Part 26 (2/2)
Dr. Pelchat did not come right out and ask me to talk about what had brought me to Bent Creek. When we were in his office, he sat behind his desk, as usual, with my chart open. He scanned through the chart and kept the same calm, but stern, look on his face. He looked up at me and sighed deeply.
”What?” I asked nervously.
He shrugged his shoulders and said, ”I don't know, Kristen.”
He seemed very strange to me. I shook my head. ”I don't know, either,” I said with a sigh.
Dr. Pelchat said, ”I think that I'm starting to have an idea about you from your behavioral pattern. The notes that were left for me are very vague, kind of like Dr. Cuvo himself, but I can learn something from what was written. Is it true that, while you were in the hospital, right after meeting with Dr. Cuvo for the first time, you started banging your wrists on the side of your bed?”
I turned red in embarra.s.sment. I felt my cheeks get hot.
”Does it say that?” I asked him.
”Yes, it does,” he said. ”You expressed this rage, and had to be sedated to control your behavior. This has happened twice since your hospitalization.”
”Yes, that one time after I met Dr. Cuvo at the main hospital, and then when I was put in the BCR,” I admitted.
I felt like some kind of criminal who had to tell the truth in front of a judge in court. If you lied, you could be sent to jail for life. Dr. Pelchat had that way about him that made you feel like you had to tell the truth.
”It also says here that you expressed some worry when you first arrived here at Bent Creek. You were worried that it would be like a prison, and that you would be sort of an outcast from your peers and that they would ridicule you. Then your att.i.tude seemed to change very quickly. You began to show a nurturing att.i.tude towards your peers as you grew comfortable. Even so, I'm concerned about your mood swings. We had to put you in the BCR because of your outburst. In addition, when you were in the hospital, you first appeared calm to Dr. Cuvo, but when he left, your emotions and your mood changed very quickly. You became violent.”
”I'm not going to hurt anyone, if you are thinking that. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't know what came over me that day when they put me in the BCR and had to stick me with the needle. I was just...I mean, I was...”
”You were angry,” he said.
”Yes,” I replied.
”What about when you first met Dr. Cuvo?”
I didn't know what to say except the truth. ”When I was angry in the hospital, it wasn't at Dr. Cuvo.”
”You were not angry with him at all?”
”I was mean to him, and I was mad because I didn't want to deal with a doctor. I didn't want to be there.”
”Where did you want to be?”
”I don't know. Not in the hospital,” I said.
Then, there was silence. All I could do was stare down at my bandaged wrists and not say a word. I had no idea what he was getting at, but he was scaring me. I tried to hold back the tears.
He said, ”I just need to ask you a few questions that will help me administer the right test for you.”
”All right,” I agreed.
”Do you ever get the feeling that the people you love or trust will leave you or abandon you?”
”What do you mean?” I asked.
”Do you ever feel like, when you do something that you know may not be so pleasing to, say, your mother, that she'll leave you or abandon you somehow?”
I thought about her signing me away to Bent Creek. And I thought about the times when we'd have our talks. She always made me feel like I had to go along with what she wanted, and that what she said was the only way, even if it didn't feel right. If I didn't go along with her, I knew she'd be angry enough to get rid of me if she had a chance. That's what she'd done when she'd made me go to Bent Creek. I nodded positively to Dr. Pelchat.
He scribbled in my chart and then asked, ”Do you ever feel like something always has to be happening in your life, and if it's not, you get a feeling of emptiness?”
I could tell that he was reading the questions from a sheet, but he was trying to put the questions into his own words so that I could understand. That question made me think.
”When it was quiet and I was alone, I would get scared,” I told him. ”It felt like the world was ending sometimes, and it just scared me, like there was no one that existed but me.”
Dr. Pelchat looked into my eyes. That made me nervous, and I looked away.
He said, ”You're a cutter, right?”
I nodded.
”Who am I here with?”
Shocked, I turned back towards him. My heart jumped inside of my chest. I could feel something else pulling inside of me.
”What do you mean?” I asked.
”Do you ever feel like you're not yourself? Like, when you get these wild ideas in your head, does it feel like someone else is putting those thoughts in there? Maybe an influence, like a voice, or maybe you see other people whom others cannot see?”
Mr. Sharp suddenly appeared. He was just itching to come out. Up to now, I had been able to keep him locked inside, but Dr. Pelchat was pus.h.i.+ng his b.u.t.tons. I didn't want to end up in the BCR again. I tried to hold back.
I answered, ”I don't know what you mean by wild ideas. I do think that things can happen, and will happen, if I make certain choices. Maybe feeling like the world is ending when I feel empty is a little wild, but-”
”How about this,” he asked. ”How about I put it in a different way? Answer this as honestly as you can. If your mom comes over to you, and she starts hugging you and smiling, and giving you gifts because she says that you are doing an amazing job in school by making good grades, attending all of your cla.s.ses, and doing all those things, how do you take that behavior?”
I said, ”I'd think that she was proud of me and that she was happy.”
”Okay,” he said. ”Now how about if, the next day, after she was hugging you and smiling, and giving you all of those gifts, she just storms over to you and starts yelling at you, and she tells you that she needs you to help out more around the house, like cleaning your room, helping with ch.o.r.es, and trying to put more effort into the upkeep of your home than you do at school? How would you take that behavior?”
”Honestly, I'd probably cut,” I admitted.
”Why do you feel that you have to punish yourself?”
”It's like it's too much. I don't understand how she can be happy with me one day and then just be mad at me the next because I didn't clean the kitchen. I'd think that she didn't care about the good job I did in school. All she would care about is how I didn't clean the kitchen or do a good job in the house. It wouldn't even matter anymore that I did well in school. She'd just want to be mad at me and punish me.”
Dr. Pelchat didn't say a word. The look on his face was genuinely sincere with concern. He scribbled in my chart. As he did, I began to wonder if I had done the right thing by answering honestly.
Dr. Pelchat looked up when he was finished writing, and he said, ”You will be taking the test this week. I'm writing an order to have this done no later than Wednesday, and I'm writing an order for you to see a physician about your st.i.tches.”
My heart began to race. ”Why did you ask me all of those questions?”
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