8. Haley
HALEY
Present day
T he woman who sits across from me in my office reminds me of something from school.
I can’t put my finger on who it was, exactly. For a long time, every name I learned there was burned into my brain. That’s what happens when you’re not allowed to get to know anyone else. Those pieces of information are precious and forbidden, so I held them close to my chest.
I remember very clearly how I felt about the things we weren’t allowed to have, like food and privacy and friendships. An opinion. A voice. Whenever I learned something about another student, I hoarded it. Unlike food, those facts couldn’t go bad.
Kelly . My patient’s name is Kelly. As far as I know, there was no Kelly at the school. I memorized every name after we got out. When the files were released, we saw everything unfold.
It’s not her name that reminds me. I think it’s the color of her hair—a dark, natural brunette. The way it’s parted not quite down the center and the softness of her curls.
She looks just like her. I know the girl’s face from the black and white photos better than the memories from that school. She’s one of the ones who killed herself.
I take a deep breath, my notebook shifting on my lap and I steady myself. Now is not the time to be sifting through old memories of that place. Now is the time to focus on my patient.
To focus on Kelly.
We’re forty minutes into the session, and she is curled into an overstuffed chair across the office from me. Her posture is defensive and hurt.
In my experience, there are two ways people can go when they look like that. Kelly might be on the edge of a breakthrough, or she might be on the edge of getting up and walking out.
I would understand if she did. I’ve done my fair share of walking out of appointments when it seemed like the therapist I was working with would never understand.
Now I know that it’s impossible for people who weren’t in that situation at the school with us to understand, and I don’t blame them.
Kelly sniffles. Tears run down her face, but she clears her throat, her expression determined.
“Take your time,” I reassure her and she heaves in a breath, her fingers running through her hair and then resting on her forehead.
I’m glad for all the work I put into my office at times like this. I wanted it to look safe and welcoming. I wanted it to be safe and welcoming, of course. Some therapists think the environment isn’t the most important thing when it comes to working with patients, but I don’t know where they got that idea. Kelly’s shoulders relaxed the first time she stepped into my office. She’s never said what the furniture and the soft lighting—light from the window during the day—and the throw blanket on the arm of the overstuffed chair reminds her of. She might not even know on a conscious level.
But I’m glad that the space around her is comfortable, because she’s clearly experiencing some uncomfortable feelings.
“I’m here to listen,” I remind her. “I’m interested to know how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking about right now.”
“Ugh,” she says. “I’m frustrated. I’m so frustrated, and I don’t know what?—”
Kelly breaks off and whips another tissue from the box on the side table. She blows her nose, then crumples the tissue into a tiny ball in her fist.
I wait, one leg crossed over the other, keeping my body relaxed. It enrages me that people can hurt other people the way Kelly has been hurt and the way I’ve been hurt. I don’t let myself get angry when I’m in sessions. I don’t let it show. I keep it in a little tin box, locked away with a tiny key deep down inside of me until the door is closed and the patient is gone.
Kelly looks toward the window, breathing deeply. Her cheeks reddened, and when she looks back at me, that betrayal is reflected in her eyes.
“It just feels like it keeps coming back,” she presses, the frustration lingering in her voice.
My throat gets tight… I know that feeling.
“I feel like,” Kelly begins, her voice thick with truth and emotion. “No matter how far away I get, no matter how much time passes, it’s still there.” She points at her chest. “Like it’s in my body, waiting for the moment I feel good, or I feel like I’m past it, or—” Kelly drops her hand to her lap, the tissue still clenched in her fist. “The second I let my guard down, it’s waiting to pounce on me again. Almost like it’s playing with me. Almost like I’m playing with me, because these are my—this is how I feel about what he did. I keep thinking I’m over it. But then something will happen and I’m right back in that house. All I want is to erase it somehow, and…I don’t know how to do that.”
“Where in your body do you feel that?” I ask her and she taps on her chest three times. “Right here,” she admits with her eyes glassy, “and sometimes my throat gets tight.”
