One of the guys I’ve become friendliest with has really made me think about what bizarre tricks nature can play on a person’s mind. If you ran into my friend Chester somewhere indoors, you’d think you were with an ordinary, fun-loving guy. He’s about fifteen and as all-American-looking as you can get. His interest in rap music isn’t unusual either, but his degree of interest is. He always has headphones on, rocking out in the halls, rapping to his favorite songs.
Except with him, it’s not just because he likes music. He needs to like music, especially songs by the group Linkin Park, whose music he plays over and over again and sings along with. Still, you wouldn’t think anything was that different about him.
But something is.
Chester is deathly afraid of daylight. He hates going near the window. And if by accident some sunlight falls on him, he literally freezes in place like a deer caught in the headlights. The one time I saw this happen, he had a look in his eyes as if the world were going to end. Go figure that one out.
Chapter 64
IF YOU HAVE extreme OCD, then Wellington is a very comfortable place to be. Everyone here understands you and could care less if you’re different from other people. If I wasn’t so homesick I’d have to say I like being here, and I like the kids better than any I’ve known back in my hometown. They get me, and I get them. They have empathy. Most people don’t, they really don’t.
This is my best week with my clinical psychologist, Mr. Kenneth Roberts. We’ve been working hard on a number of therapies for almost a month. One is called cognitive behavioral therapy, and it is slowly helping me change my everyday thoughts and the way I act.
Wellington’s approach to my Tourette’s and OCD is completely different from most other approaches. Just like my being sent into the wilderness, this is not the standard treatment for my illnesses. Far from it. It’s like a second intervention for me.
The main goal now is to deliberately expose myself to my obsessive behaviors, including my Tourette’s tics, in order to gain control over them. Before this, my doctors did everything they could to suppress my symptoms.
Every day I focus on my most extreme tics and try to refrain from performing them for longer and longer periods of time. This is part of tic-reversal training.
Right now I can go more than fifteen minutes without doing any unusual movements. There are days when it isn’t that good, but little by little I’ve gotten back some control over my body.
Mr. Roberts thinks that anxiety is at the root of all my other conditions, so he’s teaching me a progressive relaxation technique. To help with this, I made a tape that I play in my headphones when I need to calm down. Learning new ways to breathe also helps control my anxiety.
Aside from the treatment, the most important thing about being here is just being here, living in a world where no one is reacting badly to me or judging me.
Chapter 65
SIX WEEKS AFTER arriving at the Wellington clinic, I stand with my suitcase packed. Mr. Roberts rises from his chair in the training room.
It’s a hard moment for me because of the feelings I have for him. As my main therapist, Kenneth is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. He seems to instinctively understand what I’m thinking and knows what to say to get me to help myself. I also consider him a friend and a hero to all the people here.
Three of the other patients have assembled in the lounge to say good-bye to me. One college-age girl comes up and hugs me. “You be good,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I’m sure you will, Cory.”
I know the tears are not only for me. I saw that same look when I bid farewell to my friends at wilderness camp. You’re leaving. And I’m still here.
“Stay in touch, man!” Chester yells, his headphones still in place.
Chester honestly seems happy for me. Maybe he’s glad to see that someone can get enough help to go home. Maybe it gives him hope.
I wish Noelle was around. I’m going to miss her and I know I’ll always think about how she’s doing. We have been part of a very unusual and close community where we are all safe with one another and the staff. Not like the world I’m about to go back to.
“How are you feeling today?” Mr. Roberts wants to know with his typically serious but gentle and caring manner.
“Really good, I think.”
“Can’t talk you into staying a little longer, I guess?”
“You can try.”
“Hey, that’s . . . a change.”
“But it won’t work. I’m outta here.”
He shoots me a disappointed but playful look. “You’re gonna keep working on that anxiety, right? Do your exercises?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“It’s easy not to do the exercises when you’re back home, but they’re important,” he says. Right to the bitter end, he’s still working with me. You gotta love a guy like that.
From across the room, William’s eyes meet mine. He nods, and I return the gesture. We don’t need words.
One of the nurses shouts an upbeat good-bye from behind her station window. I take a last look at all the people I’m leaving and feel a wave of guilt that they have to stay. But every one of them is better now than when I met them. And so am I.
When I turn, I see my father at the end of the hall. I can tell that he’s been standing there for a while, not wanting to interrupt the ending of this part of my story.
His eyes are glistening. Just like they were at base camp in Wyoming. That’s my dad for you.
Stumble
Chapter 66
I FLY HOME from Wellington and get to stay over for one whole night. Jessie’s there, and we connect like we haven’t for years. And I can’t tell you how good it is to see my mom, my angel.
The next day my mother and father drive me to the Devor-ough School, a private therapeutic boarding school in western New Hampshire.
