by Kim Noble
I had nothing.
I could pass my attackers in the street and not recognise them. The man who threw acid into my face could be my taxi driver, my postman or anyone else in the world and I’d never know. The person who set fire to my house could buy me a drink and I’d be none the wiser. That not knowing was almost unbearable. I’d had a lifetime of confusion but this was threatening to eat away at me unless I came to terms with it. But how could I face these acts if I couldn’t remember them?
And why couldn’t I remember them? Was my memory trying to protect me somehow? You read about the brain doing things like that. Something I did remember, actually, was that old diagnosis of dissociation. The doctor at the time had said it carried the possibility of amnesic moments where you suppressed experiences you didn’t like. Was that what I was going through?
I honestly didn’t know – but very soon I would meet someone who did.
*
I’m not at the refuge. There are chairs, people, posters on the walls. It’s a waiting room and a door is opening.
I didn’t know where I was but I could tell that I was about to have a meeting with the woman extending her hand towards me. She was leaning against a door to what looked like a consultation room. If I had a pound for every bad experience I’d had inside one of those …
‘Hello, my name is Valerie Sinason.’ Her voice was calm and soothing. ‘You can call me Valerie or Ms Sinason.’
Just her manner put me at ease. Then she smiled – a genuine, welcoming smile – and said, ‘What would you like me to call you?’
No one ever asked that.
It still didn’t explain why we were meeting. Then Valerie explained that it was because I’d been brave enough to get my friend Ann to pass on a letter at a conference on women and violence.
It was all news to me, although I did recall a female counsellor called Ann who had popped up at the various homes I’d stayed in since the fire and I liked her. She was on my side, I knew that. Against whom God only knew, but it had felt good to have an ally.
I learnt later that Ann had written to Valerie asking her to give me an appointment. Together with Dr Rob Hale, a consultant psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, she was researching severe and ritual abuse with funding from the Department of Health. I wasn’t entirely sure how I could help her work or what she could do for me – yes I’d been attacked by strangers but the only abuse I’d known was people in authority messing with my mind and locking me up against my will.
Yet there was something about Valerie and, when he joined us later, Dr Hale that gave me confidence. As I listened to them speak so passionately about their work I cast a critical eye over my own past. Too much of it was a mystery to me and what I did recall, judging from the reactions of the women at the refuge, was out of the ordinary. Acid and arson attacks weren’t normal, were they? Other people didn’t get locked up in asylums when there was nothing wrong with them. People like Lorraine, my sister, weren’t always forgetting where they worked and what they were meant to be doing there. As each realisation hit me I felt my shoulders slump. I was tired. Life had worn me down. I’d always told myself I was a fighter, that I was coping, that no one would ever get the better of me. But who was I kidding? After years of fighting against meddling doctors and medics and psychiatrists it was time to put my hand up and say the very words I thought I’d never hear myself say.
‘Yes, please help me.’
I didn’t know what they could do for me but anything was better than the way I was living.
The deal was simple: I would attend the Portman Clinic in Swiss Cottage every week for separate sessions with Valerie and Dr Hale and talk about my problems, and they would ask me the questions they needed to. It was a win-win situation: they got their research and I got to share my confusion with someone. The arrangement had the added bonus of their not wanting to force-feed me medication, or lock me up or, in particular, spy on me when I sat on the toilet.
Those sessions would have to wait, however, because until my house was repaired I was still homeless. I needed to explore other options. Having made the psychological leap that – yes – I was ready to talk to Valerie and Dr Hale, I decided to pursue further help. Someone at Kingston told me about the Arbours crisis centres in Crouch End, north London, and so I got in touch. Arbours owned a number of houses in the area called ‘therapeutic communities’, like the Cassel, where patients could live and enjoy in-house therapies of various kinds. For the first time in my life I found myself asking for treatment. I was so keen on it that even when my local health authority refused to fund it because it was outside their borough, I decided to find the money myself. Fortunately I had received a cheque along with a letter saying it was compensation for the attacks on me. Not only did I not recall those, I had no memory of asking for compensation. But it was welcome.
Like the Cassel, it was round-the-clock therapy sessions of one kind or another run by either our residential therapist, Lizzie, or various visiting ones. It felt weird knowing I’d actually chosen to be there but I still found it hard to get into the spirit of the thing. One of the visitors in particular seemed to be barking up completely the wrong tree with me. Whenever I arrived at sessions he’d say, ‘So, who have we got today? Baby Kim, Angry Kim, Teen Kim, Giggly Kim or Adult Kim?’ He seemed pleased with himself with that.
I thought, I don’t know what you’re expecting. It’s me. Who else did you think was going to turn up?
A lot of people get a kick out of talking about their feelings in front of other people but I hated that. Like the Cassel, Arbours came up with all sorts of ways to tease confidences out of you. Art therapy was one of them, which bored me. There had been an art class at San Martino’s, which the therapist, Jeff, and a few of his friends took part in, but it had never been for me. Here, Lizzie would produce a painting and we’d all have to give our opinions on what it was saying to us.
