I could see right away that this was never going to fly. How could I entrust my innermost emotional thoughts to someone who goes around calling me and my peers “you young girls” and thinks any of us would willingly go outside dressed in Hello Kitty pajamas and a duvet?
“This isn’t going to work for me,” I said to my dad as I got up. “Let’s go.”
“Hang on a second, Mia,” Dad said. “We just got here, okay? Give the man a chance.”
“Dad.” I couldn’t believe this. I mean, if I had to go to therapy, why couldn’t my parents have found me a real therapist, not a COWBOY therapist? “Let’s go. Before he BRANDS me.”
“You got something against ranchers, little lady?” Dr. Knutz wanted to know.
“Um, considering that I’m a vegetarian,” I said. I didn’t mention that I stopped being a vegetarian a week ago. “Yes, yes, I do.”
“You seem awful hetted up,” Dr. Knutz said. I swear he really said hetted and not heated. “For someone who, according to this, says she finds herself not caring about anything at all most of the time.”
He tapped the assessment sheet I’d filled out in his outer office. Sinking back down in my seat, since I could tell this was going to take a while, I said, “Look, Dr., um—” I couldn’t even bring myself to say his name! “I think you should know that I’ve been studying the work of Dr. Carl Jung for some time. I have been struggling to achieve self-actualization for years. I am no stranger to psychology. I happen to know perfectly well what’s wrong with me.”
“Oh, you do,” Dr. Knutz said, looking intrigued. “Enlighten me.”
“I’m just,” I said, “feeling a little down. It’s a normal reaction to something that happened to me last week.”
“Right,” Dr. Knutz said, looking down at a piece of paper on his desk. “You broke up with your boyfriend—Michael, is it?”
“Yes,” I said. “And, okay, maybe it’s a little more complicated than a normal teenager’s breakup, because I’m a princess, and Michael is a genius, and he thinks he has to go off to Japan to build a robotic surgical arm in order to prove to my family that he’s worthy of me, when the truth is, I’m not worthy of him, and I suppose because deep down inside, I know that I completely sabotaged our relationship.
“And, okay, maybe we were doomed from the start, because I scored an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs Jungian personality test we took online last summer, and he scored an ENTJ, and now he just wants to be friends and see other people, which is the last thing I want. But I respect his wishes, and I know that if I ever hope to attain the fruits of self-actualization, I have to spend more time building up the roots of my tree of life, and…and…and, really, that’s it. Except for possible meningitis. Or lassa fever. That’s all that’s wrong with me. I just have to adjust. I’m fine. I’m really fine.”
“You’re fine?” Dr. Knutz said. “You’ve missed almost a week of school even though there’s nothing physically wrong with you—we’ll check on the meningitis of course—and you haven’t changed out of your pajamas in days. But you’re fine.”
“Yes,” I said. Suddenly, I was very close to tears. Also, my heart was beating kind of fast again. “Can I go home now?”
“Why?” Dr. Knutz wanted to know. “So you can crawl back into bed and continue to isolate yourself from friends and loved ones—a classic sign of depression, by the way?”
I just blinked at him. I couldn’t believe he—a perfect stranger, WORSE, a stranger who liked WESTERN THINGS—was talking to me that way. Who did he think he was, anyway—aside from one of the nation’s preeminent experts on adolescent and child psychology?
“So you can continue to drift away from your long-term relationship with your best friend, Lilly,” he said, referring to a note on the pad in his lap, “as well as your other friends, by avoiding school and any other social settings where you might be forced to interact with them?”
I blinked at him some more. I know I was supposed to be the crazy one, but it was hard to believe from this statement that he wasn’t crazy.
Because I was not avoiding school because I might have to see Lilly there, or interact socially with people. That wasn’t it at all. Or why I want to move to Genovia.
“So you can continue to ignore the things you used to love—like instant messaging your friend Tina—and sleep during the day, then stay up all night,” Dr. Knutz went on, “gaining weight through compulsive binge eating when you think no one is looking?”
