Damaged (17 page)

Chapter Twenty

Christmas

I
was determined to make sure Jodie enjoyed Christmas, and started to feel part of the family. I knew from sad experience that foster children have often missed out on Christmas in the past. In fact, because they’re at home for at least two whole days, and their parents tend to drink more, it can be the worst time of year for many children.

I remembered my previous placement, Callum, a sweet-natured ten-year-old. Callum had lived with his mother, who was a non-functioning alcoholic. That meant that she was incapable of leading a normal life, she was too locked into the prison of her alcohol dependency. The Christmas before Callum came to me, his father had sent him a cheque, which his mother had subsequently taken and spent on drink. On Christmas Day, she’d woken up after midday with a hangover, and then tried to make Christmas dinner. She hadn’t done any shopping, so she’d peeled the breadcrumbs off some chicken nuggets, and tried to pass it off to Callum as roast turkey.

Despite her drink problem, Callum’s mother hadn’t been violent or abusive towards him, but her alcoholism had been such that Callum had had to look after her, rather than vice versa. For the previous three years, he hadn’t had a single Christmas or birthday present. The Christmas he spent with us, I bought him a skateboard, helmet and kneepads, and when he opened them he ran out of the room, because he didn’t want us to see him cry.

On Christmas morning, Jodie was up before six as usual, but she seemed to regard it as just another day. The previous night, we had all hung pillowcases on our doors, and these were now full of presents. I led Jodie downstairs and showed her that the glass of sherry, mince pie and carrots had all disappeared, which meant that Father Christmas had come to visit in the night.

‘That’s nice, Cathy,’ she replied, as if humouring me. Throughout the morning, even as we opened up the presents under the tree, Jodie remained fairly flat, but she did seem to have some understanding of the importance of the day. She behaved well and generally joined in with the family. As I watched her, I hoped that, even though she wasn’t showing much enthusiasm, the goodwill of the day was having some impact, and that she would remember it fondly in the future.

In the afternoon my parents arrived, along with my brother Tom, his wife Chloe and their six-year-old, Ewan. Suddenly the house was full of noise and excitement, and I realized how cut off we had all become from our normal lives. For one thing, I hadn’t had any adult company for more than a week. Jodie had met all of my family before when they had come round to visit me in the usual run of things, and they always included the children I fostered, treating them like members of the family. Nonetheless she seemed a little startled when they all arrived at once, and she remained inhibited for most of the day.

After I’d made a round of drinks, we all gathered together in the lounge, ready to exchange presents. My family had brought some for us, and we had kept theirs under the tree, ready and waiting. We were all excited, but I could see that this was another ritual which was new to Jodie. As the presents were handed out, she stared at the others, taking cues on how to behave. She watched Ewan as he opened a present, and then she followed suit. She looked at it blankly, and I had to coax her to show excitement.

‘That’s lovely, Jodie, isn’t it? You can play with that this afternoon. Will you say thank you?’

She did as she was told, but without any of the excitement and shining eyes that Christmas usually brought to children. Throughout the day, she didn’t seem ungrateful for what she was given, and she did seem to like some of her gifts, but it was sad to see her having to mimic the enthusiasm and happiness that came naturally to the others.

After dinner we sat around and played games, as we slowly recovered from the meal. The girls worked hard to include Jodie, but she grew irritable, perhaps worn out by the excitement of the day. She went through the motions of playing the various games, but didn’t seem to derive any pleasure from them. When she didn’t win she became angry, and slammed her fist on the arm of the sofa. When she did win she was flat; she couldn’t take any pleasure from it, and couldn’t celebrate gregariously with the others. When we cheered for her, she joined in, but it seemed hollow.

Some time later she seemed to become frustrated and started holding her nose. I ignored it at first, suspecting that she was simply seeking attention, but when she persisted I eventually asked what was wrong.

‘My nose hurts,’ she said, her voice muffled by her hand.

‘Oh dear,’ I replied. ‘Can I take a look?’ She removed her hand, but squirmed away when I tried to touch her face. ‘I can’t see anything wrong. Is there anything I can do?’

‘It hurts!’ she moaned.

‘Why does it hurt, Jodie? Have you done something to it?’

‘It hurts.’ She was getting louder, and did seem to be in pain.

‘OK, well, come with me, and we’ll put a cold flannel on it.’ I took her into the bathroom and put the wet flannel to her face. ‘Can you tell me what you did, Jodie, to make it hurt?’

‘It was him. He whacked me in the face.’

‘Who, Jodie?’

‘Daddy! He thumped me,’ she wailed, sounding like she was about to cry.

