Chapter 7: Thursday morning, Dr K.

Editor’s Note:
The next documents contain further transcripts of meetings and patient interviews written by Dr Koehler Snr (Psychiatrist).

Notes of Meeting, Thursday, 12/2; 9:02am, Nurse Cassandra

N.C: Good morning, Doctor. We should talk about Bec Freeman first.

Dr K: What about Bec?

N.C: It seems she had another bad night. She woke up screaming soon after 11pm. Night shift spoke to her and she settled. Then she woke again at 12:50am with more screaming. At this time, night shift gave her the tablets you prescribed to help her sleep if needed. She slept the rest of the night through.

Dr K: Was she screaming anything intelligible?

N.C: No. Apparently it was all incoherent. I checked her as soon as I finished the hand-over from night shift and she appeared to be waking. She saw me and panicked – flattened herself against the wall. She didn’t appear to recognize me at all. She didn’t say anything but she was clearly terrified. I backed out of the room as quickly as I could and left her alone.

Dr K: Hmm! That’s a worry. Though you said this happened as she was waking up. Perhaps you got caught up in the after-effects of a dream.

N.C: She hasn’t been to the bathroom yet. Breakfast should be arriving soon.

Dr K: I’ll go and see her in a moment.

((Discussion of other patients deleted))

End Meeting 9:14am

Patient Meeting, Rebecca Freeman Thursday 12/2; 9:16am

Bec was seated on the floor and slumped against the back wall of the room

Dr K: Good morning. How are you feeling this morning?

She looked up and glared at me with very fierce eyes.

Bec: Why am I here? I’m locked in a room in the hospital and nobody will tell me why? What’s going on?

Dr K: Something happened on Monday. You were involved. There is some confusion about the details and since you currently have no memory of the incident that makes it difficult for us to resolve the situation. Your memory is slowly coming back to you. Yesterday, you remembered about your English class. Have you remembered something more?

She looked at me for a moment and then shook her head.

Dr K: Don’t worry. It will come back to you.

Bec: Why don’t you tell me what happened and see if that knocks my memories loose?

Dr K: Sometimes it’s better to ease those memories out one at a time rather than hitting them with a hammer and breaking them all open at once. Apart from that, your mind is in a vulnerable state at the moment. If I say the wrong thing, your mind could take it as a suggestion and braid it into your memories in such a way that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between your actual memories and the pseudo-memories created by my comments.

Bec: That makes sense. My stupid brain.

Dr K: In this case, everyone’s stupid brains would tend to do the same thing if placed in these circumstances. Your particular brain may be either more vulnerable than most or less vulnerable. It’s hard to tell and experimenting to find out would be a bad idea.

Bec: Oh, okay.

Dr K: So that is why nobody will tell you why you are locked in this room. We’re waiting for you to be able to tell us what happened.

Bec: I don’t always remember everything. If I’m particularly freaked out, sometimes my brain just crashes and I don’t remember anything.

Dr K: I’m aware of that. It does complicate the situation.

Bec sighed.

Bec: I need to go to the bathroom.

Dr K: No problem.

I buzzed for the door to be opened and asked Nurse Cassandra to escort Bec across to the bathroom. Bec didn’t respond negatively to Cassandra so I put the earlier reaction down to Bec being only half awake. After a short time, Bec returned to the room. Nurse Cassandra then brought in Bec’s breakfast. I sat in the room and caught up on my notes while Bec ate. Once she was finished, I handed the tray out of the room and sat back down. Bec didn’t speak during the entire procedure but I could see that she was thinking. It wasn’t until the door was closed and I had sat down again that she was ready to speak.

Bec: I hurt someone, didn’t I. That’s the only reason I can think of for the police to be involved. I hurt someone badly and everyone is jumpy because you’re afraid I might do it again.

Dr K: There’s no value in speculating on what might have happened. The important thing to focus on is what actually happened.

I studied Bec’s attitude for a moment and decided the timing was right to proceed. Well – perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but I was under pressure to produce results.

Dr K: I have an email from your friend Melissa. I’d like to read some of it to you.

Bec: Okay.

Dr K: Before I start reading this, I want you to lie flat on the bed and close your eyes.

I waited until she was settled. I took her through some deep breathing and relaxation techniques. I kept my voice calm and gentle. I wanted her in a receptive state before I started.

Dr K: Bec, I want you to take yourself back to Monday. Remember sitting with Melissa and Liz outside of the classroom while your class listened to your speech and laughed at your funny cartoons. Now remember going back inside the room and talking to Mrs Stone. Hold yourself there. It’s Monday and you’re at school. Hold yourself there and listen while I read.

Dr K: (reading) Dear Bec, you and Liz have become my first true friends and I love you both very much. I’m also in awe of your art and I admire the way you cope with the problems in your life. Right now, you are also my hero because of the way you protected me on Monday. I know other people might say something different but I am glad that you did what you did. I only wish I’d had the strength to do it myself.

Dr K: The email goes on but I’ll stop there. Do you know what she’s talking about?

Bec: (in a cold voice) Hannah – Hannah Fargo.

I hid a smile, pleased with the success.

Dr K: Why did Melissa need protection from Hannah?

Bec sat bolt upright on the bed, her eyes flashing. For such a young teen, she looked remarkably dangerous.

Bec: I hate her. I totally and completely hate her. How dare she do something like that? Melissa never hurt anyone.

Dr K: Calm down. Just lie back and let the memories come. Lie back down. This is a memory. It happened days ago. You will need to remember it all. That’s good. Try to relax.