How am I supposed to know what it means? It’s a painting, not a letter.
I never knew what to say but it didn’t matter. If you admitted you liked a picture they’d say, ‘You like the dark colours? Interesting,’ and that obviously meant something. Or if you didn’t they’d find a way of remarking about that that made me think I’d got it wrong.
Even though I was actively seeking help, I wasn’t ready to give up my own form of alternative medicine. Again like the Cassel, Arbours didn’t believe in administering any form of drugs. It encouraged patients to be as healthy and unfettered by chemical influences as possible. I couldn’t have agreed with them more. The only problem was, their definition of drugs included alcohol.
And mine certainly did not.
Every day I’d slip out to the local pub and have a glass or two, then sneak back into the house ready for my next session. The very first week I did it, I was found out. They weren’t particularly large rooms so I guess it wasn’t that hard to smell the wine in the air. But that didn’t mean I had to admit it.
‘I see Drunk Kim’s turned up today,’ one of the lovely visiting therapists said suspiciously. ‘You know alcohol is strictly forbidden at Arbours.’
‘I haven’t been drinking,’ I replied and gave him what I considered my do-no-evil face.
‘Well, I think you have,’ he said, moving his face so close to mine he reminded me of the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang trying to sniff out Dick Van Dyke’s kids. ‘Lizzie, come and check her breath.’
I shut my mouth firmly.
‘Really,’ the other therapist admonished him. ‘I can’t smell anything – and if Kim says she hasn’t been drinking then she hasn’t been drinking.’
Thank you, Lizzie!
After four months in Arbours, which felt to me like a fortnight at most, my money ran out. I’d hoped that by the time we reached that point my healthcare provider would have stepped in but they had been utterly intransigent, which is a polite way of saying they were complete bastards about it. There was no way they would pay. After all the places they’d locked me up in against my will
during my life, now here I was showing some interest, yet they wouldn’t lift a finger.
At least my house was finally ready to move back into, after the insurance company had paid for some redecoration and repairs and the fire brigade had given the all-clear. And finally I could get going with my weekly meetings with Valerie Sinason and monthly appointments with Dr Hale at the Portman Clinic.
The meetings came and went very quickly, like so much of my life. I was sure Valerie said she worked in fifty-minute blocks but I barely seemed to arrive before I was home again. The conversations while I was there seemed the weird end of bizarre, as well. I didn’t really know what the therapists’ agenda was but I quickly got the feeling they were trying to nudge me down a particular path. I couldn’t put my finger on it so one day Valerie came out and said it.
According to her I shared my body with dozens of other people.
I waited for the punchline but it never came.
Even so, I think I still must have laughed in her face. Anyone would, if a so-called professional came out with nonsense like telling me there are other people who take control of my body sometimes.
If this is what your research is for, I’d pick another career!
Obviously I accused Valerie of being crazy but I didn’t exactly storm out of the room. People had always spun me the most fantastical lies. Every so often, like with the acid and the fire, the stories seemed to be based in truth. But this one was too ridiculous for words. Valerie was testing me somehow – I just needed to work out how.
The next time I saw her she was pushing the same line about strangers sharing my body. I was disappointed when Dr Hale started going down the crackpot road as well. According to him I had something called Dissociative Identity Disorder.
‘I’ve been diagnosed with dissociation before,’ I said. ‘And that was wrong as well.’
Dissociation is different from DID, he explained. Lots of people – people you’d consider ‘normal’ – suffer from dissociation to varying degrees. People who block out pain or bad memories by forgetting or compartmentalising their problems are dissociative.
‘What you have is far more extreme,’ he said. ‘Your dissociation is so great you actually have different personalities living inside one body. Your body.’
It was too ridiculous for words.Yet, I couldn’t just walk away. I owed it to Dr Hale to listen – even if I couldn’t see the point.
‘You’re telling me there’s someone watching me when I go to the bathroom?’
My old experiences of Warlingham left deep scars.
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
A worse thought then struck me.
‘Or when I have sex?’
‘No, it’s not like that,’ Dr Hale said. ‘You are not here all the time. Other people take control of your body. They have their own separate lives, just as you do.’
Ridiculous as it all sounded, I couldn’t help asking questions.
‘So where do I go then?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s as if you go to sleep.’
‘So why don’t I fall over then?’
‘Because someone else is awake and keeping the body going.’
We went round in circles like that for ages every time I saw him. Sometimes I played the game. On other occasions I wished he’d call it a day.
Seriously, man, change the record!
I don’t know what he expected me to say. ‘Oh yes, I get it, I’m just a figment of my body’s imagination. I don’t really exist!’ But I didn’t mind. I’d been accused of anorexia, bulimia, depression, attempted suicide, schizophrenia and so many other things I couldn’t remember, and I’d managed to prove all those wrong. So what difference did it make if he accused me of having multiple personalities as well? It was just another name. But what a waste of time it was hearing it, month after month.
If they keep this up, I’m going to pull out of the sessions. Deal or no deal.
But I didn’t. I don’t know if I was intrigued or amused or too offended to quit, but something made me keep returning to the Portman.
