Bent But Not Broken (14 page)

We all looked at each other. Suzy and I are the oldest, so we put our hands up.

'Thank you,' he said. 'Will you move your chairs so that you are facing each other?' he requested. 'I will sit beside one of you, if that's okay?' he asked.

Suzy and I moved our chairs into the centre of the circle, and he moved his chair next to mine. Then he explained what he was going to do.

'Suzy and Abigail are going to pretend to have a normal conversation,' he said. 'I am going to pretend to be an auditory hallucination. You won't be able to hear what I am saying to Abigail, because I will be whispering.'

Bit freaky! I didn't know he was going to whisper in my ear! I wasn't feeling at all good. But we were already out in the centre of the circle. We couldn't really get out of it.

'Ready?' he asked.

No! I felt trapped like a bug! 'Might as well get this over with,' I thought.

Suzy and I started talking about playing sport. She talked about netball, and I wanted to talk about softball. But I couldn't concentrate. Doctor Harry had put the long tube up against my ear. (That was a relief! At least he wasn't breathing in my ear!) He was whispering crazy shit like, 'Don't believe a word she says. She's trying to get into your head. She is only pretending to like you. Don't trust her. She will tell everyone about you.' It was the weirdest damn thing I have ever experienced! In fact, it was horrible! Fortunately Doctor Harry stopped before I went completely mental!

He signaled the end of the role play by getting up and moving his chair back to where he was before. Suzy and I did the same. I couldn't even look at her. Shit, that was spooky!

'Thank you for being so brave,' he said to us with a smile. 'Suzy, can you tell us what you felt during the role play?' he asked.

Suzy was quiet for a minute, collecting her thoughts. Then she said, 'It was not like I was talking with Abigail at all. It was like she couldn't understand a word I was saying to her. And she didn't talk back. That was a first!' she laughed.

This let everyone have a bit of a giggle. We needed a break from the tension.

'Can you explain how you felt during the role play, Abigail?' he asked me.

'It was horrible!' I said truthfully. 'You were saying awful things in my ear and I couldn't concentrate at all,' I said. 'I never want to do that again!' I'll admit I was pretty upset by the whole thing.

'What you couldn't hear me saying to Abigail was a lot of paranoid statements. I was undermining her ability to think and speak,' he explained to the others.

'Yeah, well it worked!' I said. 'You made me think Suzy was my enemy, even though she is my friend!' I said with disgust. What a rotten trick!

'The people with schizophrenia who suffer from auditory hallucinations have this going on in their heads day and night. They get no reprieve from the voices,' he explained. 'Can you imagine how difficult it would be to function normally with that going on incessantly?' he asked.

Shit, I sure as hell wouldn't be able to function at all! I was still thinking about this, when Suzy took over.

'But the meds can stop the voices?' she asked.

'When the medications are fine-tuned, yes,' he answered. 'But as I said before, this is a difficult balancing act between controlling the symptoms while allowing the person to function as they should,' he answered. Again I sensed sadness in him.

'This is so difficult, it can take years. Some people don't cope with this process. They stop taking the medication because they think they are okay, or because they just can't put up with the side effects. This can lead to tragedy,' he said.

Now I knew for sure he was talking about someone he knew. A patient? A friend? Of course I would never ask. Some things are best kept to yourself. And he wouldn't say, even if I did ask. But that didn't stop Suzy! I swear she's got balls, that girl!

'Why did you do this today?' she demanded. 'Is that what's wrong with Rachel?'

'I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions, Suzy,' was all he said.

I don't know, Crystal. Okay, Mad Rachel is a schizophrenic. Got that. It makes me feel a bit sorry for her, if she's got voices jabbering away in her head all the time. But I still think she's dangerous. I don't want her here!

Love,

Abigail

 

 

CASE FILE #2794 ABIGAIL LEE MANUS D.O.B. 02/04/1998

ENTRY 40: 3/06/2014

Abigail opened our session today without even looking for a novel. She was all business.

'I've been thinking about the three-quarter thing,' she said. 'Does that mean that if I am out with three of my friends, two of them will have been sexually abused too?' she asked.

'Remember that I said it was an average, Abigail. It can't be translated directly like that,' I answered.

