Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [114]
We talked about basic issues. I asked her, “What kind of people do you really want for friends? What do you have to give other people? What really makes you happy? What makes you feel proud of yourself? How do you set priorities and make good decisions about your time? How do you have a life that truly reflects your values?”
Meanwhile Myron no longer answered her letters. He wrote three times after they parted, but each letter was shorter. Lizzie admitted that the relationship was more important to her than it was to him. Having sex had also set her up to feel more pain when they separated. She felt some guilt about her decision. A part of her believed the boys who were hissing in the halls that she was a slut. Suddenly sex seemed fraught with peril.
Lizzie developed her own policies about sex, policies that were mature and thoughtful for a high school student. She decided to wait until she was in a long-term relationship with someone who cared for her at least as much as she cared for him. She wanted to discuss how sex would affect the relationship, and she wanted protection from pregnancy and STDs. She also decided that she would make her decisions to be sexual in the cold, clear light of day, not in the heat of passion on a date.
For now, Lizzie developed ways to treat herself after the long tough days at school—walks in Wilderness Park, good library books and trips to the coffeehouse with a friend. She reminded herself that there was life after high school. Lizzie begin looking into college.
Gradually things calmed down. Paul started dating another girl, and he and his friends lost interest in punishing Lizzie. Lizzie was not as popular as she had been her junior year, but popularity mattered less to her. She stayed close to two of her girlfriends since childhood and made some new friends at the shelter.
When she stopped therapy she was dating a college student. They made out, but stopped short of intercourse. Lizzie had decided to wait for a while. She wasn’t ready to handle the pain that followed losing a lover.
Lizzie was a strong, well-adjusted young woman, but like all teenagers, she was caught between competing values when it came to sex. Her parents expected her to be a virgin when she married. Her boyfriend over the summer encouraged her to have sex, even though the relationship would be short-term. Her high school friends were outraged, not that she had had sex, but that she had had it with someone they didn’t know. Lizzie learned some lessons from her experiences. She learned to take care of herself and withstand disapproval. She learned to think about her relationship choices and to take responsibility for sexual decisions.
ANGELA (16)
I first met Angela when she was four months pregnant by Todd, her boyfriend of several months. She bounded into my office wearing a black leather skirt and a low-cut T-shirt that had SKID ROW printed on the front. In a matter of moments, Angela was spilling out her life story.
Her dad had had an affair when Angela was in eighth grade. Her mom left for Arizona with her younger brother and she seldom heard from them. Angela lived with her dad, his new partner Marie and her three young children.
Angela complained that she seldom saw her dad alone and that the kids were “spoiled and hyper” and stole her stuff. She had no privacy and her dad and Marie expected her to baby-sit so that they could go out on weekends.
I asked her about school and she wrinkled her nose. “I had to go to the learning center till I turned sixteen, but I hated it there. As soon as I had my birthday I dropped out.”
“What did you hate?”
Angela sighed elaborately and stretched her white arms above her spiky red hair. “It was boring. I hated all the junk we had to take. The girls were snobs.”
“Tell me about your parents.”
She sighed. “Mom’s ultra-religious. When I told her I was pregnant she started to pray. Then she disowned me. She likes my brother best. He’s too young to have sinned all that much.”
She leaned back into the couch. “I get on better with Dad. He’s more low-key. He’s mad, but