Chapter 16
16
SIXTH GRADE
MANUEL SAYS I SHOULD TELL my parents. I say no. “They’ll be able to help,” he says. I shudder to think of admitting to my parents that I have voices in my head that tell me things I know—or at least I think I know, or at least I’m sort of certain I know—aren’t real. “Don’t tell them the specifics, then. Just say you need to talk to somebody.”
To say my parents are surprised when I tell them I want to see a therapist would be a massive understatement. The way they look at each other…you’d think I said I want to move to Switzerland. Eliot? their eyes say. Quiet, steady, uncrying Eliot? “If you really think you need it,” Mom says doubtfully.
Dr.Drier works out of a strip mall in Northfield. Speedy drives me to my appointment in our new car, a Ford that has been retrofitted for disabled drivers. He pulls up outside a sterile building with the words child psychology on the window. Thick white blinds block my view into the office.
What follows is the longest conversation my father and I will ever have about my mental health.
“Well, are you going in?” he asks.
I shrug. Don’t unbuckle my seat belt.
“What’s up?”
I shrug again.
“Are you nervous?”
Nod.
“Listen,” Dad says, swiveling in his seat. I ready myself for a speech, but a few moments pass and I hear nothing. I look up. Dad’s head is turned away, staring out the windshield. He hesitates. Then he turns back to me. “You’re going to spend a helluva lot of time up there,” he says, reaching up one finger to tap my forehead. “Your entire life, in fact. You better get used to the shit cluttering up the floor.”
—
I TALK FOR FORTY-FIVE MINUTES straight. I don’t know what not to say, so I decide to play it safe and tell him everything. He isn’t silent like the therapists on TV. He speaks, just not much. Mostly he blinks. And not just regular blinks—long, hefty ones. The kind that linger so long at the bottom it seems he may never open his eyes again. I wonder if I’m boring him.
“You made a very wise decision in bringing her in to see me,” Dr.Droopy Eyes says to Dad after the appointment. They’re speaking inside the room where my session took place. The door is closed. I’m supposed to wait in the lobby. Instead, I squat in the hallway with my ear to the smooth acrylic paint on the door. “I tend not to diagnose after just one session, but your daughter exhibits many, many of the symptoms of anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. If I had to guess, I’d say there are things she’s still holding back, which is natural. But based solely on the things she shared—”
“What exactly is that, the Obsessive-Whatsit?” interrupts Speedy’s voice. “That’s the handwashing disease, right? The one in Monk , where he’s scared of germs and needs everything to be organized in groups of five, or whatever?”
“That’s one form of OCD, yes. But the disorder manifests itself in many different ways. It’s less about being afraid of germs and more about the way the patient reasons and rationalizes.”
“You’re saying my daughter isn’t rational?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” The shrink’s voice never dips or wavers. Just chugs forward with the same patience it used when asking me questions during our session. “Let me explain it a different way. Thoughts are disposable, yes? The brain spits out garbage all day long. Strange impulses. Bizarre fantasies. Gross images you don’t go looking for but pop into your mind anyway. Yes?”
Speedy chuckles.
“Right. It’s completely normal. People with healthy brains just brush the thoughts away. OCD is, essentially, a rupture in that sweeping mechanism. If you suffer from OCD, you can’t brush them away. Your mind gets stuck on them. It obsesses over them.”
“I thought little kids didn’t get mental illnesses. I thought it only happens later, to really messed-up adults.”
“It is unusual for OCD to crop up at such a young age. But it’s not unheard of. There are plenty of cases in which symptoms arise in children even younger than Eliot. Early onset is often triggered by a traumatic event, such as the death of a loved one.”
“Oh.”
Long pause.
“I see,” says my dad.
“I recommend you bring her in twice a week. Talk therapy can be very beneficial for children with OCD. You may also want to bring her to a psychiatrist to be evaluated for medication if—”
“No drugs,” Speedy says, cutting off the doctor.
“Studies have shown that early intervention can be very—”
“No drugs,” he repeats. “She’s eleven. No psychiatrists, no drugs.”
Pause. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”
You’re wrong! I want to scream at both of them. This isn’t a disease. I’m just a bad person. I wasn’t traumatized by the death of my brother. I didn’t even cry .
But I don’t yell. I don’t say anything. They’re almost done talking. I stand and slip silently down the hall.
—
“YOU AREN’T A LESBIAN,” SAYS Dr.Droopy.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Several of my patients are gay, Eliot. Being in the closet is a difficult, often traumatic experience. But a mind that worries over being gay is different than a mind that actually is gay.”
“I know. But your sexuality is an inherent thing, right? You don’t choose it. So what if I’m gay and just not willing to admit it to myself? Because of the stigma or whatever? I mean, I found this girl’s butt attractive, right?”
“There’s a difference between finding someone attractive and being sexually attracted to them. Do you feel a desire to kiss Caroline?”
I consider. I picture what it would be like. Imagine my mouth on hers, my fingers in her abundant hair. I check my body for a reaction and, of course, I find one. I find that stubborn, insistent pulse. While the logical part of my brain tells me that I’m not a lesbian, that I’ve never felt attracted to a woman before, my Worries insist that I might be. That a pulse is enough evidence to throw the whole equation into chaos.
But I can’t say that to Dr.Droopy, can I? Tell an old man about something happening in my vagina? No way.
Bodies don’t lie. And I think my body knows something I don’t.
—
“DO YOU JOURNAL?” ASKS DR. Droopy the next week. “Do you write about these thoughts? These Worries, as you call them?”
I nod.
“Does it help?”
“I mean.” I pick at my lower lip. It’s chapped. It’s always chapped. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
He doesn’t laugh. “Journaling can be a great way to get out all the thoughts and feelings stirring around in your head. But”—he shifts in his chair, the way he does every time he’s about to say something he believes meaningful—“for someone like you, it can also be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes.” He shifts again. “The entries where you write about your Worries—how long are they, usually?”
“Long. Like, multiple pages, usually.”
“And at the end of all that writing, do you feel better?”
I consider the question. As I think, I tug at a thread of skin on the corner of my lip. It pops off. “Not really.”
He nods. “That’s common for someone of your temperament. As I said, sometimes journaling is a release. Sometimes it’s exactly what you need. But sometimes”—shift—“all that writing, those pages and pages of careful examination…they send you further down the spiral.”
The spiral. Huh. I suppose my thoughts do look like spirals. They don’t feel like it, though. If anything, they feel more like tunnels. Like digging deeper and deeper into a place you never wanted to go in the first place.