She thought about this a bit. 'You said across all the girls in Australia,' she said. 'So is it more common in some areas?' she asked.

'The reporting figures do indicate some communities have a higher incidence than others,' I replied.

'Like rich and poor?' she asked.

'Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Perhaps it would be if we could fool ourselves into thinking it only happens in rich or poor families,' I answered. 'Then we could blame the circumstances, instead of the people,' I added.

'So it is everywhere?' she asked dubiously. 'How do you know?'

'You ask all the right questions, Abigail. We don't know for sure. As I told you yesterday, it's not something that is easy to uncover,' I replied.

'So you could just be making it all up!' came her angry reply. 'Another trick to make me think it's all okay! That I'm the crazy one who should get a grip!' she spat.

'It's absolutely not okay, Abigail. The fact that it has happened to others in no way diminishes what has happened to you, or how you feel about it,' I said firmly.

She was, unusually, sitting on the edge of her chair. Tension radiated off her. It was as though she was preparing to rush out of the library.

'Have you heard of extrapolation?' I asked.

'Is that another fancy shrink trick?' came her angry reply.

'No, it's a fancy maths trick. Statistics, actually.'

'What's that got to do with me?' she demanded.

'You have latched onto the three-quarters figure. Remember that I said it was a best guess?' I asked.

'So now it's all about guessing! Is that supposed to make me feel better?' she shouted.

As before when Abigail had taken to shouting, I purposely lowered the volume of my voice so that she would have to concentrate hard to hear what I was saying.

'Extrapolation is when you extend a line from what you know to what you can predict,' I said quietly. 'You probably did this in maths when you were doing graphs.'

'Yeah, I know what you mean,' she replied, clearly unsure of where I was going with this.

'The figures we know come from girls like yourself, Abigail. Your response was to attempt suicide. Others self-harm in the form of cutting; eating disorders; the abuse of drugs and alcohol, or running away. People will do any number of things to try to deal with their traumatic experiences. I am sure you know girls who have done such terrible things to themselves,' I added.

'A bit, I suppose,' was her thoughtful reply. 'Does that mean they were sexually abused too?' she asked.

'Not all. People can be hurt in so many ways,' l responded. 'But when these very damaged girls come to the attention of the authorities – as you did, Abigail – we eventually find out what has happened to them.'

'Did you know about me from the start?' she asked in a small voice.

'I knew something terrible had happened to you, Abigail. Otherwise, why would you have attempted to kill yourself? I replied evenly.

'I thought I had you fooled. I thought you would believe me when I said it wasn't a suicide attempt,' came her sad reply.

'I believed that you were in a world of pain, Abigail. It took your courage to disclose the cause of your pain,' I said kindly.

All the fight seemed to leave her. She slumped back into her chair, slouching as only a teenager can.

'How about you choose a book now?' I asked.

It seemed to take all her energy to get up and select a novel. As in the early days of our therapy, she chose one significantly below her current reading level. Seeking comfort in the known and familiar? There is something lurking inside Abigail's experience that she still guards ferociously.

Dr. Harry Nightingale

 

 

 

Dear Crystal,

Doctor Harry kept his word. He has set up a room like a classroom. It's got two tables, each with four chairs. It's kitted out with shelving and a lockable cupboard. It's even got pin boards. Though of course there were no thumb tacks in sight. I reckon Mad Rachel could use those as a weapon!

Dianne came again today. She had a big smile for us – like she was actually happy to be with a bunch of crazy girls. This time she had one of those little suitcases with wheels like airhostesses use, as well as her big shoulder bag. When I saw how much she was hauling, I wondered if she got searched before she got into the ward.

We weren't sure where to sit. As usual, Suzy took the lead. She pulled the tables together, and re-arranged the chairs. Dianne watched without saying anything. I got the feeling that she was fine with us taking charge. What she didn't know was how Mad Rachel had gone off at Jenny. After she had arranged the furniture, Suzy put Jenny between herself and me. We had to protect her, and would do whatever it took. One problem was that there weren't enough chairs for Jenny's doll. Jenny sat her doll on her knee, and looked happy.

