Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [85]
“Try to remember exactly how you felt.”
Tammy said, “I slipped into my room so Mom and Dad wouldn’t see me. I thought I was going crazy. There were scissors on my dresser and the idea of cutting myself came to me. I don’t even know how I did it. But later I had cuts on my arms and I felt better. I could go to sleep.”
She looked at me. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
I said, “I think you are scared.”
Tammy said, “After that first time, it happened again. Whenever Martin and I fought, I felt this need to cut myself. I couldn’t relax until I’d done it.”
“Has Martin ever hit you?”
Tammy said, “Don’t tell my parents this. He doesn’t mean to, but he’s hot-tempered. Afterwards, he’s really sorry.”
I called Alice and Brian in and said that I’d like to work alone with Tammy for a while. I explained that she’d developed a bad habit, which was to hurt herself physically when she was in emotional pain. Also, I added, we needed to explore her relationship with Martin.
Alice said, “Martin seems like a great guy.”
I thought to myself, This minister and his wife have no idea how complicated the world has become for their lovely flute-playing daughter. I was careful not to betray Tammy’s confidence, but I said, “Parents don’t always know what’s going on.”
GAIL (15)
Gail was very different from Tammy. She was younger and, to quote her, “trapped in the halls of a junior high.” She was dressed in a way that signaled “I am different” with her head half shaved and half purple punk. She had a nose ring, eight earrings, mostly of skulls and snakes, a tattoo of a dragon on her left arm and tiny tattoos on every finger. She wore a stained T-shirt with a FREE TIBET logo, black jeans torn at the knees and heavy boots.
She was the oldest daughter in a family of artists. The mother was a dancer and the father a sculptor. Gail’s family was financially poor but culturally enriched. They couldn’t afford trips, new cars or nice clothes for their daughters, but they could afford cheap tickets to the symphony, used books and therapy.
Gail’s parents, Stephen and Shelly, were warmhearted, quirky people who seemed baffled at being in a therapist’s office. Shelly’s first comment was to compliment my overflowing bookcase. She said, “I see you like Jung. So do I.”
I asked why the family was in my office. Gail looked out the window. Shelly and Stephen looked at each other. Stephen said, “We hate to tell on Gail. We made her come today.”
Shelly said, “We’ve been worried since she began junior high, but last Saturday night we discovered that she was burning herself with cigarettes. We decided we had to do something.”
“Before junior high, Gail was the star of the family,” Shelly continued. “She was such a joy. The school classified her as highly gifted, so she qualified for special tutors and programs at the university. Her artwork made it to the state fair.”
“She had everything going for her,” her father added. “She had friends and was the comedian of the school. She stayed up all night reading and then went to school the next day and did fine.”
Shelly said, “She was so competent and independent. We weren’t prepared for her to have trouble. We didn’t see it coming.”
I turned to Gail, who was reading my book titles with interest, and asked, “What happened with junior high?”
Gail spoke slowly and with great precision. “I hated being warehoused and sent from room to room at the sound of a bell. I felt like a cow in a feedlot. I got teased when I took gifted classes and bored in the regular classes. I liked art class, but I’d just get out my supplies and the bell would ring.”
“How about the other kids?” I asked.
“Do you know the slogan ‘Sex, drugs and rock and roll’ from the sixties?” I nodded and she continued. “In the nineties that’s ‘Masturbation, booze and Madonna.’ I don’t fit into that scene.