I nod. “There’s a book I can recommend to you. You’re not wrong. The body holds trauma, and you don't have resolution or justice. It’s hard on the body when there was never an ending that makes you feel safe.”
She lets out a heavy sigh. Her eyes drop to her hands in her lap, her lip quivering. Kelly grits her teeth and the dimple in her chin disappears.
I sit with what she’s said for a few moments.
I don’t want to rush to respond to her. I want her to know that I’ve considered her words before I start talking.
And—
The way she said back in that house jogged something in my brain. That’s how I would’ve said back at school . That’s how I think back at school in my own head.
My mind races and I remind myself that I need to stop. It’s only the news and the recent events that have brought all of this up.
“It’s your grief and you’re allowed to acknowledge that you feel that way. You can process it just like you are. Talking through it. The more you do, the easier it will come and the easier it will feel.”
She tries to respond but can’t, I look at the 20-year-old like she is me. That’s how I used to lay when I was struck with the past and could barely move, let alone talk about it.
I know the situation isn’t the same. What happened to Kelly with her ex-boyfriend was just as wrong as what was done to us in school, but there are some differences that I’ve been careful to acknowledge.
One similarity is that it wasn’t our fault. What happened to me happened because of my parents, and in another way, it happened because of the people who lied to my parents.
What happened to Kelly happened because of her boyfriend. It was his choice to act the way he did.
I think Kelly is at a place where she’s ready to see her own power again. That can be extremely hard, but without it, some people don’t feel that their lives are worth living.
“Kelly.” I keep my voice soft and my notebook and pen down. This is something I want to say to her directly, and I want her to hear it from me directly. I look her in the eyes, and her expression brightens with tentative hope. “Everything that happens—good or bad—has an impact. Sometimes it’s harder to see the changes that good things bring, but they affect us just like the bad things. All our experiences shape us this way. We’re constantly growing and constantly learning, and we’re all a little different every day because of what happens to us and because of how we deal with it. Those are the things that make us who we are. And you are coping the best you can and you’re taking steps. These are things to be proud of.”
She swallows, the cords in her neck tightening, “The only thing that makes sense is to pretend it didn’t happen or forget about it somehow. How else am I supposed to leave it in the past?”
“You don’t.”
Kelly’s doe eyes go wide.
“You can’t leave it behind because you can’t leave you behind. I know it hurts to have this with you. I know you’re suffering, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. If you could forget or pretend it didn’t happen, you’d be out there living your life and not trying to work through this.”
Kelly makes a helpless gesture, speechless at my suggestion.
“I think the only way to leave these experiences in the past—in any shape or form—is to accept that they happened and accept that they changed you. And then, when old feelings come up again, remember that you survived them once. Acknowledge the pain. Process your feelings and talk it through. They might feel as strong as they did when it first happened, but the difference now is that they can’t control you. You got away from your ex-boyfriend. He can’t ever change the things he did or the way he made you feel. But you can choose how you live from now on.”
Kelly looks at me for a long moment, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“You’re the one who makes decisions about your life now,” I press on. “You decide what you’ll do, no matter how you feel. You have control over your life. You do. I know it doesn’t always feel like that, but you do. You can choose what to do with those feelings.”
“What if I just ignore them? Just choose not to feel them?” She leans slightly into the arm of the chair, pulling her legs up. Her arms wrap around her jeans and the sleeves of her thin sweater fall over her hands. Her blue eyes beg me to lie to her. I can’t do it though. I won’t ever hurt someone like that.
“I’m not sure that’s going to work; it hasn't yet, right?” I answer and her expression crumples. She moves the tissue to the corner of her eyes as I talk. “Acknowledge them—and then make your own decision. Whatever harm you suffered, whatever damage other people did, that’s the end of their power over you. You can decide to move forward however you want.” She reaches for another tissue and the sun sets slightly behind her, darkening the room. I add, “It might take time, and it might be difficult, but you can make those choices. You do have a choice to make, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when it feels harder to have a choice.”
