A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [96]
Most of you know Roy and witnessed his behavior last night. For those of you who don’t know him or didn’t witness it, here’s the deal. Roy was a Patient here. For the most part, he was an exemplary Patient. He worked hard on himself, he worked hard on his Program, he listened and he followed all of our Rules. When he left a week or so ago, I, along with most of the rest of the Staff, was confident in his prospects for a long-term recovery.
Last night, at about three-thirty, he snuck past Security, entered this Facility and came down to the Unit. He was carrying a large stick and he climbed on top of that couch.
He points to one of the couches
He started screaming. Security was called, and I was on the Nightshift, and when we came down here and confronted him, he claimed to be someone named Jack and he threatened to beat us with his stick. He was subdued and removed from the Unit and taken to the Medical Unit and examined. From there he was taken to a Mental Institution.
At this point, we believe with fair certainty that Roy suffers from MPD, which stands for Multiple Personality Disorder. For those of you who don’t know what MPD is, it is a psychological condition in which two or more distinct Identities, each with its own pattern of perceiving, relating to and thinking about the environment and self, exist within a single Person. Although some of the personalities know of each other, often they do not, and they can exist entirely independent of one another for great lengths of time. Last night, we observed at least four, and possibly five, separate personalities existing within Roy. One of them was the guy we came to know while he was here.
It was a very sad and upsetting night last night. I was Roy’s Counselor, and I was very proud of him and the work we did together while he was here. I hope all of you will say a prayer for him, in whatever way it is that you pray. Any questions?
The Bald Man speaks.
How’d you not know about this with all the tests and everything?
Except for a couple of incidents, which I am viewing differently in retrospect, his primary and dominant personality was the Person who was here. If that Person was taking all the tests and doing all the work, we would have no way of knowing anything else was going on.
One of the new men speaks. He is tall and skinny and wears black designer glasses.
Is this common?
No. I’ve never seen it before, and as far I know, nobody else here has either.
Miles speaks.
Is there treatment for it?
Long-term psychiatric care, support groups, intensive therapy. Most of the treatment methods are similar to what are used for other profound and incurable mental illnesses.
Ted speaks.
I got a question.
What?
Ted speaks.
I never liked Roy, so I’m wondering if you could bring him back here with his Bitch personality so that I could slap his ass around a bit.
Everybody laughs. Lincoln stares, speaks.
Not funny, Ted.
I ain’t trying to be funny. I wanna bitch-slap that Motherfucker.
More laughs. Lincoln shakes his head, tries to ignore Ted.
Any other questions?
Nobody speaks. Lincoln stands.
Let’s get our afternoon started. Fourth Step Group stay here, Third Step Group up top, the rest of you do your individual assignments. James, come with me to Joanne’s office.
The men go to their areas of group assignment or off on their own. I get up and I walk with Lincoln to Joanne’s office. He does not speak to me and I do not speak to him. Neither of us looks at the other. When we get there, he knocks on the door. We hear Joanne’s voice from behind.
Come in.
He opens the door, we step inside. Joanne is sitting behind her desk, she motions for us to sit. Lincoln sits on the couch. I take a chair between the couch and the desk. Joanne speaks.
Hi, James. How are you?
Fine. You?
I’m fine.
She holds up my First Step workbook.
Care to explain this?
I laugh.
I think it’s pretty