Wait…how did he know about THAT? HOW DID HE KNOW ABOUT TINA? OR THE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES?
“So you can go on just saying whatever it is you think people want to hear in order to make them go away and leave you alone, and refusing to observe even basic proper hygiene—again, classic examples of adolescent depression?”
I just rolled my eyes. Because everything he was saying was totally ridiculous. I’m not depressed. I’m sad, maybe. Because everything sucks. And I probably do have meningitis, even though everyone seems to be ignoring my symptoms.
But I’m not depressed.
“So you can continue to cut yourself off from the things you used to love—your writing, your baby brother, your parents, your school activities, your friends—and go on feeling consumed by self-loathing, yet lacking any motivation to change, or enjoy life again?” Dr. Knutz’s voice boomed very loudly in his ranch-style office. “I could go on. Do I need to?”
I blinked at him some more. Only now I was blinking back tears. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t.
I don’t have meningitis. I don’t have lassa fever.
I’m depressed. I’m actually depressed.
“I might,” I said, after clearing my throat, because it was kind of hard to talk around the big lump that had suddenly appeared there, “be a little down.”
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re depressed,” Dr. Knutz went on in a gentle voice. I mean, for a cowboy. “Many, many people have suffered from depression. Having depression doesn’t mean you’re crazy, or a failure, or a bad person.”
I had to blink back a lot of tears.
“Okay,” was all I could manage to say.
Then my dad reached over and took my hand. Which I didn’t really appreciate because that just made me want to cry more. Plus, my hand was super sweaty.
“And it’s okay to cry,” Dr. Knutz went on, passing me a box of tissues he’d had hidden somewhere.
How did he keep doing that? How did he keep reading my mind like that? Was it because he spent so much time out on the range? With the deer? And the antelope? What is an antelope, anyway?
“It’s perfectly normal, and even healthy, considering what’s been going on in your life lately, Mia, that you might feel sad and need to talk to someone about it,” Dr. Knutz was saying. “That’s why your family brought you here to see me. But unless you yourself admit that you have a problem and need help, there’s very little I can do. So why don’t you say what’s really bothering you, and how you’re really feeling? And this time, leave the Jungian tree of self-actualization out of it.”
And then—before I knew what was happening—I found myself not even caring that I was possibly being punk’d.
Maybe it was the Navajo rug. Maybe it was the cowboy hat on the peg on the back of the door. Maybe I just figured he was right: I couldn’t really spend the rest of my life in my room.
In any case, the next thing I knew, I was telling this strange, aging cowboy everything.
Well, not EVERYTHING, obviously, because my DAD was sitting there. Which is apparently some rule of Dr. Knutz’s, that for the initial consultation of a minor, a parent or guardian has to be present. This wouldn’t be the norm if Dr. Knutz took me on as a regular patient.
But I told him the important thing—the thing I haven’t been able to get out of my head since last Sunday when I hung up the phone after talking to Michael. The thing that’s been keeping me in bed ever since.
And that’s that the first time I ever remember Mom
and me going to visit her parents back in Versailles, Indiana, Papaw warned me to stay away from the abandoned cistern in the back of the farmhouse, which was covered with an old piece of plywood, and which he was waiting for a backhoe to come and fill in with dirt.
Only I had just read Alice in Wonderland, and, of course, I was obsessed with anything resembling a rabbit hole.
And so, of course, I moved the plywood off the cistern, and stood there on the edge, looking down into the deep, dark hole, wondering if it led to Wonderland and if I could really go there.
And then the dirt around the edge gave way, and I fell down the hole.
Only I didn’t end up in Wonderland. Far from it.
I wasn’t hurt or anything, and eventually I managed to pull myself out by grabbing on to roots that were sticking out of the side of the hole. I put the plywood back where it had been and went back to the house, shaken and smelly and dirty, but no worse for wear. I never told anyone what I’d done, because I knew Papaw would have just gotten mad at me. And fortunately, no one ever found out.
