The Flock

by Joan Frances Casey

  I nodded. This had been Lynn’s response to my fears about integration for some time. I just needed to hear that she hadn’t changed her mind.

  Lynn looked thoughtful. “Renee, what would you do if you found out that one of your colleagues took a student to bed?”

  “I’d kill him,” I said reflexively. I loved the kids I taught. I loved them like a mother tiger, protectively and ferociously.

  “Why would you react so violently?” Lynn asked.

  “Kids are special people,” I explained with irritation. “No adult should take advantage of their vulnerability.”

  “So what does that tell you about Jo and Larry?” she asked.

  “Oh.”

  I was struck by the significance of what Lynn was implying. “Even if Larry’s actions did result in my birth,” I said slowly, “what he did to Jo was horrible. Even if he was crazy, he shouldn’t have violated her trust in him. What you’re trying to show me is that it’s because of experiences like this that Jo is so screwed up and afraid of people.”

  Lynn beamed and gave me a quick hug as I left her office. I made my way home, mulling over what I had only just discovered about myself.

  My new perspective changed the way I felt about the other personalities. I began to think of them as analogous to my more difficult or disturbed students. I didn’t demand proof of abuse from the troubled teenagers I saw at school, nor did I tell them to shape up. I loved them for who they were and trusted that they would grow when they felt safe in doing so. Like these scared, impressionable kids who often weren’t easy to love, my internal others were acting out their pain and despair. For the first time, I felt tolerance and compassion for them.

  18.

  DIARY    September 1, 1982

  I am continually struck by the essential contradiction in Jo Casey. She is both terribly fragmented and tremendously functional. When I first heard the Kendra personality (who rescues Renee when she gets in over her head) say, “We can do anything!,” I considered it bravado and exaggeration. Now I see that, in comparison with most people, Kendra is right. The system of personalities can, by most criteria, do anything they attempt to do, as long as no one personality is expected to carry on for an extended period.

  Each of the personalities seems to have unique talents or capacities. One personality does well in math, another in languages, another in sciences, yet another in humanities. One personality writes perceptive prose, another loves the rigid structure of logic, another is respected by colleagues for her leadership skills. The personalities seem to think uniquely and independently as well. When I present an idea to the Jo personality, she is either ten steps ahead of me in analyzing the implications or busily attacking my faulty assumptions. Jo objectifies any issue presented. Renee, on the other hand, seems bored by any topic except relationships among people and is unable to make the kinds of connections that Jo makes effortlessly. Neither style seems unduly pathological. In fact, each presents a valid method of dealing with life, and each has the potential for benefiting the system as a whole.

  The system’s response of creating new personalities when needed is pathological. When Renee married Keith, for example, she couldn’t cope with what she felt was expected of her. None of the major personalities at the time—quiet, analytic Jo; anxious Joan Frances; or promiscuous, people-pleasing Renee—knew how to translate their essential strengths into the role of “Keith’s wife.”

  Joan Frances, the most likely to fulfill that role, was paralyzed by the mixed messages her mother had provided about marriage. Nancy claimed to despise Ray but seemed unable to function without him. Charlene, a caricature personality of Nancy’s most domestic qualities, was created. Charlene cooked, cleaned, and made her home lovely in a feverish effort to “be a good wife.” The Honey personality, also modeled after Nancy, was depressed and despondent. Honey felt certain that, no matter what she did, her husband would not be pleased.

  Soon after, Renee’s interview abilities landed her a coveted student internship with the state legislature and later a paid position in press relations. Once on the job, however, Renee was overwhelmed. She couldn’t find a way to please everybody.

  Cassandra was created, modeled on a female legislative aide. Cassandra was productive and professional, cordial and competent, without Renee’s anxious need to please. Doug, a male personality modeled on a male campaign coordinator, was created along with Cassandra. Doug tells me that Cassandra did OK on her own, but that he was needed because “this is a man’s world.” Aside from learning how to play golf, it’s not clear what Doug did to “help those girls out.”