I had been sitting next to her in the living room, so I knew that nothing had actually happened. However, even though the pain seemed to be imagined, in the sense that she obviously hadn’t been injured today, it was totally real to her. It sounded like she was remembering being hurt in the past, and was transposing the memory on to the present. We stood in the bathroom for a while, until she’d calmed down, then we went back to the lounge to rejoin the others.

At eight o’clock we stood on the doorstep and waved as my parents and my brother’s family drove off home. I closed the front door. I was relieved that Christmas was over, even though it had gone as well as I could have hoped. Jodie had been somewhat overawed by the occasion and the large gathering, but she had behaved reasonably, and I hoped that some of the warmth of the season had got through to her. While it hadn’t proved a breakthrough, and hadn’t touched Jodie emotionally in the way that Callum had been touched, I hoped that Christmas would now mean something good to Jodie, and that she’d had a small taste of what other children enjoyed every year.

Chapter Twenty-One

A New Year

A
s the New Year approached, my spirits rose. A new year offers a new start, and anything seems possible on the first of January. Giving up smoking, however, was not on my list of resolutions, and I was now sneaking outside upwards of seven times a day, deluding myself that I would quit again when things were calmer. But when on earth would that be?

Despite my hopes, Jodie showed no improvement as the New Year passed. Her behaviour continued to be difficult and hostile, and her nights were increasingly disturbed by nightmares and hallucinations. She was having more incidences of remembered pain now, and these became linked to disclosures; Jodie would complain that her arm hurt, and this would lead to the memory of her mother hitting her with an ashtray, or her father scalding her with hot water. In all of these cases Jodie’s pain seemed to be completely genuine, despite my attempts to explain to her that the injuries she was describing had happened months, sometimes years, ago.

Although I didn’t think she was fabricating the remembered pain, I was becoming increasingly aware that she was lying in other situations. Often, she was so convincing that I found myself questioning what I’d seen, and doubting the evidence of my own eyes. If I caught her red-handed in the middle of some misdemeanour, she would so emphatically deny that it was happening that I had to stop and reassess what I was looking at. She had sometimes told lies when she first arrived, but I had assumed that she had been reverting to past experience, telling lies to avoid punishment, so it had been somewhat understandable. Now, however, she must have known that she didn’t have to worry, that there was never any risk of her being physically or emotionally punished. Why, then, did she feel it necessary to deny her actions so vehemently?

She also started making false accusations, making up stories about the other children, even when I was in the room and had obviously seen that nothing had happened. She would claim Lucy or Paula had kicked, pinched or bitten her, which was clearly ludicrous. If anything, they were scared of her, quite understandably. When I pointed out to her that I had been in the room the whole time, and had seen that no one had gone near her, she flared up.

‘She did. She did! Why don’t you ever believe me?’

She was so passionate and convincing, I was often tempted to reconsider, and had to remind myself of what I’d seen.

At other times I caught her deliberately hurting herself. It wasn’t like the time she had cut herself so chillingly. Now it seemed more as though it was done in anger, in a fit of fury or passion, when she would thump herself, pinch herself, thud her head against something or pull her hair. Then she blamed it on one of her imaginary friends. Some friend, I thought. I would have to patiently tell her that actually she was the one who was doing it, as no one else had touched her. This self-harming was one of the most disturbing aspects of Jodie’s behaviour, and the pinches, scratches and thumps she inflicted sometimes produced marks, which she then used to convince herself even further that someone had been attacking her.

Even more worryingly, a week into the New Year the different voices she sometimes used began to suddenly take on identities of their own. Adrian’s mobile phone went missing, and after a lengthy search I eventually found it in Jodie’s toy box, which was on a shelf in the conservatory. Jodie hadn’t stolen anything before, but she did have problems respecting other people’s property, and I had been trying to teach her that we couldn’t just help ourselves to what we wanted, that we had to ask the owner first.

‘It wasn’t me, honestly,’ she repeated, looking me straight in the eyes and speaking in a babyish voice. ‘It really wasn’t. I’m not big enough to reach.’

Adrian and I both looked at the shelf, on which Jodie had just placed the toy box with ease.

‘Of course you are,’ said Adrian. ‘It’s just above your waist.’

‘No,’ she insisted, heightening her baby voice. ‘It was her.’ She pointed to the space beside her. ‘It was Jodie.’

‘You’re Jodie,’ I said wearily.

‘No. I’m Amy. I’m only two, and I can’t reach.’ She rubbed her eyes, and pouted like a toddler. I told her again that she mustn’t take Adrian’s mobile, and left it at that.

