The Flock

by Joan Frances Casey

  Now I was going to a new place. For the first time in my life, I’d be sharing living space with a stranger. Even if I could manage to hide the fact that I was multiple from my roommate, would she be able to stand me for a year?

  I was alone in the suite for two days before my roommate, Bethany, arrived. During that time, as my anxiety built, I decided that, Alliance or no, I would handle things myself and keep the other personalities from surfacing. Maybe I could fake my way through the theory classes.

  The minute Bethany walked into the suite, I lost control. Joan Frances took over and fell all over herself in a clumsy attempt to make a good impression. She insisted on helping Bethany move in. As Joan Frances chattered on about the cultural advantages of Boston, Bethany looked up, her clear blue eyes blinking in wonder. “Are you always like this?” she seemed to be asking. Her concerns about the year were palpable.

  Without the benefit of knowing my diagnosis, Bethany met several of the personalities. I suspected that if I told her I was multiple she’d be frightened. But even if Bethany was not provided with a label, she learned to respect my “moods.” Shy Jo seemed frightened and hid in her bedroom when Bethany returned home to our suite. Joan Frances needed constant reassurance that Bethany liked her. I was nice to Bethany, but careful not to expect too much from our forced relationship.

  “Well, the Flock is still very much with me,” I reported to Lynn during a phone conversation. “I tried to ignore them, but that didn’t make them disappear.”

  “No kidding,” Lynn said, and then offered suggestions on how to help the group manage. I began taking daily walks off campus, during which I could relax my hold and let other personalities experience the day. Missy shuffled in autumn leaves; Rusty sat by the Charles and watched boats slip through the water.

  If I couldn’t ignore the Flock, I decided that I had to be ready to contend with any possibility. How could I keep people from seeing and labeling the changes? What would happen if Josie suddenly appeared, panic-stricken and psychotic? The answer was all too obvious—I’d be committed, locked up in a psychiatric hospital.

  In Chicago, Lynn provided the guarantee against hospitalization. But she was now too far away. I needed a safety net in Boston, someone who would help me in a crisis and protect the Flock from commitment.

  Lynn agreed and, with Dr. Wilbur’s help, found the name of a local psychiatrist who had treated a multiple. I met with Dr. Timothy Matthews, and was delighted to find that he was willing to make himself available to me in emergencies.

  I told him about the Flock and about the special relationship I had with Gordon and Lynn.

  “You know I can’t provide that for you,” he said.

  I was relieved that he wouldn’t try. “One set of therapist-parents is enough,” I said. “I just need someone to call if things get out of hand while we’re here in school.”

  Dr. Matthews assured me that he understood that some self-destructive gestures went along with the disorder and agreed that commitment was not the appropriate response. But the Flock should feel free to call him in an emergency. Dr. Matthews seemed calmly accepting of my situation. He telephoned Lynn to get a better understanding of the Flock and provided me with his home and office phone numbers so that I could reach him at any time.

  Now I could concentrate on academic work. And since the other personalities were not going to disappear, I had better find some way of using them. The Jo personality, with her extensive knowledge and equally extensive amnesia, was a problem. I needed her intellect. I looked over my schedule and worked out a plan. Jo would take the theory courses, and the Alliance of Kendra, Isis, and I would handle everything else.

  Unfortunately, Jo didn’t appreciate her assumed participation. She found herself sitting in the dormitory room with economic-theory books open before her, or became aware in the lecture hall, pen in hand, at the start of a class. Jo hated feeling so out of control, but she did as expected, perceiving that she’d have no time at all if she balked. “I wouldn’t even know how to get from that dorm room to this damn lecture hall,” Jo observed one day in self-disgust. She was right. I took the body to class and home again. Jo’s only purpose was to absorb knowledge.

  I made a trip to Richmond after I had been at Harvard for a few weeks, to attend a friend’s wedding; Joan Frances wanted to bask in her mother’s pride at having a daughter at Harvard. No one in the family had gone to graduate school; no one had ever attended an Ivy League school. Joan Frances was sure that she finally deserved her mother’s love.

