquaintanceship” with Renee. She protects herself against deeper involvement with me by focusing on the therapeutic nature of our relationship. Renee said to me, “When you think you’ve done your job, you’ll just go on your way and never think of me again. But that’s OK. It’s supposed to be like that.”

  Joan Frances is so helplessly trapped in her desire to please Mother that she still refuses to consider the possibility that she may be multiple.

  I’m more frustrated with the Jo personality. Jo, even with her ever-growing dependency on me, is always holding back, afraid to admit that she cares for me at all.

  As usual, I’ve taken my problem to my best colleague. For the past few weeks, Gordon has listened patiently as I’ve searched for a way to let the personalities know that my feelings for them are genuine.

  Last weekend, Gordon and I were at our cottage and I was talking about the personalities. “They’d love it up here. It’s so beautiful,” I said. Then, on impulse, I cut drying flowers and weeds and arranged a bouquet in an old beer bottle.

  I presented my gift to Missy during our next therapy session. I said that when she gets scared at night she can look at the flowers and think of me. Once Missy was sure that I still wanted her to come back and see me in my office, she was happy with her gift. Jo and Renee were both amazed that I would do something like that for them. The next day, I even received a carefully worded thank-you note from Joan Frances.

  Five months into treatment and I feel as though I am still at the first stages of developing trust. Yet both life and therapy go on for the personalities. Last week, Renee’s dream came true: after a year of waiting for an opening at a suburban school district, she started her job as a high-school social-studies teacher. Both Renee and I think that her self-esteem will only improve with her change in jobs. I am sure that she is a great teacher. And yet I know she is quite ill.

  I think I have never had a patient who was, at once, so functional and so needy. On the same day that Missy is huddled in a fetal position in my office and sobbing, Renee has taught a full day of high school and Jo has attended a class toward her master’s degree in political science.

  After a session, one of them will cook dinner and respond appropriately to the boyfriend, Steve. I am determined both to preserve her ability to keep going with life and to keep her focused on treatment. And I worry about when these two therapeutic goals will come into conflict. Renee is able to form excellent and helpful, though limited, relationships with the high-school students she teaches. But, aside from Steve, she is not able to maintain a close relationship with any adult. And even the relationship with Steve seems based on his ability to deny the reality of the disorder.

  The other personalities appear less concerned about interpersonal relationships. For example, Jo’s studies allow her to use her obviously superior intellect, and she doesn’t care that she has no friends among her graduate-student peers.

  Since as a whole she is clearly able to give to others and is just as clearly uncomfortable about understanding that other people would like to give to her, I will continue to find nonthreatening ways to do just that. Jo has a birthday in a few days, and I will bring in a homemade cake to celebrate.

  —

  SEPTEMBER 1, 1981, Jo’s twenty-sixth birthday, was another good day for me at school. I still could hardly believe that I had landed a high-school teaching job in the best school district in the Chicago area. Ever since my internship with the legislature, assigned to a child-advocacy task force, I had known I wanted to work for and with children. Their rights were so often ignored that I felt they needed me fighting on their behalf. I had completed my teaching certification through night and summer classes the year before I met Lynn but had no real hope that a job would come through.

  So I was surprised this summer to find that I had my choice of jobs in a market glutted with social-science teachers. I interviewed well and, lacking teaching experience, I was cheap.

  Being the “people-pleasing” personality meant that I was the one in the group who handled job interviews. The other personalities seemed content to have me handle the job as well. That suited me. I liked teaching, and liked feeling that I had found my niche. The Jo personality attended late-afternoon classes at the University of Chicago, working on her master’s, and she also reserved some time during the week to read and study for class. Any personality who wanted to was welcome to spend time with Lynn during the daily sessions, but the teaching and preparation time were mine alone. Life was hectic, but I was happier than I had ever been.

  I loved my students, genuinely and openly. “In my class,” I said, “you’ll learn to think like citizens.” And they did. I was particularly proud of the strides I had made with my class of “underachievers.”

  During the first week of school, I had worked to convince these cynical kids in my “slow” class that the school system was wrong in calling them slow. The only probl
em they had was that they had begun to believe they were failures. I tried to get them to see what happened when society made certain groups of people (children, Blacks, and women) think they had nothing to offer within the political system. I told them that they had important things to do and say. I believed in them and I respected them. Soon, I promised, they’d begin to believe in themselves.

  “Eight a.m. is no time to get excited about the Civil War,” I thought one morning. I taught best by getting the kids fired up about some topic and then stepping back to facilitate a robust group discussion. But, despite my distribution of orange juice at the beginning of the hour, and my purposefully provocative statements about slavery and utilitarian ideals, twenty-two bored students sullenly observed my attempts at discussion.

  I walked away from the circle of students, thought for a minute, and then closed the classroom door. I returned to perch on the edge of my desk. “OK, troops,” I said, “true-confessions time.” Some of the students looked interested; perhaps they were relieved that I had given up talking about some old war.

  “Do you folks remember that the other day I said our class had to become a community?” I began. “Classroom-as-community means that, once we begin to trust one another, we can take risks and say things that we might not say in other situations. I am about to take that kind of risk with you now.”

  I saw I had their attention, and continued. “I have a guess as to why our discussions are less than stimulating, and I want to check out my hunch with you. Could I please see the hands of people who have smoked dope since ten p.m. last night?”

  As I expected, no one moved, but I watched their expressions with amusement. Some of the students scowled, wondering if I was going to have them busted, and some grinned, guessing that I had had some drug experience myself.

  I smiled in what I hoped was a noncommittal way. “OK,” I said, “you don’t have to answer yet. Let me tell you what I’ve been thinking. I think that a lot of you walk in here after getting high. My guess is partly based on the joints that I see passed outside my classroom window. But I am also basing my hunch on how badly our discussions are going. We all know that pot inhibits the ability to make logical connections, but I’m wondering if you know that this effect—the effect of THC—lasts for a full eight hours after smoking. Now, I’m not going to turn anyone in. I’m just testing out a theory—and that’s what learning’s all about, by the way. So, how many of you got high this morning?”