As I hugged my daughter Destiny, I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong. But she couldn’t get words out through her downpour of tears. At the same time, Joanne was trying to get my attention. It took me a minute to respond to Joanne, I was feeling annoyed with her and whatever she had done to upset my child to this degree. I never imagined that she had upset her so much she would be on life support after a suicide attempt in three weeks
“What?” I finally asked Joanne once Destiny’s cries died down to sniffles and she was sucking on Blinkie, her stuffed lamb’s special blanket.
“I need to speak to you in my office. Alone. All of this,” Joanne gestured toward Destiny and moved her hand up and down. “Is Destiny manipulating you, and she is a master manipulator.”
“Oh?” asked Dr. Fowler as if Haley had just told him she made toast for breakfast.
Haley drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head into her lap.
“Who did you kill?” asked Dr. Fowler, even though he’d already read her records and knew she’d been involved in a fatal car accident and that her mother had been killed on the scene. He knew exactly who Haley thought she’d murdered. However, he also knew that his young patient had to express herself and get it off her chest. The only way for him to help her see the accident was no more than an accident was to verbally and emotionally process it.
Haley had started crying again and her whole body shook with each sob.
“I don’t understand,” Dr. Fowler repeated, “Who did you kill?”
Haley finished writing her ninth poem of the day and flopped down on her bed. She stared through the heavy mesh covered windows and sighed. Then she hid her pencil under her pillow. On the Adolescent floor of Crane Hospital, patients weren’t allowed to have pens or pencils in their rooms. The ever-creative patients might use them to hurt themselves. Haley knew this rule. She had broken this same rule at all the hospitals she’d been in. She was a pro at breaking rules and getting away with it.
This hospital was hospital number twenty-two for fifteen-year-old Haley. She knew she was at the end of the line. Now she was in DCF custody. No foster home would take her, she was too “disturbed” and “mentally unbalanced” She would be forced to live in a residential treatment center for mentally and emotionally disturbed kids.
Residential treatment was like a horror story spoken about in hushed voices with chills running down your back to kids in psych units. It was the end of the line and the last place she wanted to go. Every time Haley got out of the hospital, she would promise herself that this was the last one. But then the hallucinations would start winding her up and reality would start to crumble.
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