  Capable as the personalities might be, each of them was, until recently, stuck within rigid boundaries. Before beginning therapy with me, they seemed unable to profit from past experiences. I’ve seen much growth in this regard—in the Renee personality in particular. However, Renee’s motivation to excel, like the motivations of the other personalities, seems compulsive rather than fulfilling.

  Jo still emphasizes intellect and rationality in a valiant attempt to protect her raw, tender, and infantile emotions. She avoids people in order to avoid feeling, yet she suffers constantly.

  Renee’s relationships, so easily initiated and full of promise, are shallow and essentially unsatisfying. She often runs at the first sign of trouble, and therefore manages long-term involvements only with those people who are, for one reason or another, incapable of intimacy.

  —

  SEPTEMBER 1982 MARKED THE START of my second year teaching high school and my second year of living with Steve.

  When I’d moved in with Steve, I’d done so partly because no more attractive option had presented itself. Steve assumed we’d marry someday, but I still doubted it. Even though Steve wouldn’t admit it, I knew he had emotional problems as serious as my own. His wife, Sara, had been dead for years, but he still actively grieved. The townhouse I shared with Steve—the townhouse where he and Sara had spent so many happy years—was still filled with his wife’s personal possessions. My bottle of shampoo sat in the shower next to hers.

  Steve denied that either he or I was experiencing any problems.

  More than one of the personalities tried to persuade Steve that the diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder was accurate, but he remained skeptical.

  When the Jo personality first told him of the diagnosis, he called MPD “clinical bullshit.” Then, seeing Jo’s stricken look, he softened and showed her how the possibility of many personalities in a single body was philosophically untenable. MPD did not fit into Steve’s system of beliefs, and therefore it did not exist.

  Later, after Dr. Wilbur confirmed the diagnosis, I tried to convince him. Steve said that Dr. Wilbur spent her whole life trying to find people she could call multiple. I couldn’t argue with that. But when Steve implied that Lynn had arrived at the diagnosis for the same reason, I knew it was time that Steve met Lynn.

  Steve listened politely as Lynn talked about the various personalities. He agreed that I was “moody,” but he flatly refused when Lynn suggested that he read Sybil. He continued to ignore manifestations of the disorder that compromised his view of reality.

  Despite his denial, Steve lived with many personalities. If he was angry with me, I lost time. He would find himself face to face with Jo in the middle of an argument he had started with me. Jo would blink in confusion and abjectly apologize for whatever she had done wrong this time. Steve came to recognize the sudden blankness and reaction. His anger would subside and he would look at Jo and say, “You don’t even know what I’m angry about, do you?”

  Most of Steve’s arguments with me ended this way. He would sigh, then take Jo on his lap. Since Jo couldn’t abide physical closeness, the five-year-old Missy personality would crawl up on Steve’s lap and listen while this man told her that he loved her and that everything was OK. Resting her head comfortably on Steve’s shoulder, Missy decided to believe him.

  None of us forced Steve to acknowledge the discrepancie
s. He called us all Jo and supplied his own explanations for periodic memory losses. The group’s feelings toward Steve were ambivalent. Missy loved him as a father; Jo hoped that one day he would love her as he had loved Sara; I considered him a convenient companion and good friend; and Joan Frances waited for her mother’s assessment of the relationship.

  But we all loved the house he bought in November 1982. Steve surprised me when he announced that he wanted to move from the townhouse. He said we needed our own home, a place that didn’t hold reminders of the past.

  I didn’t know how or why he had come to this decision, but I rejoiced at the prospect of once again having a place that felt like mine.

  When Keith and I separated and we sold the house we had shared, all of my things had been put in storage. There had been no room in Steve’s townhouse for my books and furniture. Now we were moving into a large airy Tudor-style house that had room enough for everything.

  No one in the group understood that Steve might find the move stressful.

