by Cathy Glass
‘Of course you are,’ said Adrian. ‘It’s just above your waist.’
‘No,’ she insisted, heightening her baby voice. ‘It was her.’ She pointed to the space beside her. ‘It was Jodie.’
‘You’re Jodie,’ I said wearily.
‘No. I’m Amy. I’m only two, and I can’t reach.’ She rubbed her eyes, and pouted like a toddler. I told her again that she mustn’t take Adrian’s mobile, and left it at that.
A day later, the separation of her personality took on another, more sinister form. She was up at 5.30 in the morning, so I went in to settle her. She was sitting on the bed playing with her music box, and clapping loudly.
‘Quietly, Jodie,’ I said. ‘Find something to do that’s quiet if you’ve had enough sleep.’
She spun round to face me. Her features were hard and distorted. ‘No,’ she shouted, in a gruff masculine voice. ‘Get out or I’ll rip you to pieces. Get out! Bitch!’
I instinctively took a step back. ‘Jodie! Don’t use that word. Now calm down. Find something to do quietly. I mean it. Now.’
She stood and brought herself to her full height. She advanced towards me, with her hands clawed, baring her teeth. ‘I’m not Jodie,’ she growled. ‘I’m Reg. Get out or I’ll fucking kill you.’
I wasn’t going to tackle her in that mood. I closed the door and waited on the landing. My heart was racing. I heard her pacing the floor, cursing my name, along with the rest of the family’s. ‘Wankers. Evil wankers. I’ll rip their heads off.’ She growled again, and then it went quiet. I opened the door and looked in. Jodie was in bed looking calmly at a book. Apparently, the old Jodie had returned.
As a foster carer, I’d seen some pretty extreme behaviour in children and to a certain extent I was used to it – but not this extreme. This was new. Jodie’s imaginary friends seemed to be taking her over.
‘Who’s Reg?’ I asked later that morning, as we emptied the dishwasher together. Jodie looked up at me uncomprehendingly. ‘Do you know someone called Reg? I thought you mentioned his name when I came into your room first thing this morning?’
She shook her head, and carried on sorting the cutlery. ‘There’s someone on Mum’s telly called Reg, but he’s horrible. I don’t talk to him.’
‘And there’s no one else you know called Reg?’
‘No.’
And I believed her. Reg, like Amy, seemed to have taken on a life of his own, without Jodie’s knowledge or consent.
When I told Jill about this, she was very surprised. ‘This is highly unusual. If I’m right, then it sounds like D.I.D. – Dissociative Identity Disorder.’
D.I.D. is a rare and complex response to stress, she explained, where the personality splits into a number of different identities, in order to cope. Often, one identity has no idea what the others are doing.
‘That sounds exactly what she’s doing,’ I said. ‘It’s very unnerving. Why is she doing it with us? It hasn’t happened before. Why would it start happening now, when she’s more secure than she’s ever been?’
‘Perhaps it’s because it’s only now that she feels safe enough to remember the abuse. I suspect that before, she wasn’t even able to accept and process what was happening to her. She blotted it out in order to survive. You said that she was very calm and accepting at first – remember how she passively began to take her clothes off when you wanted to photograph her? There was no fight in her, because she needed to keep going. However, now that she’s removed from the abuse, she can start recalling it and piecing together what happened.’
I told her about the remembered pain, and how real it seemed to Jodie.
‘That makes sense as well,’ said Jill. ‘She couldn’t afford to feel the pain at the time, so she’s feeling it now. She’s receiving an onslaught of information, physical and mental. Because she’s remembering all these awful things, her brain’s on overload, and can’t cope. By splitting her awareness, at least part of the self can be kept safe. So far you’ve seen baby Amy and an angry adult male. Does she have an adult female side as well?’
‘Now I come to think of it, yes. I thought she was just imitating her mother, but now I’m not so sure. She tries to chastise Lucy and Paula as an angry housewife.’
‘Does she refer to her by name?’
‘Not that I’ve heard, no.’
