“Tell me about your boyfriend.”
I told Dr. Larson about Thomas and our relationship, how sweet he was to me, and his persistence in the beginning when he first started asking me out. I told him about how we’d started dating and how I’d kept him a secret from Emily. I shared how much I treasured our lunch breaks in his car, and how sometimes I would try to make them even more special—baking him cookies, packing a thermos of homemade soup, surprising him by decorating the inside of his car with flowers so we could pretend to have a picnic. I didn’t tell him what Emily had said to Thomas or the fight we’d had afterward. He didn’t need to know how badly she’d hurt me with the mean things she said. It wasn’t important and I didn’t want him to think badly of her.
“It sounds like you really care about him,” he said.
“Yeah, I do. He’s a great guy. I think he’s going to be very supportive in helping me to get through this.”
I congratulated myself for sounding like I was ready for some kind of recovery. I even used the words he used yesterday.
“It’s good to have people in your life that can provide you with a support network. It’s going to be really important for you in your treatment to have people that are there for you.”
He pulled out the small notebook he’d used yesterday from the front pocket of his suit. “What’s going on in your life right now?”
I didn’t know how to answer that one. What was the response Rose had said would get me out of here? I chose my words carefully.
“I think I’ve gone through a really big loss. The biggest one in my life. I think it was too much for me to handle. Especially because my life has been so hard. For that minute, I just didn’t want to live anymore. I was so sad and wasn’t thinking about any of the good things I have in my life. Only the bad.” I added as an afterthought, “I don’t really want to die.”
I hoped I sounded believable.
He was still looking at me as if he expected me to say more, but I’d run out of words.
“I’ll be your psychologist while you’re here. I realize it’s really hard to talk to a complete stranger. My hope is that you’ll take a small risk and begin to trust me enough to share your pain with me.”
I wasn’t going to trust him. Not in seventy-two hours or any other amount of hours for that matter, but I nodded my head in agreement.
“I’m going to meet with the team early this afternoon. We’ll discuss how to proceed with your treatment. It’s important for you to know that you’ll be able to voice your thoughts about your treatment with the team. You’ll be included in all decisions. And I want you to know we’re all here to help you.”
“Thank you.”
It seemed like the polite thing to say.
“Do you have any questions for me?”
I shook my head.
Just like that and it was over.
8
Nothing could’ve prepared me for how intimidated I felt when I met with the team, even though Rose had warned me about it. The room was filled with a long conference table, and black high-backed office chairs, all occupied, circled it and made me feel like I was at an important executive business meeting. Nine people whom I’d never spoken to before or even met, except for Dr. Larson, filled the chairs and were responsible for knowing how to take care of me.
I was expected to sit at the head of the table. Dr. Larson was on my right. I was crawling out of my skin as I took my seat. There was a possibility I could fool Dr. Larson into believing I was okay, but an entire room? I sat there waiting for whatever horrible meeting was about to take place.
“Elizabeth, we’re having this meeting so you can have an opportunity to meet the team. We’re going to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves,” Dr. Larson said.
One by one they went around the table, stating their names and job titles. There was one psychiatrist. Three therapists: two males and one female. A slender woman with her hair drawn back in a tight ponytail identified herself as my social worker. Another woman who looked like she was my age identified herself as my occupational therapist and a female doctor announced she was the one responsible for my medical care. An overweight bald man said he was the family therapist. And last, an elderly man announced he was the supervising counseling associate. I had no idea what any of their titles meant or what kind of care they provided. By the time we went around the table, I couldn’t remember any of their names.
“Elizabeth, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?” one of the women on the left asked.
“I’m twenty years old. I’m a full-time college student at Galston Community College. I plan on transferring to a four-year university at the end of the school year. I work as a telemarketer. It’s for a catalog company. Kinda boring, but my shifts work around my class schedule. I have a boyfriend, Thomas, who works with me and I like to watch movies and drink coffee.”
My throat was dry. Had I said too much? Too little? They were all just staring at me.
“Elizabeth, I noticed you didn’t say anything about your childhood,” the woman with the ponytail said.
Why did they keep saying my name every time they talked to me? What was the reason for it? The room was silent. All eyes bored holes into me.
“I … um … didn’t say anything about my childhood because I didn’t think it was important.”
“Why is that?” the bald man asked.
“I don’t know. Of course childhoods are important.”
They were unnerving me. They were all scribbling into notebooks exactly like Dr. Larson did. What were they writing? Did I get to see it?
“What are you guys writing?” The question popped out before I could stop it.
“Does it bother you?” Dr. Larson asked.
“Yes.” I quickly changed my response. “Not too much. Just wondering.”
They kept scribbling. Heads down and then back up.
“Can you tell us about Emily?”
I didn’t know who was asking the questions anymore. They were coming from everywhere.