As part of a plan I didn’t get to vote on, I wasn’t allowed to have any contact with my old friends during the brief stopover at my house. I’ve now been away from home for two and a half months. Going right into another strange new situation is like punishment when I think I should be rewarded. I hate the idea of it. A lot.
My parents have decided to send me right to the Devorough School because it offers me a chance to catch up to my junior-year class before it’s too late. This wasn’t even a remote possibility before wilderness camp and Wellington. Devorough has an intensive-study program, with more hours per day devoted to lessons than any regular school. Plus, like the other places I’ve gone to, they are set up to deal with kids who have special problems.
Devorough is in a very rural town and consists of only a few buildings, including a large structure for classrooms, dining, and other activities. Bicycles are the sole mode of transportation allowed other than feet. No friends, no cars, no cell phones, no alcohol, no cigarettes, no life.
We are met by Dr. Marianne Morgan, the founder, in a wheelchair, which reminds me of how far I’ve come from the days I used to go to school in one. She makes me feel welcome and promises that I will get what I need here. Even though there are many rules that must be followed, the other students love it, she says.
My mother and father are gushing with gratitude for her accepting me. A lot of other schools didn’t.
The first group of students I encounter quickly confide that the place is a prison and they totally hate it. Every one of them does. One of the guys I meet right away is a very sketchy, secretive type who seems to command a lot of respect from the other boys. When I try to ask about his past, he doesn’t tell me anything, but he’s really friendly. He shows me the layout of the school and how to get around some of the rules.
In the next couple of weeks, I undergo intense schooling, but I’m so far behind that I have to stay awake half the night just to catch up. The constant pressure starts to make my tics worse again, which makes studying take even longer.
The relaxation exercises I promised Mr. Roberts I’d keep doing aren’t o
n my mind at all, and even if they were, I wouldn’t have time for them anyway.
Because I really do want to catch up to my class back home, I put in an incredible effort, which impresses the staff but takes a toll on me. I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m frantic about falling behind, and I’m getting anxious again. This is the exact opposite of what the people at Wellington wanted to have happen. I’m starting to break down a little.
The pressure isn’t helped by a lot of whispering and private discussions going on around my room. I never find out what’s going on because the other kids make me leave and no one will tell me anything. I guess I’m too new to be trusted.
I also start having clashes with kids on the lacrosse team when I stupidly brag about how good an athlete I am. I pick a fight with one of the little guys, who easily beats me up. Even after all I’ve been through, and as good a shape as I’m in, I still haven’t got a clue about how to fight.
Every day I’m learning more, and faster, than I ever have before, but the work is still mounting up too fast. In some ways, wilderness camp, with all the snow and ice, was easier than this. I kind of miss the mountains.
Three weeks into my time at Devorough, I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown from the work pressure and lack of sleep. In my mind it’s pure torture and punishment. I plead with my parents to let me come home. After a lifetime of their supporting me in so many good ways, this is possibly the worst thing they’ve ever done and the only mistake in their intervention.
No matter what I say, and it’s all the honest truth, they tell me I have to stay until the end of the school year in May.
At night I drift off to sleep thinking about my old friends back home and how I could be with them in a way I never could have before. I feel strong and more in control and want to show them what I’m like now, how I’ve changed. With my new confidence, I know I can make it in my old high school, maybe even play football again.
I dream of being home, riding my dirt bike, hanging out, sleeping late in my own soft bed.
No one knows it, but I packed my cell phone and charger in a backpack when I came to Devorough. One night I make a call to my old friend Mingo. As usual, he knows what to do, because he’s a survivor himself, and he tells me something that hits like a lightning bolt. I’ve already turned seventeen, so I’m legally old enough to leave Devorough if I want to without anyone’s permission. No one can stop me, not my parents, not even the police.
My mind starts spinning with the possibilities. Soon, I can think of nothing else but getting away from the school. It’s becoming an obsession.
The next night, after everyone’s asleep, I sneak out a side door and make a break for it. I run like crazy to the two-lane country road that connects Devorough to the nearest town, which I estimate to be ten or fifteen miles away. I feel exhilarated, taking my newfound power and strength and using it to escape from this prison of a school.
Just before midnight, in total spooky darkness, I’m walking on a desolate rural highway.
It’s another kind of wilderness, and not nearly as bad as the one I’ve been to, so I’m okay with it. After an hour, however, I begin to feel that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, because it dawns on me that I escaped without a plan. I left with only the money my parents had given me for school expenses, and I assumed that eventually I would be able to pay someone to drive me back to my hometown. I wasn’t thinking, just acting.
Some plan, huh? Talk about compulsive behavior and making bad decisions. I don’t even really know how far it is to the next town or how far I’ve walked, and I’m not dressed for the cold night. After another hour passes, one of the few cars I’ve seen catches me in its headlights and slows to a crawl. It’s a police car.
