More Harm Than Good
When a well-meaning decision goes wrong, the effects can last almost a lifetime.
It’s a winter morning in 1972, and I’m sitting in the back of my 5th grade classroom. My teacher, Mrs. Whitehill, calls my name when Miss Cass, the school principal, enters the room and whispers something in her ear while looking directly at me.
Why does she want me? Am I in trouble? I don’t get in trouble. My body stiffens, my heart starts to pound, and I can’t catch my breath. I get up from my desk slowly, walking past the other students, hyper-aware of their eyes on me, as I move toward the front of the room. I hear whispers and giggles.
I’m a good kid, and I try not to draw attention to myself, I’ve been bullied so much. I do my work, I do it well, except for math. Math scares me, I don’t understand it. I get through each day, and then I go home. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Is someone in my family hurt? Is it my grandmother? Did someone die?
Miss Cass and I walk down the hall together, quietly, and she’s not saying a word to me. It must be very bad. We get to the lobby, but instead of going into her office she points to the door across the hall, and says, “We want you to talk to someone today, he’s in here.” The kids who get in trouble and the kids who aren’t smart and need special help are the only kids who go into this room. I’m good and smart. What’s going on?
She opens the door, and there, seated in one of the little wooden chairs that are too small for me––they’re meant for the little kids––is this old bald guy in a tan suit. He’s way too big for the chair, his knees are almost touching his chin. His words sound blurry and drawn out, they echo as he speaks, I don’t understand what he’s saying. It sounds like he’s speaking under water. Everything seems to move in slow motion. He offers me the other tiny chair across from him, as Miss Cass leaves the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. I hear the loud click as she pulls it shut.
I sit down, and he scoots his chair toward me, too close, and leans forward even closer, bringing his face so near to mine that my whole body moves away tipping the chair backwards, balancing on the two back legs. He’s so close I can smell his sour breath, his teeth are big and yellow and crooked with gaps in between each tooth. I can see the stubble under his nose where he missed when he shaved. I look around the room, out the windows to the driveway where the school buses line up at the end of the day to take us home. I look at the artwork hanging on the walls, at the colored alphabet letters, strung high near the ceiling. He introduces himself to me,
“Good morning, Nancy, I’m Dr. Palter. I’m the school psychologist. I wanted to talk to you today, because we’re all a little worried about you. Your parents, Mrs. Whitehill, some of the other teachers who’ve known you since 2nd grade.”
My thoughts speed up, Worried? About what? What’s going on? Only crazy people go to psychologists. Do they think I’m crazy? I want to leave, or cry, but I’m stuck to that chair. I can’t move.
He goes on to say that everyone thinks I’m so sad, and all they want is for me to feel better. And that’s why we’re meeting. He wants to help me figure things out.
My mind racing, I’m barely listening to him. I wonder, do my parents know this is happening? If they do, why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t they warn me? Why aren’t they here? Do they think I’m crazy, too? I can’t say a word. I don’t know what to do and I don’t know what to say.
He asks me questions. Too many questions. What’s bothering you? Why are you sad? Are the other kids mean to you? I can’t talk. I can’t answer. I don’t want to. I sit there, completely shut down and watch the clock on the wall. I don’t know when this will be over, but time drags, and I watch the second-hand jerk forward and slightly back, ticking so slowly.
He finally stops, looks at me, and says, “Well, we’re going to meet every Thursday morning at 9:30 to talk and see if we can make things better for you, so we can get to the bottom of all this. But to do that, you’re going to have to talk to me.” He smiles at me with those ugly teeth, and then he nods and pushes his chair back, slapping his knees once with both hands, and stands up, towering over me. I get up, and he cups my shoulder with his giant hand. I flinch and move toward the door, pull it open, and walk back to class, my right hand skimming the coolness of the pale yellow cinder block wall that helps guide me back to the room. The kids look up when I return and start whispering again. Mrs. Whitehill looks at me with a gentle smile on her face and she nods. I take my seat in the back of the room and wait for the day to end.
I didn’t say anything to my mom when I got home. I didn’t bring it up. And she didn’t say anything either. But every Thursday morning, I’d say I was sick and couldn’t go to school. I did this every week until they got the message, and said, it’s okay, you can go back to school…but we never talked about what was going on. They were smart. They figured it out.
I don’t remember talking about it until I was much older, an adult. When I asked my mom, she said they didn’t know what to do, they just wanted to help me. I know their intentions were coming from a loving place, but I felt ambushed that day, so hurt, so betrayed.
I’ve been telling this story for years, and I thought the sting was gone. It was just a story. Maybe the fact that I kept telling it was a clue that I’d missed something. A clue that the story was still very much alive for me and not just an anecdote. The other day, I was working with my therapist, retrieving memories, and this one came roaring back. It was the first time since I was 11 that the story was no longer just a story. It all came back to me––the fear, the anxiety, the anger. Even the shortness of breath and my ramped-up heartbeat.
It’s amazing to me that after my first introduction to “therapy” I was able to seek out care later in life. I experienced my fair share of less than adequate providers over the years. But I’ve also worked with some talented therapists who helped me look deeply and with kindness at the life that I have.
Dr. Palter was right about one thing. I was a sad kid, and I was sad for a very long time. That’s no longer the truth for me. Now, sometimes I’m sad…but that’s just one aspect of a very broad spectrum of feelings that I’m able to access and express. And if I can’t do it alone, I have a world of trusted helpers and friends that I can call on to assist me when I get stuck.
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“Ambush” is exactly the word.
Your story brings an experience of my own roaring back to mind. Briefly, I was considered late—at five or possibly four—to be unable to float in a pool. So at summer day camp one day, after my group had been in the pool and put our regular clothes back on, a guy I remember as huge came to the place where my group had changed, told me I had to put my wet bathing suit back on, and literally threw me into the deep end of the pool. Obviously, I lived, but I was terrified and so upset. The huge guy said my mother had wanted him to do it. That was entirely in character for her, as was her denial when the bus dropped me back home.
Not long after, when nobody was looking at me, let alone pressuring me, I taught myself to float, but I never did become a very good swimmer, never did develop the smooth crawl my mother had.
So moving, Nan -- I could hardly breathe reading this. Powerful way to highlight how vital it is that people have agency in their own care -- at all ages.