But the thing is, ever since I talked to Michael last Sunday, I’ve felt as if I were sitting back at the bottom of that hole again. Really. Like I was down there, blinking at the blue sky up above, totally unsure how I’d found myself in this position.
Only this time, there were no roots to pull myself out of the hole. I was stuck down there at the bottom. I could see normal life passing by overhead—people laughing, having fun; the sun beating down; the birds and clouds in the sky—but I couldn’t get back up there to join them. I could just watch, from down at the bottom of that big, black hole.
Anyway, when I was done explaining all this—which was basically when I couldn’t talk anymore, because I was sobbing so hard—my dad started muttering darkly about what he was going to do to Papaw next time he saw him (which seemed to involve a Taser and Papaw in the shower).
Dr. Knutz, meanwhile, looked up from the piece of paper he’d been writing on the whole time I’d been talking, stared straight into my eyes, and said an amazing thing.
He said, “Sometimes in life, you fall down holes you can’t climb out of by yourself. That’s what friends and family are for—to help. They can’t help, however, unless you let them know you’re down there.”
I blinked at him some more. It was really weird, but…I hadn’t thought of that. I know it sounds dumb. But the idea of calling for help had never even occurred to me.
“So now that we do know you’re down there,” Dr. Knutz drawled on, in his Western twang, “what do you say you let us give you a hand?”
The thing was—I wasn’t sure anyone could. Help me out of that hole, I mean. I was down there so deep, and I was so tired…even if someone threw me a rope, I wasn’t certain I’d have the strength to hang on.
“I guess,” I said, sniffling, “that that would be good. I mean, if it works.”
“It’ll work,” Dr. Knutz said matter-of-factly. “Now, tomorrow morning I want you to pay a visit to your general physician to get a blood workup, just to make sure there’s nothing amiss there. Certain medical conditions can affect mood, so we want to rule those out—along with the meningitis, of course. Then you can come see me for your first therapy session after school. From which my office is conveniently located just a few blocks away.”
I stared at him, my mouth suddenly dry. “I…I really don’t think I can go back to school tomorrow.”
“Why not?” Dr. Knutz looked surprised.
“I just…” I said. My heart had begun to slam into the back of my ribs. “Can’t…wouldn’t it be better if I started back to school on Monday? You know, make a clean start, and all of that?”
He just looked at me through his silver wire-rimmed eyeglasses. His eyes, I noticed, were blue. The skin around them was crinkly and kind-looking. Just like a cowboy’s eyes should look.
“Or maybe,” I said, “you could, you know. Prescribe me something. Some drugs or something. That might make it easier.”
Ideally some kind of drug that would completely knock me out so I didn’t have to think or feel anything until, oh, graduation.
Again, Dr. Knutz seemed to know exactly what I meant. And he seemed to find it amusing.
“I’m a psychologist, Mia,” he said with a tiny smile. “Not a psychiatrist. I can’t prescribe drugs. I have a colleague who can, if I feel I have a patient who needs it. But I don’t think you do.”
What? He could not be more wrong. I needed drugs. A lot of them! Who needed drugs more than me? No one! He was only denying me them because he hadn’t met Grandmère.
The next thing I knew, Dr. Knutz was blinking at me, and Dad was wriggling around uncomfortably in his chair. That’s when I realized I’d said that last part out loud.
Oops.
“Well,” I said defensively to Dad. “You know it’s true.”
“I know,” Dad said, looking heavenward. “Believe me.”
“Meeting your grandmother is something I look forward to doing someday,” Dr. Knutz said. “She’s obviously very important to you, and I’d be interested in seeing the dynamic between you. But, again…nowhere on this assessment did you indicate that you are feeling suicidal. In fact, when asked if you ever felt like killing yourself, you replied None of the time.”
“Well,” I said uncomfortably. “Only because to kill myself, I’d have to get out of bed. And I really don’t feel like doing that.”
