Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [64]
Dale was stunned by the news. He suggested a pregnancy test but Holly refused. In fact, she refused to discuss Lyle with him at all. When he came home at night she fled to her room and slammed the door. For a few days Holly cried nonstop, refusing to eat or go to school. Her eyes were red and her face puffy from grief. She called Lyle daily but the talks didn’t go well. Her pleading made him even more determined to break up. Then one day Holly swallowed all the pills in the house.
Fortunately, Dale came home at lunch to check on Holly. He found her asleep in a pool of vomit and called 911.
I met Holly at the hospital after this suicide attempt. Alone in a white room, she was dressed in the regulation hospital gown, but with her hair properly spiked and a Rolling Stone magazine by her side. When I introduced myself, she was polite but distant. I asked her about the suicide attempt. Holly stared out the window at the harsh November day and said, “My life is over.” The rest of our time she answered questions in noncommittal monosyllables.
Things were not much better at the office. Dale came the first time and filled me in on his life with Holly. He knew almost nothing about her thoughts and feelings. Clearly he cared about his daughter, but he had no ideas about how to express his caring in helpful ways. He and Holly had talked so rarely that now that Holly was in a crisis, they had no foundation for working things through. I was struck by the little pleasure his own life had. His parents were dead. He didn’t believe in socializing with his coworkers. His only interest was television.
I called the school counselor, who said, “Holly doesn’t really have a life. She’s living in a fantasy world that she’s constructed around Prince. She tried to substitute Lyle for Prince, but real people are too complicated for her.”
Slowly I began to build a relationship with Holly. Once a week she showed up in a different purple outfit and we talked about Prince. I encouraged her to bring a tape and we listened together. To test me, she played “sexy” Prince songs. Afterward I commented on whatever I could praise.
“I like the line about staying until the morning light.”
She shrugged and said, “That’s his old stuff. Listen to this.”
I asked, “What does this song mean to you?”
Holly said, “It’s two against the world. Undying love.”
“You haven’t had that—undying love, I mean,” I said. “Are you bringing up my mother?”
Holly often answered my questions by quoting Prince’s songs. I listened and pulled themes from the lyrics for further consideration. I waited for Holly to use her own words. Finally I suggested that she write a Prince-style song about her feelings.
The next week Holly handed me a song. It was Prince-like with themes of loneliness and abandonment. She grinned when I praised it. After that Holly and I communicated mostly via her songs. She brought a fresh one each week—a song about her mother’s leaving, another about her anger over the divorce, a song wondering where her mother was and why she didn’t call and a song about how cruel kids could be. I listened, discussed the writing, asked what meaning the songs had in her life.
Otherwise, I gently encouraged her to make a friend. Because of her mother’s abandonment and because of teasing by girls, Holly didn’t trust females. She shook her head no to my suggestions about talking to girls. I suggested music lessons and maybe a band.
After many months I felt we had a strong enough relationship that I could bring up sex. I suggested a doctor’s appointment for an examination. I told her basic facts about sexuality that “all girls wonder about and are afraid to ask.”
We talked about how vulnerable she’d been to the first person who said “I love you.” Lyle