Dr K: I know you’re angry at what Hannah did but I need you to say it in words. Describe it to me as if you are writing in your journal. What did Hannah do to Melissa?

Bec: She humiliated Melissa – outrageously, unforgivably.

Dr K: What exactly did Hannah do?

Bec: I remember Melissa didn’t turn up for lunch. Liz and I went looking for her. We found her in one of the bathrooms. She was bawling her eyes out. We talked to her for a bit. Eventually we figured out that Hannah had made some comments to her about being a lesbian and how much she seemed to enjoy being with those other two lesbians – meaning Liz and me.

Bec stopped and shook her head. She was angry and finding it difficult to talk normally.

Bec: Hannah then talked about how Melissa’s big sister wasn’t around to protect her so she was fair game. Then Hannah pulled Melissa’s pants down. They were kind of loose with elastic in the waistband. They looked pretty stylish but I guess they weren’t designed to cope with idiot schoolgirls. And when Hannah pulled down the pants, the panties went too. Melissa was totally exposed, right in the middle of the hallway in front of a whole bunch of other kids.

Bec was almost grinding her teeth together.

Bec: Then Hannah did a really obscene thing with her tongue. Hannah’s idiotic friends stood around and laughed. Melissa was mortified.

Dr K: I can hear how angry you are now, as you tell me about it. You must have been furious at the time.

Bec: Livid, enraged, incensed, fuming, all of those things – oh yes, I was furious.

Dr K: So what did you do?

Bec: I left that bathroom ready to beat the living daylights out of her.

Dr K: I gather Hannah is a good deal larger than you. Weren’t you afraid she might beat you up instead?

Bec: I really wasn’t. I guess I wasn’t thinking about stuff like that at all. I was so angry there was no room for fear.

Dr K: Keep talking. What happened when you found her?

Bec hesitated, her eyes moving around as she searched her memories.

Bec: It took me a while to track her down. The first time I went through the cafeteria, she wasn’t there. I went half-way around the school looking for her and then cut through the cafeteria on the way to search the other half of the school but there she was, leaning against a wall right at the back.

Dr K: How did she seem when you caught up with her? Was she trying to get away from you?

Bec: No. I don’t think she even knew I was looking for her. She was just leaning against the wall and laughing at something with her lame friends. They were probably laughing about Melissa but I don’t know for sure.

Dr K: So what did you do?

Bec: By that time, I’d walked half-way around the school. I’d calmed down a bit. I’d calmed down enough to know that if I suddenly attacked her in the middle of the cafeteria, then I would be the one getting into trouble and not her. So I walked up and stood right in front of her. Her friends were just leaving as I arrived so it was just me and her.

Bec: I said, “Hannah, this has to stop. You need to leave my friends and me alone.”

Bec: Well, Hannah just sneered and looked down at me. Like you said, she’s a good deal bigger than I am. “Why should I?” she said. “You’re just a pack of lezzies who deserve everything you get.”

Bec stopped talking and lay there, staring up at the ceiling.

Dr K: So what happened next?

No response.

Dr K: Bec? Is there a reason why you’ve stopped?

Bec: I’m embarrassed.

Dr K: Why?

Bec: I just remembered what I did next and I’m not very proud of myself. I’m kind of ashamed.

Dr K: Why don’t you just tell me what you did? Then maybe we can discuss why you did it.

Bec didn’t respond for a moment. Then she let out a long sigh.

Bec: Doc, there’s this thing that I’ve done a couple of times at home. I doubt if it’s original. In fact I’d bet every younger sibling in the history of the world has done it. I guess it’s a way of fighting back against someone who’s bigger and stronger than you. It goes like this: you say something or do something to stir up the older sibling, and then you run away as fast as you can. If you’re sneaky enough, you run right into the view of The Parents, just as your older sibling catches up with you. At the least, all she can do is glare at you and go stomping off to sulk. If you’re really lucky, she won’t notice The Parents and she will start thumping you. At which point, she gets in trouble from The Parents for attacking you. It’s kind of a sucky thing to do. I feel dirty admitting that I’ve done it.

Dr K: Is that what you did to Hannah?

Bec: Pretty much. I was looking at her and I realized that nothing I could say would get her to leave us alone. So I knew I had to do something. I had to stir her up enough so that she would get into a heap of trouble. It was a lesson. If she messed with me or my friends, I would make sure she suffered.

Dr K: So what did you say to get Hannah all riled up?

Bec: This is the bit that’s the most embarrassing. I guess I took myself down to her level. I get a sour taste in my mouth just thinking about it. I know better. I disrespected people that I love. I had no right.

Dr K: What did you say?

Bec: She’d just said that we lezzies deserved everything we got. So I made my eyes go wide as if I’d just figured something out. Then I started talking in a really quiet voice so that nobody else could hear.

Bec: I said, “Hannah, I’ve just understood. You keep banging on about us being lesbians because you’re jealous. You imagine us in our bedrooms taking our clothes off and touching each other – our naked bodies writhing together in some wild lesbian sexual orgy. Then you get jealous because you so desperately want to do exactly the same thing. Did you pull Melissa’s pants down just so you could get a look at her cute little ‘gina? Did you get little tingles inside when you saw her all naked and exposed?”

Bec: I looked into her eyes and I smiled. Then I said, “Hannah, I’m sorry to disappoint you but we don’t do anything like that. But you – I’ve just figured out that you really are a lesbian. I can’t wait to tell everyone.”