Despite his wild claims, I got the impression that Dr Hale was worried about me somehow. Perhaps that’s why I kept going back time after time.
It was no different with Valerie. It didn’t matter how long passed between sessions – and sometimes it did seem like ages between our meetings – we would always come back to the same sorts of circular conversations:
‘How did you get here?’
‘Through the door. How did you get here?’
Whatever the provocation, Valerie never rose to the bait.
‘Do you remember coming through the door?’
That’s a good one.
‘No I don’t. But who remembers boring details like that?’
‘Okay, can you tell me what you did last night?’ ‘It’s a bit fuzzy.’
Valerie gave that smile that told me absolutely nothing.
‘It’s because you weren’t around last night, were you?’ she suggested.
Not this again.
‘No, I was probably too drunk. Do you remember everything when you’ve been drinking?’
‘You blame drinking for everything.’
‘I drink a lot.’
‘Do you? Because I don’t think you do.’
That was interesting. I’d been thinking for ages that I didn’t really drink as much as I thought. But how else, then, could I explain the gaps in my memory?
And as for her other theory …
According to Valerie’s diary I attended her weekly clinic for just shy of two years. According to my memory, though, it was more like twenty or so sessions, no more than that. Predictably, Dr Hale tried to blame the discrepancy on my not being around all the time.
‘Obviously I wasn’t around or I’d have made the meeting,’ I said. He’d have to be quicker than that to get one by me.
Annoying as the pair of them were sometimes, the day came after two years when Valerie announced their research project was drawing to an end. In other words, funding for my sessions was about to be withdrawn. Both she and Dr Hale agreed it was not right for me to have no ongoing treatment, so Dr Hale and the Contracts Manager wrote to my local Primary Care Trust.
Would the authorities listen?
Absolutely not.
I couldn’t escape the irony that after years of trying to escape from the system, here I was now desperate to get a finger-hold back into it. The difference was, I was driving this treatment. This time I had asked for help.
So why wouldn’t they give it to me?
Arbours put me in touch with a lawyer who said he would take my case to the authorities and paint a picture of me as someone totally unfit to live unshackled, someone who would benefit from the help of a trauma therapist recommended by the Tavistock and Portman – at the council’s cost. This wasn’t the worst lie that had ever been told about me and, I figured, as long as it got what I wanted, it was okay.
I thought we were making headway, I really did. Big organisations like councils are always thrown when you play them at their own game. By bringing in a lawyer I was forcing them to show their hand. They didn’t like it.
After several months of negotiations we had almost solved it. Then my lawyer rang me one day to say he was resigning from the case.
I was distraught. ‘What on Earth for? We’re so close! Is it the money? I can pay you more, I’ll find it somehow.’
There was a pause.
‘It’s nothing to do with money.’
‘Then what is it?’
What would make him abandon me so cruelly after such a long fight together?
‘Kim, it’s my professional opinion that if we continue to portray you as unstable then it will harm any hope you have of winning your other case.’
‘What other case?’
Another pause.
‘Winning your daughter back.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
This is Aimee
There must have been a dozen pe
ople in the room, all wearing gowns and masks. Two of them pulled a little screen along Dawn’s body and fixed it just below her chest. It wasn’t very high, but lying down there was no way she could see her feet, let alone her tummy. Dawn smiled when she thought how suddenly her bump had quadrupled in size. For seven or eight months she’d been so small that most people hadn’t believed she was even pregnant. Then – whoosh – it was like she’d ballooned overnight. And she couldn’t have been happier.
And now, in ten minutes, all the morning sickness, the exhaustion and the nervous anticipation was about to pay off. Her baby was coming out.
Dawn closed her eyes as the surgeon and his assistant began their incision. Even though she couldn’t see beyond the screen, knowing that a man is cutting into your skin is the most unnatural feeling in the world – not that Dawn could actually feel anything physically, thanks to the epidural in her spine.
It was true what they’d said. It didn’t hurt, it was just like being tickled from the inside, like a sock drawer might feel with someone rummaging through it.
The surgeon was as good as his word. He’d promised it would all be over in ten minutes and it was. Soon he was lifting the baby. Any second now Dawn would see …
Her!
It’s a baby girl!
‘Congratulations,’ the surgeon said, handing the tiny creature to a nurse. Dawn watched like a cat following a ball on a string.
Come on, she thought, it’s my turn. Let me have her!
A second later she got her wish. Dawn could barely contain herself as the nurse unfastened Dawn’s gown then placed the little bundle onto her chest. So many sensations coursed through her body at once. Her daughter was wriggly, hot, sticky and so beautiful. Her tiny little gasps for breath were the loveliest sounds Dawn had ever heard.
The nurse hadn’t left their side. She was smiling. There was no more perfect vision in the world than a mother and her newborn child. They’d been together for less than a minute but the new mum was already showing the instincts of a mother of five.
‘Do you have a name for her?’ the nurse asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Dawn said, pulling her robe gently over her daughter’s back. ‘This is Skye.’