“I’m Jo,” she finally said, slowly and carefully. “Don’t you remember talking to me?” Dr. Tate said nothing, but watched Jo for a time silently. Jo began to shift uneasily in her chair, feeling like a bug pinned to a board. “I want to go back to my dorm room now,” she said.
“No,” Dr. Tate said matter-of-factly. “As soon as I can find you a bed, you’re going into a psychiatric ward.”
Jo didn’t panic. Lynn had told her that there was no reason for the Flock to be locked up. “Lynn told me that I’m supposed to call a Boston psychiatrist by the name of Timothy Matthews if someone tries to lock me up,” she said. She remained calm. All she had to do was to follow the emergency procedures Lynn and I had worked through.
“Have you ever seen this Dr. Matthews,” Dr. Tate asked, “or is he only a name to you?”
Honest to the last, Jo sighed. “That’s a really ambiguous question.”
“At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” Dr. Tate responded dryly.
“I’m not trying to be funny,” Jo said. “I know that some of the other personalities have met with Dr. Matthews, but I’ve never talked with him personally.”
“Well, it’s one a.m.,” Dr. Tate said, “far too late to call another doctor.”
Jo wondered why he wasn’t being more helpful, but didn’t panic. All of the contingencies had been worked through. For once, she knew the plan.
“Dr. Matthews gave me his home phone number so that I could reach him whenever I needed,” she explained.
“Well, where’s the number?” Dr. Tate asked, sounding annoyed.
Suddenly Jo realized that this doctor didn’t want anyone to rescue her. She began to feel trapped and frightened. She frantically patted her coat pockets and found no number, nothing in her jeans pockets either. The phone numbers, Jo suspected, were back at the dormitory.
“You don’t have the number here, and you’re not in good enough shape to be out on the streets. I’m having you pink-slipped!” said Dr. Tate.
Jo took a deep breath. That was impossible. “I want to call Lynn,” she said.
“Your therapist in Denver can’t help you,” the psychiatrist said firmly.
“Lynn is in Chicago, not Denver,” Jo responded with equal control. “I’m very frightened by what you are suggesting and I want to call Lynn.”
Finally, Dr. Tate led Jo to a phone. “Don’t stay on the phone all night,” he warned. “I’m tired and I want to get home to bed.”
Jo glanced curiously at the doctor, not wanting to believe that the psychiatrist was really so unconcerned about the crisis that he was now escalating. Though she felt surges of panic, she had to appear calm and in control.
When Lynn’s answering machine picked up at the first ring, Jo quickly hung up and dialed again, knowing that the phone had to ring at least a couple of times before it would wake Lynn or Gordon. “Unless Lynn can help,” Jo realized with certainty, “this doctor is going to have me committed.”
Lynn answered sleepily, but quickly became more alert as Jo filled her in on the situation and handed the phone to Dr. Tate. “This woman has no impulse control,” Dr. Tate shouted long-distance, and Jo gratefully gave up the consciousness.
I took over. I stood quietly, listening to Dr. Tate’s side of the conversation, imagining how helpless and concerned Lynn must be feeling. I seethed with anger. I concentrated on that anger, letting it grow to replace some of the terror that triggered the Flock’s need for flight.
I was frightened, more frightened than I could ever remember being. Psychiatric hospitalization. There was no way I could convince myself that it might not be so bad. We’d be restrained, drugged. I pushed the fear aside and concentrated on my anger.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I muttered. I was angry at myself for not realizing how this situation might be perceived. Joan Frances’s depression was not nearly as life-threatening as commitment.
I was angry at the internist who had lied to Joan Frances. The doctor had said that no one could lock her up against her will, and Dr. Tate was preparing to do just that.
Dr. Tate hung up the phone and turned to me. I smiled broadly and said, “Tell you what. How about if I make an appointment with Dr. Matthews and you let me out of here so that we can both go home and get some sleep?”
“Renee?” Dr. Tate asked. He seemed weary and agreed to let me go, but only on the condition that I reach Dr. Matthews before I leave.