‘It’s the classic form. Baby, adult female, and adult male. We’ve all got these components in our personalities, but when we’re mentally healthy they’re all rolled into one.’ Jill paused. ‘To be honest, I’m really worried.’ I was now feeling extremely concerned myself. Jodie, it seemed, was reacting to the terrible things that had happened to her. I had no idea what to expect or if I would be able to cope with the fall-out of her extraordinary emotional trauma.
Jill asked, ‘Have you told Eileen?’
‘No. She’s been out of the office recently.’
‘I’ll try and get through to her. And make the psychologist aware of this. If I’m right, this is a severe personality disorder.’
‘Jill?’ I asked tentatively, as something occurred to me. ‘When she’s in one of these states, can she do things that she wouldn’t normally do? I mean, this Reg seems like a very angry character, and she seems to be quite strong when she’s being him.’
‘If she was any bigger I’d be getting her out of there. Adults with D. I. D. can assume superhuman strength and do things they wouldn’t normally. But presumably you could restrain her if necessary, even when she’s Reg?’
I paused. ‘I think so.’
‘And you want to continue?’
‘Yes.’ The further along this road I went, the more impossible it seemed to turn back. ‘Now I know what it is, it doesn’t seem quite so intimidating.’
‘Good. It’s really quite interesting, you know.’
Interesting for Jill, maybe, with her ability to assess the situation at one remove. For me … well, interesting wasn’t quite the word.
That afternoon, I sat Adrian, Paula and Lucy down, and explained what Jill had said. They stared at me, open-mothed.
‘Jodie’s got several personalities who possess her at different times?’ said Adrian, trying to get it straight in his mind. ‘And she has no idea that she’s doing it?’
I nodded. It sounded crazy.
‘Bonkers,’ said Lucy. ‘Stark raving bonkers. She’s totally off her trolley.’
Paula laughed. ‘I think I’ll be the Queen of Sheba, and you can all wait on me and bring me gifts.’
I smiled. ‘It’s not an act, though, darling. She doesn’t choose this. It just happens – it’s her mind’s way of dealing with what she’s been through.’
‘Will she be getting therapy?’ Adrian asked, aware that she had seen a psychologist.
They all looked at me for an answer.
‘Not until the assessments are complete, which won’t be until nearer the final court hearing. Jill says this condition can pass of its own accord, and in the meantime the best advice is to ignore it. There’s no point in challenging her because, as we’ve seen, she can’t remember what the other characters have said or done.’
So we tried to ignore it and carry on, in the hope that it would pass, but now it escalated. Three or four times a day baby Amy, angry Reg or the nameless female matriarch suddenly took over and obliterated Jodie. It was often a very sudden change, usually lasting ten to fifteen minutes. Not only would Jodie’s voice change, but each personality had its own type of body language. When she was in character as Reg, she would draw herself up to her full height, shoulders back, chest out, making herself big and masculine. As Amy, she cowered and her face was babyish and pouting. Her angry housewife stood aggressively, with short, angry movements and an unpleasant grimace. The change would occur in an instant, and revert just as suddenly when Jodie returned.
When baby Amy appeared at dinner, Paula couldn’t resist cutting up her food and feeding her. ‘I’ve never had a baby sister,’ she grinned, as she wiped Jodie’s chin. Co
nversely, when angry Reg took over, we all ran for cover. And knowing what the problem was did help, even though anyone watching would probably have thought we were the ones who were stark raving bonkers.
I informed both Eileen and the psychologist of this new and disturbing facet of Jodie’s mental health, but heard nothing from either of them. I could understand it in the psychologist’s case – it wasn’t her role to offer me advice or therapy tips – but I was disappointed that Eileen still wasn’t able to offer any support or even show much interest, although by now I didn’t expect anything different. It was just another small piece of Jodie’s tragedy that she had been assigned a social worker who was, to say the least, ineffectual.
Jill remained highly supportive – and the best we could do was just to hope that things would somehow get better.