  The weekend didn’t go as planned. Nancy’s boyfriend didn’t seem impressed. Nor did she. “Harvard is just a rich kids’ playground, and anyone can buy a degree there,” Nancy told Joan Frances, echoing her friend. Joan Frances returned to Harvard feeling uncertain and betrayed. Again she had failed to please her mother.

  After the weekend in Virginia, the Flock began calling Lynn on a regular basis. The experience with Nancy rekindled old fears. “Why don’t you write to us?” I asked Lynn. “Why don’t you respond to the questions in my letters to you? Why won’t you help anymore?”

  The harder I pushed, the more I felt Lynn pull back. “I love you,” she said, “and you’re still family, but I won’t do long-distance therapy. If I tried and failed, I’d hurt both of us badly.”

  “Maybe Lynn’s feelings have changed,” I thought. “Maybe she’s just happy we’re gone. Maybe what we shared this summer no longer exists.”

  “I can’t take this anymore,” I told her. “I have to come home for a weekend and find out where our relationship stands.”

  “You’re welcome to come home if you wish,” Lynn replied. “Gordon and I can spend some time with you, but we have other plans as well. You know, Renee, that the Flock was our priority this summer. But it can’t be that way forever, and it can’t be that way now.”

  DIARY    October 10, 1983

  The first few weeks of the Flock’s stay at Harvard seemed to go well. As I had expected, Renee had to come to terms with the continued presence of the other personalities and had to develop ways to keep them comfortable, allow them expression, and use their strengths. Their letters were entertaining for Gordon and me, and therapeutic for them. Occasional phone calls provided gossip from home, reassurances, praise, and commiseration from us.

  I was pleased when Renee decided on a backup therapist and even more pleased when I talked with Dr. Matthews. He seemed to understand what Renee is asking for and was open to consultation with me. All seemed to be going as smoothly as anyone could have hoped, and I looked forward to more and more freedom in the periods between school vacations.

  The weekend visit to Virginia upset the developing equilibrium. Predictably, Nancy did not react with joy and pride in her daughter’s achievement. This was devastating to Joan Frances and sent repercussions through the whole Flock. Old pain was resurrected, and feelings of rejection were transferred to me. This produced a clinging dependency for which I was totally unprepared.

  Depleted as I was, what little energy I had left went toward raising my defenses, and I drew back on the support I had been giving, fearful of being sucked completely dry. When Renee said she was coming home for the weekend, I reacted with anger and despair. I questioned the good that I thought the summer had brought. I felt I could not face a four-day weekend of endless recriminations and dissection of “our relationship.” I was afraid that if I didn’t provide some response and support she might not return to school. I couldn’t even think of what I might do with the Flock at that point.

  I had enrolled in a yoga class that began the night she arrived, and I went there rather than meet Renee at the airport. I was determined not to structure the weekend around her visit, as we had structured everything all summer, and as I had done to a large extent for the two years before that. It was both a battle of wills and a test of the Flock’s growing health. If they refused after all this time to see that I cared and would continue to care, there was nothing more I could do. I had gamb
led that the summer would provide that kind of security, and it had looked, for a while, like a success. If I was wrong, we would both have to live with that failure.

  I was prepared for Renee’s hurt reproaches, but when Steve dropped the Flock off at the house after I returned from my class, I thought at first that it was Joan Frances who knocked formally on the front door instead of letting herself in the side door as usual. Cold and formal, Renee barely tolerated my hug. There was no smile, no warmth as she sat stiffly, ankles crossed, and made polite conversation.

  Renee began, legalistically and coldly, as though she had been taking lessons from Jo: “You told me on the telephone that I need to separate what is family from what is treatment from what are Flock issues; I find that I fail to understand the distinctions among the three.” She called me into account for every statement I had made, pointing out inconsistencies and apparent contradictions. She innocently pleaded lack of understanding, and I became more and more frustrated and angry, and more and more adamant about what I would not do.