'It will take me a little while to get it right for each of you,' Dianne said with a smile. 'So I am going to ask you to help me a bit.'

With that, she unzipped the suitcase and started dumping a huge pile of magazines onto the table. They were much better than what we have in the ward. The ward ones are so old, they have stories about Princess Diana! We started to sort through them, when she had another surprise. She gave each of us a scrapbook, and put some scissors and glue sticks on the table. Pretty obvious what she was up to. There's no forgetting where you are in here. The scissors were like we had in primary school. They could cut paper, but certainly couldn't be used to stab.

'Probably a good thing,' I thought. 'Dianne doesn't know about Mad Rachel.'

'Don't sniff the glue sticks,' Dianne said. 'It will clog your nostrils!' she laughed. We all laughed too. She's a bit silly for an old chook.

'Okay, this is where you can help me,' she said. 'What I would like you to do is cut anything that you like out of the magazines, and glue them into your scrapbooks,' she explained. 'You can decorate the front too, if you want,' she expanded, as she pulled textas out of the suitcase. Fair dinkum, so much came out of that little suitcase I reckoned it must be the Tardis!

The range of magazines she brought was amazing. There was the usual girl stuff like
Girlfriend
;
Seventeen
and
Dolly.
There were also
National Geographics
;
Who
;
Better Homes and Gardens
and some cooking magazines. Kayla jumped on those. No surprise there. What did surprise me was that Dianne had even brought ones on crafts; puzzles; travel, and cars. Talk about covering all the bases! The only speciality missing that I could see was baby magazines. Jenny was looking for these, and was disappointed. I wondered if Doctor Harry had a hand in that.

We started to collect what was of interest to each of us when Mad Rachel went off. She jumped out of her seat and ran around the table to Jenny. She was so fast, no-one had a chance to react. Not even the orderly, who was standing by the door. She grabbed Jenny's doll from her lap and hurled it across the room! She started screaming that the doll was watching her! She was shouting and swearing and spitting all at once. It was horrible. She is so violent! The nurses rushed in and she got the needle, right in front of us all. We were so stunned. None of us had the chance to move. It was like it was a movie on fast-forward. We watched as she was escorted out. I hope she gets the restraints like I did. I know that sounds mean. But seriously? The doll was watching her? She's barking mad and she scares the hell out of me.

After she had left we realised that Jenny was crying. I think we were all too stunned to notice before Mad Rachel had left. Dianne got up and collected Jenny's doll. She gave it a bit of a dust off, wrapped it back in its blanket, and gently gave it back to Jenny without a word. Jenny hugged the doll and sobbed. She's just not tough enough for the likes of Mad Rachel. I'm not sure any of us are, actually. Even Dianne looked shocked. Maybe now she's starting to understand that this is a loony bin!

The nurse came back and spoke quietly with Jenny while Dianne asked us if we were okay to go on with the task. I liked that. She didn't assume we were all right, or that we would just get on with it like a normal teacher would have at school. We were all rattled, but slowly got back to looking through the magazines. I was cutting out a sudoku when I happened to look across at Beth. She had gone completely still. Her eyes were so wide open I could see the whites all around them. It was freaky! And she was so utterly still. She looked like a porcelain doll. There was sweat on her forehead, and she was breathing really fast. I thought she was having a fit of some sort. How would I know?

The only time I've seen someone have a fit was a boy at the Year 10 lockers. I don't know what happened first – all I saw was this kid on the floor, wildly thrashing about. I remember his face was screwed up like he was in pain. He'd wet himself too. Then the teachers rushed us all away and I didn't see any more. The next day the Year 10 coordinators called an assembly. They explained that the boy had epilepsy, and what we had seen was an epileptic fit. They explained that we couldn't catch it (sounds stupid, but that was one of the questions that went flying around on Facebook that night.) Then they went on and explained that epilepsy is sort of an electrical storm in the brain – a bit like a lightning storm. They let us ask questions to make sure that we understood what we they were saying. They finished with the offer of seeing the counsellors if we felt like we wanted to talk about it some more. I didn't go. I wouldn't trust any of them as far as I could throw them! But I could tell that some kids were pretty distressed. Maybe they went. Confidentiality and all that bullshit!