A day later, the separation of her personality took on another, more sinister form. She was up at 5.30 in the morning, so I went in to settle her. She was sitting on the bed playing with her music box, and clapping loudly.

‘Quietly, Jodie,’ I said. ‘Find something to do that’s quiet if you’ve had enough sleep.’

She spun round to face me. Her features were hard and distorted. ‘No,’ she shouted, in a gruff masculine voice. ‘Get out or I’ll rip you to pieces. Get out! Bitch!’

I instinctively took a step back. ‘Jodie! Don’t use that word. Now calm down. Find something to do quietly. I mean it. Now.’

She stood and brought herself to her full height. She advanced towards me, with her hands clawed, baring her teeth. ‘I’m not Jodie,’ she growled. ‘I’m Reg. Get out or I’ll fucking kill you.’

I wasn’t going to tackle her in that mood. I closed the door and waited on the landing. My heart was racing. I heard her pacing the floor, cursing my name, along with the rest of the family’s. ‘Wankers. Evil wankers. I’ll rip their heads off.’ She growled again, and then it went quiet. I opened the door and looked in. Jodie was in bed looking calmly at a book. Apparently, the old Jodie had returned.

As a foster carer, I’d seen some pretty extreme behaviour in children and to a certain extent I was used to it – but not this extreme. This was new. Jodie’s imaginary friends seemed to be taking her over.

‘Who’s Reg?’ I asked later that morning, as we emptied the dishwasher together. Jodie looked up at me uncomprehendingly. ‘Do you know someone called Reg? I thought you mentioned his name when I came into your room first thing this morning?’

She shook her head, and carried on sorting the cutlery. ‘There’s someone on Mum’s telly called Reg, but he’s horrible. I don’t talk to him.’

‘And there’s no one else you know called Reg?’

‘No.’

And I believed her. Reg, like Amy, seemed to have taken on a life of his own, without Jodie’s knowledge or consent.

When I told Jill about this, she was very surprised. ‘This is highly unusual. If I’m right, then it sounds like D.I.D. – Dissociative Identity Disorder.’

D.I.D. is a rare and complex response to stress, she explained, where the personality splits into a number of different identities, in order to cope. Often, one identity has no idea what the others are doing.

‘That sounds exactly what she’s doing,’ I said. ‘It’s very unnerving. Why is she doing it with us? It hasn’t happened before. Why would it start happening now, when she’s more secure than she’s ever been?’

‘Perhaps it’s because it’s only now that she feels safe enough to remember the abuse. I suspect that before, she wasn’t even able to accept and process what was happening to her. She blotted it out in order to survive. You said that she was very calm and accepting at first – remember how she passively began to take her clothes off when you wanted to photograph her? There was no fight in her, because she needed to keep going. However, now that she’s removed from the abuse, she can start recalling it and piecing together what happened.’

I told her about the remembered pain, and how real it seemed to Jodie.

‘That makes sense as well,’ said Jill. ‘She couldn’t afford to feel the pain at the time, so she’s feeling it now. She’s receiving an onslaught of information, physical and mental. Because she’s remembering all these awful things, her brain’s on overload, and can’t cope. By splitting her awareness, at least part of the self can be kept safe. So far you’ve seen baby Amy and an angry adult male. Does she have an adult female side as well?’

‘Now I come to think of it, yes. I thought she was just imitating her mother, but now I’m not so sure. She tries to chastise Lucy and Paula as an angry housewife.’

‘Does she refer to her by name?’

‘Not that I’ve heard, no.’

‘It’s the classic form. Baby, adult female, and adult male. We’ve all got these components in our personalities, but when we’re mentally healthy they’re all rolled into one.’ Jill paused. ‘To be honest, I’m really worried.’ I was now feeling extremely concerned myself. Jodie, it seemed, was reacting to the terrible things that had happened to her. I had no idea what to expect or if I would be able to cope with the fall-out of her extraordinary emotional trauma.

Jill asked, ‘Have you told Eileen?’

‘No. She’s been out of the office recently.’

‘I’ll try and get through to her. And make the psychologist aware of this. If I’m right, this is a severe personality disorder.’

‘Jill?’ I asked tentatively, as something occurred to me. ‘When she’s in one of these states, can she do things that she wouldn’t normally do? I mean, this Reg seems like a very angry character, and she seems to be quite strong when she’s being him.’

‘If she was any bigger I’d be getting her out of there. Adults with D. I. D. can assume superhuman strength and do things they wouldn’t normally. But presumably you could restrain her if necessary, even when she’s Reg?’

I paused. ‘I think so.’

‘And you want to continue?’

‘Yes.’ The further along this road I went, the more impossible it seemed to turn back. ‘Now I know what it is, it doesn’t seem quite so intimidating.’