“His phone numbers are back at the dorm,” I said, “but I’ll call my roommate and have her find them for me.”
“No,” Dr. Tate said, “I don’t want any more people involved in this. I’ll reach him through his answering service at the hospital.”
While Dr. Tate called the hospital, demanding to be put in touch with Dr. Matthews now, I docilely followed the nurse into another room to have my wrist cleaned and bandaged. “Don’t worry about hurting me,” I said to the nurse cheerfully. “I know the cuts aren’t that bad.” The nurse said nothing. Her hands shook as she washed the cuts. The nurse finished bandaging my wrist, and Dr. Tate came in with the internist.
“You’ve got to see this,” Dr. Tate said to the other doctor. “This is Renee, the in-charge personality.”
I smiled brightly at the internist and thanked him for being so helpful with Joan Frances. “If they think I’m serious, then I’m a better actress than anyone has ever given me credit for being,” I mused silently.
Dr. Matthews didn’t return Dr. Tate’s call, despite his demands, and the psychiatrist was tired. He offered a compromise. If I stayed overnight in the school’s infirmary, he wouldn’t have me committed.
I knew that wasn’t good enough. The threat of hospitalization had shaken us all. I had to get someplace where everyone felt safe, and I needed to get there fast. “No,” I replied breezily, “I’m going home to the dorm.”
“But, Renee, I want you to be comfortable with the infirmary so that you’ll feel you can use it in a crisis.”
I bit my tongue to keep from asking why he hadn’t recommended the infirmary days ago, when I had called about Joan Frances’s crisis. This was no time for a debate.
“I can have you committed, you know,” the doctor said.
I decided that if that were so he would have done it by now. I looked at the doctor calmly, steadily, and told him that I was in full control.
“How do you know that you’ll remain in control?” Dr. Tate asked.
“Fear,” I lied. “The rest of the Flock is so scared they’re not going to surface for a very long time.”
“I don’t like fear being your method of control,” Dr. Tate said.
Silently I countered that that was obviously the method he preferred, but I grinned conspiratorially at him. “At this point, I’ll take what I can get.”
Dr. Tate gave in. I walked out into the night, feeling more protected than frightened by the now empty streets. I got to the dorm and called Lynn. In the hour between phone conversations, she had been figuring out the quickest way to get to Boston.
I was exhausted, unnerved by the experience, but pleased that the Flock had worked together. Lynn and I were both giddy with relief.
“I’d like to strangle him,” Lynn said.
“Yet more evidence of your extreme countertransference,” I countered.
Just before we hung up, Lynn chuckled. “We’ll both probably sleep better than Dr. Tate tonight,” she said.
“I hope so,” I agreed. “The bastard deserves to worry.”
The next evening, Bethany came into my bedroom and sat down. “I saw the cuts on your arm and I called Lynn,” she said. “Lynn said that everything is under control, but that I should talk with you about it.” I told Bethany the story, just as I had told Lillian earlier in the day. Lillian had known something was wrong when I missed class. Bethany said, as Lillian had, that I should tell her when someone in the Flock was in trouble. Then she paused.
“Could I talk with Joan Frances?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Things are a little chaotic, but let me try.”
“Hi, Bethany,” Joan Frances said. “Did you have a good time at the movies last night?”
“Cut the crap, Joan Frances,” Bethany said. “I know you are having a rough time.”
“Oh, I’m OK, there’s nothing wrong. I just need to try harder.”
“Joan Frances, you may not understand this, but I want you to listen,” Bethany said. “You are a really neat person. You are smarter than anyone I know. You’re cute, you care about other people, and when you are not worried about whether or not I hate you, you are a nice person to have around. Basically, what I’m telling you, kiddo, is that, if your mother can’t see that, she’s crazy.”
Bethany got up and walked out of the room before Joan Frances had a chance to protest.
I kept my March 1 appointment with Dr. Tate. This was my chance, I decided, to make him understand how damaging this experience had been for the Flock.