She’s silent, absorbing my words.
“So, at work,” she says slowly, “when it comes up again?—”
We go through the situations at work that send her spiraling. We talk out different ways to respond and methods for centering herself so she can respond instead of reacting to what happens. We spend the last part of the session making plans for what Kelly can do at work and with her friends and with her family to remind herself that she has control. Not over everyone, but over how she chooses to respond.
Kelly doesn’t like the idea of sitting with panic or grief until those feelings aren’t so intense, but she comes around to it. “There’s no shame in walking away and taking a moment before responding to someone or to a situation.”
“Better than having a breakdown,” she finally admits. “Even if I hate it.”
I offer her a small smile. “Sometimes I hate it, too. Feelings are like that, especially when they’re related to trauma.”
When Kelly heads for the door, she’s standing up straighter and her eyes are dry. Her chin is lifted. She looks far more hopeful than she did when she walked in.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you. That really helped.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”
I watch her go, feeling hopeful, too.
That feeling doesn’t last very long after Kelly has shut the door behind her and the sound of her car engine has faded.
I’m left with a sinking feeling in my stomach. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling, and one that I know well.
All of those things I told Kelly about how the past can’t control her—I needed to hear those, too. They’re the same things I heard many times before they sunk in.
I guess I forgot. I guess I haven’t been doing as well as I thought. My hands tremble and I busy them by grabbing a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
Tears have gathered in the corners of my eyes without me noticing, and I feel a release in my chest, as if I’ve been trying to tell myself about my own power and my own control, but I wasn’t getting through. Maybe it took telling someone else to hear them again.
The school...the things they did there...I don’t have to let it control me. I can’t be blamed, of course, for the crimes of other people. And for suffering the way I did. I can’t even blame myself for how the feelings come back and how I forget that those days are long gone, and I’ll never be at the mercy of those kinds of people again.
“I can choose,” I tell myself in my empty office. “I can choose what to do. I have power over my life.”
I repeat them a few more times until they seem settled in my head, then wipe away a few tears with a tissue.
As I toss my tissues into the small trash can by my desk, it starts to vibrate.
It’s not actually the desk or the plastic bin vibrating. It’s my phone in one of my desk drawers.
I take a breath and open the drawer. On the screen is my friend Michaela’s name. My chest lightens at the sight of it. I almost let it go to voicemail, but I answer it, praying for a distraction.
“Hi, girl.” I read somewhere that you should smile when you answer the phone because the other person can hear it. I force a smile and keep my voice uplifted. “What’s going on?”
“Not much,” Michaela must be smiling, too. I can picture it like she’s right in front of me. “I was just thinking about you. We haven’t talked in a while. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I blurt out, my voice falsely high. Why? I am fine. “I’m doing great. Did something happen?”
“No,” Michaela says. “No, I just had a feeling that I should call you, so I picked up the phone. It’s funny. I was just walking by a house that reminded me of your old neighborhood. Do you remember that playground we used to go to?” She laughs.
“Of course,” I answer, but the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I move away from the window on instinct, but then I turn to face it and look through the curtains. “Why?”
She answers something about nostalgia but I can’t listen, let alone speak. There’s a flash of a man outside my window.
A man, well a boy, I remember very well from school. He’s only visible for a few seconds before he disappears behind a building across the street.
My entire body erupts in chills and for a moment I swear I think I’m seeing things.
It can’t have been him. Maybe I’m just imagining that I saw him. It’s like Kelly—she reminded me of someone I used to know, but that person isn’t here. My heart rampages as Michaela drones on.
I step closer to the window, moving the curtain to the side. There’s no one there. Nothing but the wind blowing the branches. Michaela is still talking, but I’ve lost track of what she’s saying.
There’s nothing there. Even still I close the blinds and let out a small laugh along with Michaela… what the hell we’re laughing over, I don’t know.
“Anyway,” she says, “you should come out tonight. I’d love to see your face.”
“I’ll think about it,” I promise, and end the call. My hands trembling and my mind taken back ten years ago.