her choices were from the sixties or seventies, the Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, the Beatles, the Bee Gees, but she also enjoyed Guns Nâ Roses, Mike & the Mechanics and the Smashing Pumpkins. The volume was never turned up too loud, but sometimes just loud enough that the muffled beat could be heard through the rest of the house. I teased her about becoming a vampire â afraid of the sun.
She and I used to be so close, able to laugh together, tears pouring down our cheeks, even though no one else could understand what was so funny. Now we seemed to be arguing more than before, and it worried me. One moment she could be the best, sweetest daughter in the world, then in a flash she would fly off the handle and storm into her bedroom, iridescent with anger and hostility. The moments of laughter seemed fewer and further apart, though some nights she would still come into my bedroom and curl up on my bed with me, not talking, just lying with her arms around me. But all too soon, for no apparent reason, she would be in the worst of moods again, stomping off to the solitude of her bedroom.
I tried to ward off the thought of drugs, a parentâs worst nightmare, but it seemed to offer a reasonable explanation. Worried enough to act, yet guilty about invading her privacy, I started searching her room for any signs of the paraphernalia that druggies use. I was relieved when I didnât find anything, but I knew in my gut that something was badly wrong. As her mood swings became worse, our relationship deteriorated further. I didnât understand what was happening â and she wasnât talking.
We consulted doctors and psychologists but could find no answers. Think ing the problem might go back to her early trauma at the hands of a stran ger when she was five, the psychologist suggested hypnosis. Tracey refused, scared off by the hype and hoopla of TV shows in which hypnotist entertainers made people bark like dogs or dance like chickens. She feared being out of control, not understanding that hypnosis couldnât make her do anything she didnât want to do. It was simply a state of absorbed or heightened awareness, much like when she lost herself in a favourite piece of music. But by temporarily bypassing her conscious mind and critical faculty, it could perhaps have helped communicate with her subconscious mind, where her emotions were. Was confronting these emotions what she was scared of?
Around this time there was an ugly incident at an interschool athletics meeting. A friend of Traceyâs told me there had been a lot of racial friction between the students at their school. This was mirrored at the interschool meeting, which turned violent when a much older male student from another school threatened Tracey with rape and murder, trying to assert his power by bullying. The police were brought in to escort the youngsters to the buses to ensure that they would get home safely. The school headmaster refused to take action, saying this was the new South Africa and we must accept it.
All this left its mark on Tracey. She started trying to wriggle out of going to school, finding excuses, justifying without really talking about her reasons. Things came to a head over a cross-country training session.
âI wonât be able to go because I have an extra science class,â Tracey explained to her PE teacher.
âCancel the class,â the teacher replied. âIf you donât attend the training youâll be dropped from the athletics team.â
Tracey came home in tears and refused to go to school. Sport was what kept her going, so what would be the use? This wasnât the feisty girl we all knew, who would have stood up for her rights, argued her case. We talked and I tried persuading her. We argued and I told her she had no choice â she had to go back to school.
Unwilling or unable to face up to this challenge, she must have spent the night in a swirl
She and I used to be so close, able to laugh together, tears pouring down our cheeks, even though no one else could understand what was so funny. Now we seemed to be arguing more than before, and it worried me. One moment she could be the best, sweetest daughter in the world, then in a flash she would fly off the handle and storm into her bedroom, iridescent with anger and hostility. The moments of laughter seemed fewer and further apart, though some nights she would still come into my bedroom and curl up on my bed with me, not talking, just lying with her arms around me. But all too soon, for no apparent reason, she would be in the worst of moods again, stomping off to the solitude of her bedroom.
I tried to ward off the thought of drugs, a parentâs worst nightmare, but it seemed to offer a reasonable explanation. Worried enough to act, yet guilty about invading her privacy, I started searching her room for any signs of the paraphernalia that druggies use. I was relieved when I didnât find anything, but I knew in my gut that something was badly wrong. As her mood swings became worse, our relationship deteriorated further. I didnât understand what was happening â and she wasnât talking.
We consulted doctors and psychologists but could find no answers. Think ing the problem might go back to her early trauma at the hands of a stran ger when she was five, the psychologist suggested hypnosis. Tracey refused, scared off by the hype and hoopla of TV shows in which hypnotist entertainers made people bark like dogs or dance like chickens. She feared being out of control, not understanding that hypnosis couldnât make her do anything she didnât want to do. It was simply a state of absorbed or heightened awareness, much like when she lost herself in a favourite piece of music. But by temporarily bypassing her conscious mind and critical faculty, it could perhaps have helped communicate with her subconscious mind, where her emotions were. Was confronting these emotions what she was scared of?
Around this time there was an ugly incident at an interschool athletics meeting. A friend of Traceyâs told me there had been a lot of racial friction between the students at their school. This was mirrored at the interschool meeting, which turned violent when a much older male student from another school threatened Tracey with rape and murder, trying to assert his power by bullying. The police were brought in to escort the youngsters to the buses to ensure that they would get home safely. The school headmaster refused to take action, saying this was the new South Africa and we must accept it.
All this left its mark on Tracey. She started trying to wriggle out of going to school, finding excuses, justifying without really talking about her reasons. Things came to a head over a cross-country training session.
âI wonât be able to go because I have an extra science class,â Tracey explained to her PE teacher.
âCancel the class,â the teacher replied. âIf you donât attend the training youâll be dropped from the athletics team.â
Tracey came home in tears and refused to go to school. Sport was what kept her going, so what would be the use? This wasnât the feisty girl we all knew, who would have stood up for her rights, argued her case. We talked and I tried persuading her. We argued and I told her she had no choice â she had to go back to school.
Unwilling or unable to face up to this challenge, she must have spent the night in a swirl
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