The spring term began, and to my utter relief the secretary at Abbey Green School finally phoned to confirm that funding had been approved, and Jodie could start the following Monday. She suggested we visit the school on the Friday afternoon, so that Jodie could spend some time with her class, and get to know her support teacher. I wondered whether to tell her about the D.I.D. Should I try to warn her about Jodie’s erratic and bizarre behaviour? Would the school even have heard of D.I.D.? I decided not to mention it. They had Jodie’s Statement of Educational Needs, and if anything untoward happened I was sure they’d call me. Besides, I wanted Jodie to start with a clean slate.
Now that Jodie had a school place, there was no further need for a home tutor. Nicola phoned to wish Jodie luck and say goodbye, and Jodie spoke sensibly to her for a good twenty minutes. After she hung up she came over to me solemnly.
‘Nicola is a good adult, isn’t she, Cathy?’
‘Yes, sweet, she is. Most adults are, as you’ll discover.’
Jodie nodded thoughtfully. I felt a spark of hope. Perhaps she was taking tiny, slow but definite steps towards being able to regain her trust in adults.
Later that day, Jodie’s social worker Eileen paid us a visit, her second in almost ten months. Predictably enough, it went much like the first and was not a success. Jodie was hostile from the start, and Eileen had great difficulty relating to her. It is usual to leave the social worker and child together, so that they can talk privately, but each time I tried to busy myself away from the lounge, one of them would immediately call me back in. Jodie would want another drink, or a jigsaw, or the television turned on, or Eileen would want to ask something trivial. For some reason Eileen seemed to want me there; I suspected she was anxious, or possibly even afraid of Jodie. After going back and forth a number of times, I decided I might as well join them, so I sat down with Jodie, and tried to get her to calm down and speak more quietly. A quarter of an hour later Eileen picked up her briefcase and, with a tight-lipped smile, left. She had done her duty.
‘Good riddance,’ said Jodie, and slammed the door behind her.
I didn’t disagree.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Fox and the Owl
It was mid-January. After a brief lull, the weather had turned bitterly cold, and we had three full days of snow. Jodie relished the excitement, and on the few occasions when I couldn’t immediately take her out into the snow, she would gaze out of the window, transfixed.
The children’s moods had lifted too. Now that they were back at school they seemed to have found a new burst of empathy for Jodie. Paula, in particular, appeared to have benefited from venting her frustrations before Christmas. We hadn’t actually arranged the sleepover yet, but she had had a number of friends round, and had made a point of encouraging Jodie to join in as part of the group, bless her.
One such afternoon Paula’s friend Olivia came for lunch, and they decided to go for a walk in the snow. My street is on the rim of a large valley, and the views are quite spectacular. Jodie pouted when she realized they were leaving, so Paula asked if Jodie and I would like to join them. Jodie was thrilled, so the four of us wrapped ourselves in coats, scarves and boots, and headed out.
As we walked up towards the high street, Paula and I each took one of Jodie’s hands, as the pavement was icy. However, despite our best efforts Jodie kept slipping over, each time falling on her bottom. The third time it happened, she remained sitting on the pavement. She crossed her arms, rolled her eyes, and sighed theatrically, ‘Here we go again!’
Paula and I grinned at each other in delight. Jodie’s usual response to this kind of adversity would have been a bitter tirade: ‘Who put that bloody ice there? Why are they doing that to me? It’s your fault! Hate you!’ and so on. Instead, she’d seen the funny side, and actively made an effort to try to make us laugh. It might not sound like much, but for us it felt like progress, and we joined in gratefully.
Jodie’s first day of school was approaching, so I took her shopping for her new school uniform. We bought two navy skirts, two jumpers with the school logo printed on them, and three white short-sleeved shirts. Jodie had behaved well in the shop, enjoying the attention, but she became angry when I opted for knee-length socks rather than tights. She wanted to have tights like Lucy and Paula wore, but I knew she’d have difficulty putting them on again after P. E. In the end, I came up with a sensible compromise, and bought Jodie a pair of white, lacy tights that she could wear at weekends.
As we arrived home, Jill phoned and told me apologetically that the couple she had been considering for respite wouldn’t be able to do it. Reason left unstated.