  Things were at an impasse when Steve returned an hour later to pick her up. I reassured Renee that she was welcome to come back, but she remained cold and distant. After she left, I felt guilty and uncomfortable, but I reminded myself that what I had done was justified and necessary. I certainly was not pleased with my very untherapeutic emotions and worried that my approach might have been wrong. But, at the same time, I had the sense that the Flock didn’t really need from me as much as they now felt they did. Renee had not dissolved or folded in the face of my ultimatums. Something else was going on that had little or nothing to do with what was happening between the two of us.

  When Renee appeared the next day, she was much warmer, ready to discuss rather than accuse, and I found it easier to respond to her. We talked about how destructive Nancy’s most recent rejection had been.

  Renee eventually asked the underlying questions: Do you still love me? Are you rejecting me like Nancy? Can I always come home again? These issues settled (for now), I could begin to assist Renee in dealing with the intricacies of helping the Flock survive at Harvard.

  Clearly some support, even if it wasn’t ongoing therapy, was needed at school. Renee decided to take the risk of telling her roommate and a few others about being a multiple. Reassured of Gordon’s and my continued love and support, and buoyed by her new understanding of her own strength—strength to withstand my anger—the Flock returned to school.

  —

  I COULDN’T FIGURE OUT how to tell Bethany that I was a multiple, but trusted that the right time would present itself. It did, a few days after I returned from my weekend in Chicago. Bethany rushed into the suite that afternoon and barely mumbled hello as she stormed through our shared study space and slammed her bedroom door behind her. I waited a few minutes, then knocked hesitantly. “Yes,” she said, in a distracted voice.

  “Sorry to bother you,” I said, opening the door, “but are you mad at me about something?”

  Bethany looked up from her bed, puzzled. “Mad? No, why should I be mad at you?”

  I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think any of the personalities had done anything to upset her, but I couldn’t be certain. “Ahh,” I started lamely, “you just seem sort of pissed off.”

  Bethany laughed and sat up. “Come on in,” she said. “I am pissed off. I got a B on a paper and it should have been an A. But I’m not mad at you, I’m just in a bad mood.”

  “A bad mood,” I repeated, mulling this over. “I don’t think I know what it means to be in a bad mood.”

  “What are you,” she laughed, “a person from another planet?”

  “No,” I said, “I’m a multiple.”

  Bethany and I talked through the night, and she took it all with the calm and curiosity of a well-read and well-traveled young woman who had heard and seen stranger things. I found that it helped me understand the disorder better to describe it to someone else.

  Within a few weeks, Bethany recognized Jo, Joan Frances, and Missy, and called us all by name. Bethany and I got along better after that, but we continued to live in our own separate graduate-school spheres, friendly yet not overly involved with each other.

  In November, Bethany rushed into the suite between classes and called to me, “Hey, Renee, how did Jo do on that poli-sci exam?” I told her, proud of Jo’s ability, and then realized that I was equally in awe of my roommate. “You are amazing,” I said to Bethany. “How can you deal with my being a multiple so easily?”

  Bethany shrugged, but a grin twitched. “I once shared a one-room hut with twelve other people in a small village in New Guinea. Your group is more compact, and our suite doesn’t have a dirt floor.”

  I also told Lillian. Lillian was the one real friend I had made in Cambridge. She was thirty-five and had a husband on the West Coast. They both valued her completing her degree enough to tolerate a commuting marriage. I spent most evenings at Lillian’s apartment, sharing dinner and coursework. We had many of the same classes and found that we studied well together. But the night that Lillian wanted to discuss John Locke, I knew she had to be told.

  I wasn’t taking that class; Jo was. Like Bethany, Lillian seemed to have little problem believing in the disorder. However, after a few study sessions with Jo, Lillian admitted that she was more comfortable with me, though she had to admit that Jo had a knack for the theoretical work.