“Emily and I are identical twins. She was born three minutes before me. Our mother hated us and kept us locked up in our apartment. She didn’t feed us. Sometimes we got pizza, though, but mostly just bread. Oh, and we drank a lot of formula. She liked to beat us with a hanger whenever she was mad or we got in trouble. It was really bad, but Emily and I had each other so we managed to survive. But then I started a fire.” I immediately realized saying I started a fire was not a good idea and I needed to explain myself so I kept blabbering on. “Not on purpose—I didn’t start the fire on purpose. It was an accident. People from the county took us away and brought us to the Rooths, Bob and Dalila, and they adopted us.”
I paused. Nobody said anything. I assumed they wanted more so I kept going. “The Rooths were really good to us. We went to therapy with Lisa. A lot of it. She was super helpful. I even went to see her the other day. I had to go by myself because Emily refused. We managed to grow up all right even though we had such a bad beginning. We moved into an apartment together after we graduated high school. It was on Eighty-Sixth Street. A nice place. We did all right. Even though Emily struggled.”
“Why do you think Emily struggled?”
I’d asked myself the same question many times in the last two years. I’d never been able to come up with a good answer, but I had to try now.
“Our lives were hard and I think she was severely depressed.”
I looked around the table into all their faces, searching for some sort of a clue or sign as to how I was doing, but there was nothing. Only expressionless faces staring back at me, completely ambiguous.
“Elizabeth, we’ve asked you a lot of questions, do you have any questions for us?” a woman at the end of the table broke in.
“Do you guys know when I’ll get to go home?”
“That will depend,” Dr. Larson said.
Depend. On what? What did that mean? What kind of an answer was that? But I nodde
d my head as if he’d given me a logical response.
“You can go back and—”
“Wait one second,” the woman at the other end of the table interrupted. “I noticed you didn’t ask about Emily’s funeral. Is there a reason for that?”
“I guess I assumed I’d be able to go.”
My words hung in the air. Finally, Dr. Larson motioned to the door. I jumped up and nearly sprinted out. Polly was waiting for me and led me back to the family room, taking a seat next to me. I was sweating and my hands shook. I hoped I wasn’t going to have to do the team meeting every day. The idea of a repeat performance made my stomach churn. I kept telling myself to breathe.
It was odd that the woman at the end of the meeting had brought up Emily’s funeral. I had to be able to go, didn’t I? Bob and Dalila couldn’t bury Emily without me being there. There was no way. It would be too cruel. Where’d people keep dead bodies? They could wait as long as they needed to for a funeral, couldn’t they? I was on the verge of panicking and couldn’t panic because if I did, I might start screaming and never stop. I calmed down as I remembered Dalila was going to visit today because I was sure she’d have all the details about Emily’s funeral.
“When can our family come see us?” I asked Polly.
“After dinner. Six to seven are visiting hours each night,” she said. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Do you want to talk about anything? Sometimes the patients find us easier to talk to than the doctors. I think we’re less intimidating. A little more of a normal conversation if you know what I mean.”
I looked around the room for Rose. She was sitting across the room on one of the couches, reading Star magazine.
“Can I go talk to her?” I pointed. Asking permission seemed strange but somehow appropriate.
“Sure. You don’t have to ask me permission. You can pretend I’m not here if you want.”
I got up and went over to the couch and sat down.
“The team meeting is just as bad as you said it was going to be,” I said.
She laughed. “Told you it was. It always makes me want to freak out just because they’re all staring at me or say something crazy to get a reaction out of them.”
“Totally.” I smiled and instantly felt guilty for smiling.
“Look at her,” Rose said, showing me her magazine and pointing to Jennifer Aniston. “She’s so beautiful and skinny. How does she stay so skinny?”
I looked at her and not at the picture. “You know you’re really skinny, right?”
“Thanks, but you don’t have to say that. I know I’ve gotten fat here.” She looked like she was going to cry. “But you should see how I looked before they brought me to the hospital. I was really skinny then.”
She motioned for me to come closer. I scooted near her, and she whispered in my ear, “I can show you what I used to look like when I was skinny. I have a picture. You can’t tell anyone I have it, though. I’m not supposed to.”
I pulled away and looked at her, nodding my head, communicating with my eyes that her secret was safe with me.
“Here, you can read this. I’ve got another one.”
She handed me Star and picked up an issue of People. I aimlessly thumbed through the magazine. I couldn’t help thinking they shouldn’t let her read them. Looking at stick-thin models probably didn’t help her feel better about herself. I was quickly bored with the magazine. I had no interest in Hollywood. I loved movies, but didn’t care about what the actors did in their real lives. I’d never been able to understand people’s obsessions with celebrities. Emily and I used to make fun of the amount of time people spent focusing on everything they did like they weird gods to be worshiped instead of human beings like the rest of us.
“So, we just sit here all day?”
She looked up at the clock. “Yes and no. We go to group in ten minutes. Then dinner.”
I watched the clock until it reached 3:30. At 3:30, one of the men, who looked like one of the men on my team, appeared in the doorway. Without any instruction, everyone got up and followed him. We walked after him like a herd of cattle, down the back hallway and into the room across from the one I’d been in earlier with Dr. Larson, except it was bigger. It was painted in the same muted blue and there were plastic folding chairs in a prearranged circle. I grabbed a seat next to Rose.