‘Great,’ I said tetchily. ‘I’m promised regular breaks because of the high level of Jodie’s needs, but because of that high level of needs it’s impossible to find a carer.’
‘I’m sorry, Cathy. I’ll keep looking.’
‘Yes, please do. Outside the agency if necessary.’ What I meant by this was that Jill should approach a different fostering agency for a carer. This wasn’t ideal, as standards varied, and the carers could be some distance away, but it was only one weekend and I needed a break.
On the Friday of that week we had arranged a visit to Jodie’s new school. The visit wasn’t till the afternoon, but Jodie was up early, as usual, and she immediately got dressed in her new uniform. I didn’t think this was a good idea, but I was anxious to avoid any unnecessary confrontation, so I let her keep it on, and tucked an apron round her while she ate. Despite my efforts, by the time she’d had her breakfast and lunch her uniform contained a good helping of both. I sponged off the stains as best I could, and we arrived at the school gates looking reasonably smart for the afternoon session.
Abbey Green hadn’t been my first choice, but as we arrived I was immediately impressed. The small, carpeted reception area was bright and welcoming, and the smiling receptionist greeted us warmly.
‘Hello there, Jodie. It’s very nice to meet you,’ she said, and then phoned through to the Head, who appeared with courteous promptness.
‘Adam West,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Hi, Jodie. Very pleased you can join us.’
He could only have been in his mid-thirties, but his friendly, informal manner quickly put me at ease. ‘I thought we’d start with a tour of the school, then you can spend some time with Jodie’s class, if that sounds all right?’
‘Fine,’ I said, then turned to Jodie. ‘That sounds good, doesn’t it?’ She hid behind me, clinging to my skirt, all her bravado evaporated.
He led the way through the double doors and along a short corridor. ‘There are six classrooms leading off the main hall,’ he explained, ‘which doubles as a canteen and gym.’ As we went in, I could smell the residue of boiled greens and gravy, one constant factor shared by thousands of schools all over the country. The walls of the hall, like those of the corridors, were lined with examples of the children’s work, and Mr West proudly described the various projects that had inspired this work. There were paintings, drawings, essays, poems and computer printouts, all based on a handful of themes, such as faraway lands, water, animals and designing a house. He was so enthusiastic and child-centred in his ap
proach that I thought to myself: if this school can’t cater for Jodie’s needs, then no one can.
We arrived at Jodie’s classroom, and the Head knocked before we went in. A sea of faces looked up curiously, before returning to their work.
‘Caroline Smith,’ he said, leading us to the class teacher. ‘This is Cathy Glass, and this is Jodie.’ We shook hands. ‘The lady over there is Mrs Rice, the classroom assistant. She’ll be helping Jodie.’
I glanced over to the table and smiled. Mrs Rice was a homely woman in her early fifties, wearing a floral patterned dress. She gave us a little wave. Jodie’s confidence had increased during the tour, and she started wandering between the tables, peering over the children’s shoulders. One boy shifted uncomfortably.
‘Jodie, come here,’ I called. But she ignored me.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mrs Smith. ‘They’re just finishing a piece of creative writing from our literacy hour. She can look.’
Mr West took his leave. ‘If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office at the end of the day.’
I thanked him, then spent some minutes with Mrs Smith, as she explained how the tables were grouped. She suggested I have a look around, so I did, feeling intrusively conspicuous. I felt like a giant as I walked among the miniature tables and chairs. The blue group was obviously the brightest; their writing was neat and detailed, with few grammatical mistakes. Mrs Rice’s table, the orange group, was a different matter. These children were struggling to produce a handful of legible lines, and their work was full of corrections. Nonetheless, even the weakest of these was well above Jodie’s standard. Jodie could barely write her own name.
‘Would you like to join your table now?’ Mrs Smith called to Jodie, from across the room. ‘The spare chair beside Mrs Rice is your place.’ Her request was gentle but firm. Jodie, who apparently wasn’t quite ready, sized her up. I could see Jodie had one of her take-me-on-if-you-dare expressions, and my heart was in my mouth. Not now, Jodie, I thought, please let’s not have a refusal and a tantrum on your first visit.