  One evening a few days after the furniture was delivered, Steve lost his patience while installing a large wall unit in the spare bedroom. I was frightened. The Jo personality found herself alone at the base of the stairs leading up to the second floor. She could hear Steve swearing from an upstairs room. She clutched the railing. Had she done something wrong?

  “Would you like me to come up?” Jo asked.

  “Not if you’re going to put your soul on the line,” Steve thundered.

  This was too much for Jo. She grabbed her jacket and ran out into the night. She raced blindly through the strange neighborhood, confused about where she was and where she was going. She was amnestic for the time that I and other personalities had spent scouting the area.

  Jo’s most recent memory was of being in session with Lynn. “Lynn knows more about my life than I do,” Jo thought, slowing down her panicky run. “Maybe she knows why Steve’s mad at me.”

  Jo came to a main street, where she spied an all-night diner. She hurried in from the November chill and called Lynn.

  Lynn didn’t know what the problem with Steve was about, but she was concerned that Jo felt unable to go home. “Where are you?” Lynn asked. Jo identified the diner, and Lynn said she’d be right there.

  Jo sat in a booth, sipping coffee and waiting for Lynn. She felt overwhelmed, drained by her emotions—terrified by Steve’s anger and confused by Lynn’s response. Jo certainly hadn’t intended to disrupt Lynn’s evening this way.

  Lynn appeared dressed in jeans, boots, a flannel shirt, and a down vest. Jo always thought Lynn looked wonderful, but her beauty was breathtaking as she strode into the diner, her long ponytail flowing behind her shoulders. “She looks more like thirty than fifty,” Jo thought appreciatively as Lynn sat down opposite her in the booth.

  Lynn ordered coffee and said, “Somehow I’m not surprised that you found this place, Jo. Back when I had a houseful of kids and not an inch of privacy, I used to come here to hide. A cup of coffee and a few minutes of peace helped when I felt too stressed out to be a good mom. I haven’t been in here for years, but it holds fond memories for me.”

  “What happened, Jo?” Lynn asked, after brushing aside Jo’s apologies for disturbing her evening.

  Jo sketched out the situation as best she could. “He yelled at me and then yelled again when I offered to help,” Jo said. She didn’t know what Steve had been doing upstairs; she had been too frightened to go up and find out.

  Lynn sipped her coffee, then said, “You know, Jo, moving is a stressful time for any person, and Steve’s burying a good deal of the past with this move. He was probably just upset about some task that was going badly and overreacted because of stress.”

  Jo, fingering her coffee cup, smiled ruefully. “You’re saying that it’s possible that Steve’s anger was not my fault.”

  Lynn nodded. “You’re not the only one in your group who finds anger difficult. Renee can’t handle it either.”

  Jo let Lynn drive her back home. “I guess Renee and I aren’t so different in some respects,” she said. “We both have to learn to let other people be themselves.”

  Jo arrived home to find Steve anxious about her absence and apologetic for his outburst. Jo hugged him. “It’s OK, Steve. I overreacted too.” She felt an uncharacteristic connection; she felt empathy.

  —

  THE GROUP SETTLED INTO the house and a comfortable routine with Steve.

  Missy’s rocking chair had its place in the bright sunroom. She could rock undisturbed and watch birds play in the trees and bushes outside the windows. It comforted her to know that her friend Lynn lived in the same community, only three miles away.

  Jo loved the basement library with its four walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves and its musty smell. Her books, together with Steve’s large science library, filled the room.

  Rusty had silently helped Steve build and paint the shelves to hold the books. Rusty, who knew better than to identify himself to Steve, took pleasure and pride in working alongside a man.

  Charlene spent hours preparing meals in the large modern kitchen she and Steve designed.

  Joan Frances walked smugly through the elegant turn-of-the-century house, sure that her mother, if she ever came to visit, would be impressed by the etched glass.

  I loved the space. Steve could work in his upstairs study, and I could putter about in another part of the house, feeling the security of his presence and the freedom of being able to work undisturbed.