  I wasn’t surprised. For her part, Jo never even noticed Lillian’s discomfort. She knew that Lillian admired her talent for quoting accurately from memory, and she enjoyed solidifying her own understanding through Lillian’s questions and comments.

  After getting A’s on all of our midterm exams, I realized that the Flock was doing well. We were stimulated by the competitive graduate program. Bethany told me that the other students in the dorm had decided that I was “low-key” about my mental abilities, but “brilliant.” I chalked up most of my success to the time that the Flock spent studying. I was too worried about the other students’ sensing the switching of personalities to become involved in the student social life. “But there’s another possibility,” I said to Bethany. “Maybe two or more heads are better than one.”

  The changes in posture and mannerisms that signaled a switch between Jo and me were subtle enough that they didn’t attract attention. Only Lillian, who sat next to the Flock in lectures, knew, by glancing at the distinctive handwritings, when she was sitting next to her friend Renee, and when she was sitting next to political theorist Jo.

  Sometimes, though, the Flock’s academic enthusiasm had to be curbed so that we wouldn’t attract attention. The Alliance was loose enough so that Kendra, Isis, and I sometimes functioned autonomously but co-consciously. Kendra and I both loved the law class. Together we researched the cases and did extra reading at the law library so that we’d be prepared for the exciting Socratic method used by our professor. When called on to recite in class, I did the talking, but kept an internal ear cocked to listen for Kendra’s suggestions and comments. She often picked up things that I missed in the reading.

  As other students recited, or when the professor was lecturing, I scribbled notes on my tablet right-handed, with the casebook opened to my left. Able to use both hands equally well, Kendra often made notations in the casebook with her left hand at the same time that I was taking my notes.

  One day, I noticed a classmate nudging another and gesturing toward the Flock’s two-handed notetaking. “We’ve got to be more careful,” I warned Kendra. “You can’t write with your left hand while I’m writing with my right. It looks too strange.”

  Finally, I solved the problem by taking only one pen to class. Kendra and I were then forced to take turns. A switching of pen from hand to hand was more acceptable than two pens writing in different scripts simultaneously.

  28.

  The Flock went home for Christmas feeling more self-confident than ever before. Professors held up our work as a model; fellow students asked for advice. The more functional personal
ities cooperated in making notes on the calendar so that every personality could keep track of the day despite amnesia. The kids were allowed physical and mental space to play.

  Lynn and Gordon shared in our joy and pride and told us all to hurry home. We stayed with Steve over vacation, but he and I were included in the Wilsons’ family Christmas.

  My apprehension that maybe Gordon and Lynn didn’t really want us around, and my anxiety that their own kids visiting from California would add stress, were inspired by years of tense holidays with Nancy and Ray. Gordon and Lynn were different.

  They didn’t care any more than they ever had what shape the house was in or when dinner got served. Nancy was always so frantic in her need for everything to look perfect on holidays that no one was allowed to relax enough to enjoy the occasion.

  Lisa and Victor visited with their parents, and hung out at the house, but they went out with friends as well. They were friendly with the Flock and didn’t seem to be jealous of the hours we spent with Gordon and Lynn. Any way we looked at it, we belonged.

  That knowledge, pure and obvious, finally permeated to the deeper levels of the Flock. This was our family. Not just for the summer, but forever.

  The last evening before the Flock’s return to Cambridge, Rusty appeared, sitting on the rug in Lynn and Gordon’s living room. Rather than demanding to know Gordon’s whereabouts, as he usually did, Rusty gazed thoughtfully at Lynn. He stared steadily at her long, loose hair and raised his hand as if to touch it.

  “When I was a little boy, one time and one time more, I touched the lady’s hair,” he said slowly.

  “Yes, that’s right, Rusty,” Lynn said, and pulled her hair over one shoulder so that it would be both visible and accessible. He didn’t move toward her, but remained in the warmth of his feeling.