“Okay.” He clasped his hands in front of his chest. “Who wants to start first?”
I squinted at his name tag. Mark Underwood. The title underneath read “Clinical Psychologist.” He looked too young to be a psychologist, with his clean-shaven face and sparkling blue eyes. It was hard to imagine he’d experienced a serious problem and I couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to help a room full of psychiatric patients. I had a hard time with people who’d had easy lives trying to pretend they could help people who hadn’t. It was one of the things I liked about Lisa. She’d spent the first five years of her childhood living on the streets with her drug-addicted parents, so she knew what it was like to have to overcome hard stuff.
“I will,” the elderly woman who’d been pulling out her hair volunteered.
“Okay, Arlene. Go ahead,” he instructed.
“My name is Arlene. I’m bipolar. Mostly depressed, though. I’ve been here for fourteen days and today I’m feeling sad.”
“Great, Arlene. Next.” He motioned to the man sitting next to her. The white man from the couch.
“Rick. Schizophrenic. Twenty-one days. Fine.”
Next in line was the young man who was staring into space at the window. He was skipped over without any prompting. He didn’t appear to notice.
“I’m Shelly, but y’all know that already, don’t ya?” Shelly giggled.
She was one of the women who had been playing cards earlier.
“Let’s see, I’ve been here almost a week this time. I’ve got major depression, an anxiety disorder, and I’m a recovering alcoholic. Seventeen days sober. Yay!”
The woman who sat next to her was one of the other card players and she patted her on the back.
“I’ve got PTSD. I’m a cutter. And yeah, borderline.” She rocked her head back and forth while she announced this and the woman next to her laughed loudly as if what she said was hysterical. “And today, I feel really happy. And hopeful.”
The woman next to her took her turn and her list was just as long as Shelly’s. Her name was Tobi and she sang out “borderline” at the end of her list, too, which caused the two of them to collapse in laughter again. I didn’t get the joke. I was glad I wasn’t them because their lists were too long.
The last card player was Denise and she was not nearly as loud or dramatic as the other two. Her list was much shorter. She said she was depressed and she’d only been there for four days.
Good. Four days. That was encouraging.
The black man from the couch went next.
“Sunday. Sometimes I buy a purple sweater on Sunday, but what about Diana Ross? I have to tell you about Italy. That’s okay. Never really minded. My mama did. Smells funny, though. Always—”
Mark broke in, “Thank you, Darin. Let’s hear from Sally.”
Darin snapped his mouth shut. I watched him as Sally, the woman next to him, began her announcement in this bizarre ritual. As soon as she began talking, he opened his mouth. I watched his eyes nervously skirt around the room. He wasn’t making a sound, but his lips were moving animatedly.
Rose went next.
“I’m Rose. I’m anorexic.” She said the word anorexic as if she was cussing. “I’ve been here four weeks and two days. I feel really sad today because I’m fat.”
It was my turn now. Every part of me wanted to be skipped like the other guy.
“My name’s Elizabeth. I’ve been here for one day. Today I feel … I feel … overwhelmed?”
“And why are you here?” Mark asked.
“I’m here because I tried to commit suicide.�
�
Mark nodded at me and moved on. I’d just announced that I tried to commit suicide and everyone responded as if I’d announced I used Crest to brush my teeth. The woman who followed me introduced herself as Doris. She didn’t talk about why she was here and she didn’t say how she was feeling. She spoke with an accent I couldn’t place.
Mark started talking once everyone in the circle had made their proclamation. “I did notice one thing while we were going around the room. Some of you said ‘I’m bipolar’ or ‘I’m borderline.’ I would like you all to try and remember that you are not your mental illness. Your mental illness is only a part of you. I want to encourage you all to say your name and then say ‘with a disorder.’ For example, if I had depression I could say, ‘I’m Mark and I have depression.’ Or if I had anxiety I could say, ‘I’m Mark and I have anxiety.’ It’s important to keep who you are separate from your diagnosis. Now, are there any issues on the unit that anyone feels need to be addressed in group?”
It was quiet for a minute as everyone looked around the room.
Rick blurted out, “I heard them talking about me. Saying nasty things about me.”
Mark leaned forward. “Who did, Rick?”
He pointed to the three women who were playing cards earlier.
“Did you ladies talk about Rick in a negative way today?” Mark asked.
They all shook their heads in unison.
Shelly spoke up and her eyes looked angry, “Absolutely not. We didn’t say anything about him. He’s so fuckin’ paranoid.”
Tobi and Denise nodded their heads in agreement.
“I heard it. They said I should kill myself. Hang myself in my room. I’m a worthless piece of shit. Die.” Rick’s voice rose more with each word.
“Rick,” Mark began in a calm voice, “I don’t think they were saying those things. What you heard was horrible and mean. I don’t think anyone here thinks those horrible things about you. Is it possible what you heard was part of your mental illness?”
“Maybe it was Archeus,” Rick said.
I looked around the room.
Weren’t we all here? Were we missing somebody?
Phantom Limb: A Gripping Psychological Thriller Page 8