“There’s a difference between a suicidal personality and a suicidal entity,” I told Dr. Tate. “Yes, Joan Frances was depressed, but her suicidal gesture was after two weeks in which Joan Frances, Jo, and I all tried to tell you that she was in crisis. She needed a professional ear far more than she needed an ‘intake-evaluation,’ but you never seemed to hear that.”
Dr. Tate shot back that I was manipulative. The Flock had been called that so often by people who didn’t understand that the label had no sting. “I can have you withdrawn from school if I decide you can’t manage in the Harvard community,” he warned. I nodded and left his office. His threat was clear, and I’d keep my distance.
DIARY March 20, 1984
The Flock’s experience has made me think long and hard about what is needed to treat a multiple and how to convey this to others. In spite of all of my best efforts to smooth the way for the Flock with Dr. Tate, they landed in greater jeopardy than at any time since I began working with them. Ironically, they’ve never been healthier or better able to articulate their needs.
I attempted to be clear and straightforward in my approach to Dr. Tate, deferring to his medical expertise and stating my desire merely to be helpful. Renee and Joan Frances, in turn, were clear and straightforward about their needs in a way that was new for them. Yet we were seen as manipulative multiple and puppet therapist. Renee had probably never been less manipulative in her life than when she was trying to reason with Dr. Tate.
I can’t help speculating on what happened between this psychiatrist and the Flock. Renee secured and sent me Tate’s clinical reports, but they only add to my confusion.
The psychiatrist wrote that he found the dramatic changes hard to believe. He described Renee as attractive, confident, intelligent, dynamic, and reasonable. He described Joan Frances as depressed, schizoid, and childlike.
My guess is that Dr. Tate just couldn’t accept Renee’s explanation of what was wrong and what needed to be done with Joan Frances. He interpreted Renee’s willingness to help and Jo’s willingness to teach as no less indicative of pathology than Joan Frances’s cries for help.
Perhaps he even saw my warning that the suicidal personality needed urgently to be addressed as some sort of warning that the Flock would attempt to manipulate him. I’ll probably never know. I don’t think that either the Flock or I could have handled the situation much differently, but it’s clear that the doctor felt very threatened.
Somehow this disorder hooks into all kinds of fears and insecurities in many clinicians. The flamboyance of the multiple, her intelligence and ability to conceptualize the disorder, coupled with suicidal impulses of various orders of seriousness, all seem to mask for many therapists the underlying pain, dependency, and need that are very much part of the process. In many ways, a professional dealing with a multiple in crisis is in the same position as a parent dealing with a two-year-old or with an adolescent’s acting-out behavior. It is essential for the parent or the therapist to accept and not be threatened by any manipulation that does occur and to help the child, teenager, or patient understand that there are better ways of communicating and meeting needs.
The Flock have come a long way in their acceptance of this, and when a professional refused to deal with them in a straightforward manner—and, in fact, manipulated and deceived them in return—they rebelled fiercely but self-protectively.
I made the clear and, I hope, threatening statement that night, all deference put aside, that I knew this patient better than he did and unqualifiedly recommended against hospitalization. I said firmly that I was certain that hospitalization would do them more harm than turning them free. My implied threat, combined with Renee’s obvious presentation of competence, secured the Flock’s release.
There are some “silver linings” even in this horrible experience. Renee felt and expressed justified anger. She was able to share her experience with Bethany and Lillian and receive support from them in turn. I gather that even Joan Frances listened to what Bethany had to say.
It is clear that the Flock is continually becoming stronger and less dependent on our therapeutic relationship. I suspect that Renee will turn some of her energies toward her relationship with Steve and others she cares for.
30.
Steve met me in Cambridge at the end of the academic year, and we spent a few weeks exploring the New England coastline and rekindling our romantic relationship. I began to believe that Steve and I had a future together after all. I had grown up a good deal in our four years together and felt the difference in our ages becoming less significant. I was beginning to get a sense of what Steve had tolerated over the years of therapy, and felt amazed that he had remained supportive and in love with me.