  Steve maintained a mild-mannered demeanor. His demands were few. He wanted me to be caring and involved in his life. That was easy. I was an expert at being what other people wanted. I had no central core of self to protect. As easily and quickly as a chameleon, I changed to meet the needs of anyone important to me.

  Steve often flattered me by claiming to see capabilities in me that I didn’t recognize. I thought I had found my niche in life as a high-school teacher and felt content. But Steve thought I had potential that went beyond my job.

  “You have to do your Ph.D.,” Steve said. “You have important things to say and to write.”

  When the Jo personality heard this, she swelled with pride. Jo wanted more than anything to spend her life as a scholar. Steve was serious when he told her that she should go to Harvard, where he and Sara had completed their doctoral work. “Maybe if I prove I’m smart enough to go to Harvard Steve will love me as he did Sara,” Jo thought.

  Jo fantasized about submitting her application to Harvard, but was slow to act. Eventually I applied for her. I began to see benefits in going off to school. My low seniority and the school’s declining enrollments meant that I had little hope that my teaching job would continue. Scholarly work was by no means my first love, but I figured that I could rely on the Jo, Joan Frances, and Kendra personalities. And leaving to go to graduate school would also provide a natural conclusion for Lynn’s work with the personalities.

  Lynn had devoted an enormous amount of time to Jo and the others for almost two years. I knew she couldn’t keep that up indefinitely, but it was going to be devastating for some of the others when Lynn said she had had enough. Though it didn’t matter as much to me, I couldn’t help worrying about what would happen to the others when Lynn cut us loose. If Lynn knew the group would leave in the fall, she would surely not terminate treatment. This way, I would be responsible for taking the group away, and no personality would feel abandoned by Lynn.

  Steve insisted that our relationship was solid enough to endure my being away for a while. I assumed that he was urging me to go so that he could ease out of the relationship, but I wasn’t worried about his rejection. None of the personalities was as dependent on Steve as they were on Lynn.

  But first Steve himself was going away for a time—to serve as a visiting professor at Cornell beginning in January 1983. I had urged him to accept the appointment, hoping that it might help reinvolve him in the academic work he had neglected since Sara’s death. And I relished having
a semester alone in our wonderful house.

  Steve and I were generally content with one another in those last months of 1982. Our occasional disagreements were always over therapy. He admitted that he didn’t understand mental illness, but he refused to concede that I was sick. He resented my phone calls to Lynn and the long hours I spent in therapy.

  “Aren’t I good to you?” he asked when one of the group called Lynn. “Why can’t you call me if you’re going to be late?” he demanded when my sessions stretched longer than an hour.

  One night when Steve asked this question, I reflected back on the therapy session. Throughout most of it, Lynn had been cuddling Little Joe. I turned to Steve wearily and said, “The personality who was out didn’t know the phone number, much less that he should have called.” Steve backed off. He didn’t really want to know.

  —

  THEN, SUDDENLY, THERAPY BECAME painful. With a start, Jo saw how dependent she had become on Lynn. Lynn’s freely offered affection was a first. Jo had chalked up her parents’ love to duty; they learned to love her because they were stuck with her. Lynn wasn’t forced to love her but said that she did anyway. Jo began to believe.

  Each moment with Lynn made Jo desperate for more. The deep longing brought terror. Since Jo didn’t understand why Lynn felt the way she did, there was no way to trust that it would continue, no way to figure out what might make it stop.

  Jo wanted Lynn to continue liking her, “Yet,” Jo thought, “all I do is fight her.” She could cite the many ways in which she resisted Lynn, even if the therapist rarely called her to account for it: Jo refused to listen to tapes of the other personalities; she refused to believe that her parents had abused her; she wasn’t even able to handle the hypnosis.

  Jo could imagine how her stubbornness might hasten Lynn’s rejection of her, but she couldn’t stop herself. If only Lynn would tell her how to behave. If only Lynn would explain her love, Jo could move this all back to an intellectual plane.