Dr. Knutz smiled and said, “I don’t think drugs are the answer in your particular case.”
“Well, I need something,” I said. “Because otherwise, I don’t know how I’m going to get through the day. I’m serious. No offense, but you don’t know what it’s like in high school anymore. I’m not kidding, it’s scary.”
“You know, Eleanor Roosevelt, a lady few would argue didn’t have a good head on her shoulders,” Dr. Knutz remarked, “once said, ‘Do one thing every day that scares you.’”
I shook my head. “That makes no sense whatsoever. Why would anybody willingly do things that scare them?”
“Because it’s the only way,” Dr. Knutz said, “they’ll grow as an individual. Sure, a lot of things can be scary—learning to ride a bike; flying on an airplane for the first time; going back to school after you’ve broken up with your longtime boyfriend and a picture of you with your best friend’s boyfriend appeared in a widely distributed newspaper. But if you don’t take risks, you’ll just stay the same. And is that really how you think you’re going to get out of that hole you’ve fallen into? Don’t you think the only way you’re going to get out of there is to make a change?”
I took a deep breath. He was right. I knew he was right. It’s just…it was going to be so hard.
Well. Michael did say we both had some growing up to do.
Dr. Knutz went on, “And besides, what’s the worst thing that can happen? You have a bodyguard. And it’s not like you don’t have other friends besides Lilly, right? What about this Tina person your mother mentioned?”
I had forgotten about Tina. It’s funny how this can happen when you’re in a hole. You forget about the people who would do anything—anything in the world, probably—to help you out of it.
“Yes,” I said, feeling, for the first time in a long time, a tiny flicker of hope. “There’s Tina.”
“Well, then,” Dr. Knutz said. “There you go. And who knows?” he added with a grin. “You might even have fun!”
Okay. Now I know his name really is appropriate. He’s nuttier than I am.
And considering I’m the one who hasn’t changed out of her Hello Kitty pajamas in almost a week, that is saying a lot.
Thursday, September 16, 6 p.m., the loft
After we left Dr. Knutz’s office, Dad asked what I thought of him. He said, “If you don’t like him, Mia, we can find someone else. Everyone, including your principal, agrees he’s the most highly recommended therapist for adolescents in the city, but—”
“YOU TOLD PRINCIPAL GUPTA?” I practicall
y screamed.
Dad didn’t look like he appreciated my screaming very much.
“Mia,” he said, “you haven’t been in school for the past four days. Did you think no one was going to notice?”
“Well, you could have told them I had bronchitis!” I yelled. “Not that I was depressed!”
“We didn’t tell anyone that you’re depressed,” Dad said. “Your principal called to check on why you’d been absent for so long—”
“Great,” I cried, flopping back against the leather seats. “Now the whole school is going to know!”
“Not unless you tell them,” Dad said. “Dr. Gupta certainly isn’t going to say anything to anyone. She’s too professional for that. You know that, Mia.”
Much as it pains me to admit it, my dad is right. Principal Gupta may be many things—a despotic control freak among them—but she would never betray student-principal confidentiality.
Besides, it’s not as if at least half the student population of Albert Einstein High School isn’t in therapy as well. Still. The last thing I need is Michael finding out that I’m so crushed from his rejection that I’m seeing a shrink. How humiliating!
“Who else does know?” I asked.
“No one knows, Mia,” Dad said. “You, your mother, your stepfather, and Lars, here.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Lars said, not looking up from the rousing game of Halo he was playing on his Treo.
“We’re the only ones who know,” Dad went on.
“What about Grandmère?” I asked suspiciously.
“She doesn’t know,” Dad said. “She is, as usual, blissfully ignorant of everything that does not directly involve her.”
“But she’s going to figure it out,” I said. “When I don’t show up for princess lessons. She’s going to wonder where I am.”
“You let me worry about my mother,” Dad said, looking a little steely eyed, like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. If James Bond were completely bald. “You just worry about getting better.”