Billy for you."
As we walked through the unit, we passed patients as young as four or five years old and others who looked closer to seventeen or eighteen. They seemed perfectly normal as they spent the weekend chatting in the hallway or playing board games in their rooms or watching television in the lounge. But I knew from my own rotation in child and adolescent psychiatry, back when I was a resident at New England Medical Center in Boston, that only the sickest young people get access to inpatient units, the ones at risk of committing suicide or homicide. Managed care insurance companies indiscriminately shunted the rest to outpatient treatment. The patients here were on multiple psychoactive medications. Any one of them could fly into a rage or be overwhelmed by hallucinations, without warning. Their minds had already veered into chaos — whether due to trauma, abuse or addiction to drugs or alcohol. They might never live normal lives, no matter how much help they got. Kids are less resilient than people think.
I thought of the murderous violence Billy had witnessed in Russia and the trauma he had, no doubt, suffered in the orphanage. Was it at all surprising that a boy whose world had been destroyed would come to be destructive? Wasn’t it obvious that the ruinous potential of fire would feel as warm to him as returning home after a long journey? Would he not be drawn to revisit his private terrors by looking into the eyes of a neighbor’s terrified pet? And then this more disturbing thought came to mind: Would watching his baby sister struggle for her last breaths speak to him of his own emotional suffocation?
We walked into Mossberg’s office, an eight-by-ten-foot space piled high with books and medical journals. "Please," she said, pointing to a chair next to her desk.
I navigated my way to the chair, careful not to knock over any of the stacks of reading material. I moved a bunch of New York Times newspapers, two volumes of Tennyson’s poetry, and a copy of Harry Crews’s A Childhood off the seat, and sat down. Once I did, I was nearly face-to-face with the only thing hanging on Mossberg’s walls: a three-by-four-foot painting of a dog with electric blue fur, a white snout, and big, pointy ears. Sitting amidst rolling green hills and blue-black oak trees, the dog had a questioning expression on its face and big, golden eyes that stared into the room, seemingly waiting for something.
"Interesting painting," I said.
"Blue Dog? She helps the kids talk. Sometimes they tell her things they can’t tell me, and I just listen in."
"She looks like she’s heard a lot of stories," I said.
"Those big ears," Mossberg said. She smiled.
I felt comfortable in Mossberg’s space, and with her. The ability to inspire that kind of feeling in people is essential — and rare — in psychiatrists. One in fifty might have it. "You like pearls," I said, nodding at her.
"I like the lesson they teach," she said. She reached to her neck and rolled one of the pearls between her thumb and forefinger. "The grain of sand is an irritant, but the oyster turns it into something beautiful. An oyster without a grain or two of sand doesn’t have much potential. Same with people, if you ask me."
"Agreed," I said. "I feel like I’m sitting with a friend."
She smiled. "Maybe you are," she said. "I know of your work. You’ve had fascinating cases."
Every so often I bump into someone who’s read one of the profiles of me that ran in publications ranging from the Annals of Psychiatry to People magazine when I was taking one forensic case after another, each more chilling than the last. But that was a different time, and I was a different person, and I didn’t want to get into any of it with Mossberg. "I gave up my forensic practice a couple years back," I said. "I wouldn’t normally be involved in Billy’s case. I’m interviewing him as a favor to a friend in
As we walked through the unit, we passed patients as young as four or five years old and others who looked closer to seventeen or eighteen. They seemed perfectly normal as they spent the weekend chatting in the hallway or playing board games in their rooms or watching television in the lounge. But I knew from my own rotation in child and adolescent psychiatry, back when I was a resident at New England Medical Center in Boston, that only the sickest young people get access to inpatient units, the ones at risk of committing suicide or homicide. Managed care insurance companies indiscriminately shunted the rest to outpatient treatment. The patients here were on multiple psychoactive medications. Any one of them could fly into a rage or be overwhelmed by hallucinations, without warning. Their minds had already veered into chaos — whether due to trauma, abuse or addiction to drugs or alcohol. They might never live normal lives, no matter how much help they got. Kids are less resilient than people think.
I thought of the murderous violence Billy had witnessed in Russia and the trauma he had, no doubt, suffered in the orphanage. Was it at all surprising that a boy whose world had been destroyed would come to be destructive? Wasn’t it obvious that the ruinous potential of fire would feel as warm to him as returning home after a long journey? Would he not be drawn to revisit his private terrors by looking into the eyes of a neighbor’s terrified pet? And then this more disturbing thought came to mind: Would watching his baby sister struggle for her last breaths speak to him of his own emotional suffocation?
We walked into Mossberg’s office, an eight-by-ten-foot space piled high with books and medical journals. "Please," she said, pointing to a chair next to her desk.
I navigated my way to the chair, careful not to knock over any of the stacks of reading material. I moved a bunch of New York Times newspapers, two volumes of Tennyson’s poetry, and a copy of Harry Crews’s A Childhood off the seat, and sat down. Once I did, I was nearly face-to-face with the only thing hanging on Mossberg’s walls: a three-by-four-foot painting of a dog with electric blue fur, a white snout, and big, pointy ears. Sitting amidst rolling green hills and blue-black oak trees, the dog had a questioning expression on its face and big, golden eyes that stared into the room, seemingly waiting for something.
"Interesting painting," I said.
"Blue Dog? She helps the kids talk. Sometimes they tell her things they can’t tell me, and I just listen in."
"She looks like she’s heard a lot of stories," I said.
"Those big ears," Mossberg said. She smiled.
I felt comfortable in Mossberg’s space, and with her. The ability to inspire that kind of feeling in people is essential — and rare — in psychiatrists. One in fifty might have it. "You like pearls," I said, nodding at her.
"I like the lesson they teach," she said. She reached to her neck and rolled one of the pearls between her thumb and forefinger. "The grain of sand is an irritant, but the oyster turns it into something beautiful. An oyster without a grain or two of sand doesn’t have much potential. Same with people, if you ask me."
"Agreed," I said. "I feel like I’m sitting with a friend."
She smiled. "Maybe you are," she said. "I know of your work. You’ve had fascinating cases."
Every so often I bump into someone who’s read one of the profiles of me that ran in publications ranging from the Annals of Psychiatry to People magazine when I was taking one forensic case after another, each more chilling than the last. But that was a different time, and I was a different person, and I didn’t want to get into any of it with Mossberg. "I gave up my forensic practice a couple years back," I said. "I wouldn’t normally be involved in Billy’s case. I’m interviewing him as a favor to a friend in
Similar Books