“Cory Friedman?” the officer asks.
Chapter 67
“YEAH, WHY?” I answer back.
“Been looking for you, son. Get in. I’m taking you back to the school.”
I wasn’t expecting this. Apparently soon after I escaped, the school did its usual late-night bed check, found me missing, and called the police. It’s hard to decide what to do now — then I remember what Mingo told me.
“I don’t have to, do I? I’m seventeen,” I say very politely, desperately hoping Mingo knew what he was talking about.
“I don’t know about that. Even if you are, you have to go back to the school first.”
I get in the cruiser, and the policeman returns me to Devorough. The school calls my parents.
When I get on the phone, I refuse my mother’s request to stick it out a few more weeks and lash out at both my parents for sending me here. I tell them that I’m demanding my rights and that I’m no longer their dependent son but a legal adult. They don’t know how to answer that. It’s news to them, like it was to me.
The discussion ends with me hanging up. It turns out that Mingo was right. The police have no choice but to let me leave.
I sign a release that the school needs for their records — this is why I had to go back there. Then the police drive me to the nearest bus station an hour away. It turns out to be such a long distance that I never would have made it on my own.
I don’t tell anyone where I’m going. Just far, far away from this prison.
In a few hours I end up at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City and spend the early morning walking the streets. When I’m ready, I take a train to my hometown, where a friend picks me up and drives me home.
My mother and father haven’t slept the whole night. Now that I’m back, they are outraged by my behavior. I understand their position, but I had to do what was right for me. That school sure wasn’t. A little while later, I’m safe again in my own bed, and it’s the best feeling in the world. I sleep for twenty-two hours straight.
In a few days everything is peaceful again. My parents and I return to Devorough to officially sign me out. We have a final meeting with the school’s founder.
“You never should have left us, Cory,” she scolds me. I can see how hurt and disappointed she is, but also arrogant, it seems to me. “I don’t think you’re going to make it out there.”
Her words stun me. In my mind this is a cruel and destructive thing to say, but she can’t reach me on the inside. After all I’ve been through, my armor is titanium and a couple of feet thick. I don’t argue with her, just thank her for letting me attend. I can’t leave the grounds fast enough.
But as we drive away, I’m thinking, You don’t know me. Don’t ever count me out. I’m going to make it this time.
The Emergency Meeting
Chapter 68
AFTER DEVOROUGH, there’s a sudden shift in focus. Now the job is to try to get me back into my high school to finish junior year. This is almost impossible given all the work I’ve missed, but not impossible for my mother. She’s been on the case, assembling piles of records, making notes, figuring out what we need to do.
We are now on our way to a crucial meeting at school to get me back into classes and discuss any accommodations that they can give me to help me get through the rest of spring semester.
But the moment we walk into the designated room, our whole idea of what the meeting is about explodes.
The first shock is that this is an actual large conference room, not the customary office space these kinds of meetings take place in, and instead of seeing just the special-ed and guidance counselors needed to take care of my accommodations, we find that the room is loaded with about a dozen people. This stops my mother in her tracks, and she looks as confused as I’ve seen her in a while.
“Please sit down,” someone says sternly, and we take the only two empty seats at the large wooden table.
I don’t recognize some of the people here, but there’s my history, math, and English teachers; my regular guidance counselor; and a social worker from the special-education department that I met a few times before.
I already have a scary feeling that something is wrong, and I search for the friendly, smiling fa
ce of Mrs. Tremaine, my personal caseworker. She’s been my best friend in the school administration and has fought for me for years, but for some reason she’s not here.
In a moment another woman who’s a lot older takes over the meeting. She identifies herself right away. “I’m Emily Hanover. I’ve been assigned as Cory’s new caseworker, replacing Mrs. Tremaine.”
For the second time in the first two minutes, my mother and I go into shock. The person who has always been my champion and who I need most in this meeting hasn’t even been invited.
Everyone can sense the negative tension. The room is eerily quiet, and I get the feeling that nobody really wants to be here. I know I don’t.
When my new caseworker starts again, the world is suddenly turned upside down.
“We wanted to gather everyone familiar with Cory and his history to help you understand why we’ve come to our decision,” she says, looking back and forth between my mother and me.
My mother is stunned by this unexpected announcement.
“What decision? I thought we were here to discuss the accommodations we could have for Cory as he reenters school.”
The complete silence that follows tells me how stupid I was to think coming back might be as easy as just asking. And it’s a huge surprise that the members of the group have already met on my case and seem to have made up their minds about something big. And bad.
“Basically, we’ve had to deal with the wisdom of Cory being able to continue in this school year,” Mrs. Hanover says. “It wasn’t really a question of how we could help him through the rest of the semester.”
I can’t help but notice that everything she’s saying is in the past tense.
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