‘Good. It’s really quite interesting, you know.’

Interesting for Jill, maybe, with her ability to assess the situation at one remove. For me … well, interesting wasn’t quite the word.

That afternoon, I sat Adrian, Paula and Lucy down, and explained what Jill had said. They stared at me, open-mothed.

‘Jodie’s got several personalities who possess her at different times?’ said Adrian, trying to get it straight in his mind. ‘And she has no idea that she’s doing it?’

I nodded. It sounded crazy.

‘Bonkers,’ said Lucy. ‘Stark raving bonkers. She’s totally off her trolley.’

Paula laughed. ‘I think I’ll be the Queen of Sheba, and you can all wait on me and bring me gifts.’

I smiled. ‘It’s not an act, though, darling. She doesn’t choose this. It just happens – it’s her mind’s way of dealing with what she’s been through.’

‘Will she be getting therapy?’ Adrian asked, aware that she had seen a psychologist.

They all looked at me for an answer.

‘Not until the assessments are complete, which won’t be until nearer the final court hearing. Jill says this condition can pass of its own accord, and in the meantime the best advice is to ignore it. There’s no point in challenging her because, as we’ve seen, she can’t remember what the other characters have said or done.’

So we tried to ignore it and carry on, in the hope that it would pass, but now it escalated. Three or four times a day baby Amy, angry Reg or the nameless female matriarch suddenly took over and obliterated Jodie. It was often a very sudden change, usually lasting ten to fifteen minutes. Not only would Jodie’s voice change, but each personality had its own type of body language. When she was in character as Reg, she would draw herself up to her full height, shoulders back, chest out, making herself big and masculine. As Amy, she cowered and her face was babyish and pouting. Her angry housewife stood aggressively, with short, angry movements and an unpleasant grimace. The change would occur in an instant, and revert just as suddenly when Jodie returned.

When baby Amy appeared at dinner, Paula couldn’t resist cutting up her food and feeding her. ‘I’ve never had a baby sister,’ she grinned, as she wiped Jodie’s chin. Conversely, when angry Reg took over, we all ran for cover. And knowing what the problem was did help, even though anyone watching would probably have thought we were the ones who were stark raving bonkers.

I informed both Eileen and the psychologist of this new and disturbing facet of Jodie’s mental health, but heard nothing from either of them. I could understand it in the psychologist’s case – it wasn’t her role to offer me advice or therapy tips – but I was disappointed that Eileen still wasn’t able to offer any support or even show much interest, although by now I didn’t expect anything different. It was just another small piece of Jodie’s tragedy that she had been assigned a social worker who was, to say the least, ineffectual.

Jill remained highly supportive – and the best we could do was just to hope that things would somehow get better.

The spring term began, and to my utter relief the secretary at Abbey Green School finally phoned to confirm that funding had been approved, and Jodie could start the following Monday. She suggested we visit the school on the Friday afternoon, so that Jodie could spend some time with her class, and get to know her support teacher. I wondered whether to tell her about the D.I.D. Should I try to warn her about Jodie’s erratic and bizarre behaviour? Would the school even have heard of D.I.D.? I decided not to mention it. They had Jodie’s Statement of Educational Needs, and if anything untoward happened I was sure they’d call me. Besides, I wanted Jodie to start with a clean slate.

Now that Jodie had a school place, there was no further need for a home tutor. Nicola phoned to wish Jodie luck and say goodbye, and Jodie spoke sensibly to her for a good twenty minutes. After she hung up she came over to me solemnly.

‘Nicola is a good adult, isn’t she, Cathy?’

‘Yes, sweet, she is. Most adults are, as you’ll discover.’

Jodie nodded thoughtfully. I felt a spark of hope. Perhaps she was taking tiny, slow but definite steps towards being able to regain her trust in adults.

 Later that day, Jodie’s social worker Eileen paid us a visit, her second in almost ten months. Predictably enough, it went much like the first and was not a success. Jodie was hostile from the start, and Eileen had great difficulty relating to her. It is usual to leave the social worker and child together, so that they can talk privately, but each time I tried to busy myself away from the lounge, one of them would immediately call me back in. Jodie would want another drink, or a jigsaw, or the television turned on, or Eileen would want to ask something trivial. For some reason Eileen seemed to want me there; I suspected she was anxious, or possibly even afraid of Jodie. After going back and forth a number of times, I decided I might as well join them, so I sat down with Jodie, and tried to get her to calm down and speak more quietly. A quarter of an hour later Eileen picked up her briefcase and, with a tight-lipped smile, left. She had done her duty.