Steve and I decided that we would marry after I finished my coursework. If all went as planned, I’d finish up at Harvard in one more year. No one could predict the state of the Flock twelve months from now, but the small fusions and the Flock’s strength in dealing with Dr. Tate augured an increasingly optimistic future.
And I wanted to have a baby. If Steve and I married during the summer of 1985, I’d move back to Chicago and spend the following year writing my dissertation and, I hoped, growing a baby as well.
DIARY May 27, 1984
The Flock has returned home, and Renee is full of her plans to marry Steve. I find it difficult to get seriously involved in discussing the details of the wedding or how well it will fit in with Renee’s scheme for finishing her time in Cambridge early by cramming two years of coursework into one. None of the others in the Flock who would be seriously involved—Jo in particular—seem especially enthusiastic about the prospect. I haven’t discussed it with Josie, Rusty, or Missy but can’t believe that these stunted child personalities could even conceptualize what Renee has in mind. Steve seems agreeable but not eager.
Also, Renee’s reasons are spurious and seem to have more to do with proving something than with a genuine wish to share her life with Steve. Steve has certainly provided security for the Flock in many ways. Though this support has been invaluable, I suspect that it has derived partly from Steve’s own need to distance himself from the disorder and deny much of the Flock’s pathology.
I think that the strong desire for marriage and children is closely tied to Renee’s need to grow beyond the dependency she still feels for Gordon and me. She knows that this summer will be different from last. Perhaps she thinks that she can substitute intense commitment to Steve for the intense dependency on Gordon and me that she felt last summer.
I’d be tempted simply to dismiss Renee’s talk of marriage, but I have to keep in mind that she succeeded in going to Harvard when I was sure that she couldn’t. Impatient or not, I have to analyze rather than ignore her marriage plans. I’m just glad that she’s talking about a year from now rather than next month.
—
I WAS HAPPY TO be home for the summer. I looked forward to time with Steve, and to dumping the Flock in Gordon’s and Lynn’s laps. I was eager to ha
ve the nurturing the Flock had relished the summer before, and again at Christmas. I knew Gordon and Lynn would be eager for this too.
But a summer-long fight started my first day back. When Steve and I returned home, Lynn was in bed with a bad cold. Even though Lynn couldn’t help being sick, I still felt annoyed. The Flock had been gone most of nine months. Why did she have to be sick now? I wanted to give Lynn space to recover in peace and I wanted to see her. I waited anxiously for Lynn to call, for her to say, “Why don’t you come over now?” Patience gone, I called and asked whether I could visit. “Sure,” Lynn said, and when we got there, she seemed honestly pleased to see us.
But somehow that wasn’t enough.
“If you really understood how afraid I am of bothering you, and if you really understood how much we needed to be here, you’d have called me,” I lashed out at her.
The fights continued even after Lynn recovered from her cold.
At the end of one of Rusty’s sailing lessons, I told Gordon that I felt guilty about not being able to pay him for the instruction. I knew that he was well paid for coaching racers.
“How about paying me for treatment?” Lynn said. “Don’t you think the work I’ve done with the Flock is worth anything?”
I stared at her in disbelief. She and I had talked through all of that a year ago. Lynn was paid a straight salary. Student health insurance had initially paid the clinic for our hours of treatment. But once Flock-work moved to Lynn and Gordon’s home in the summer of 1983, the clinic was no longer compensated, and Lynn spent time with the Flock after a full day’s work. Lynn said that nobody could pay her for being a mom, but she was also my therapist. I knew I had to pay her, worked out a plan to do that, and had gotten what I thought was agreement from her. Now she apologized for her outburst and said that she was feeling unappreciated at work.
Each incident got resolved with tears and hugs, and there were days of quiet and comfort, but the tension hung between us. Lynn told me that I was angry. I couldn’t locate the feeling. I was on edge and out of sorts, but this certainly wasn’t the kind of justifiable rage I had experienced with Dr. Tate. “Maybe I’m just learning what it means to be in a bad mood,” I joked. “Moods have reasons,” Lynn said, failing to see humor in the situation.
The Flock Page 28
