Read Online The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller, Amanda Bennett - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lori Schiller, Amanda Bennett
Tags: REL012000
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alternately more agitated and more depressed. Sometimes she seemed nearly frantic, at other times she seemed nearly rigidly, profoundly down. Her appearance began to change too. She had once been meticulous about her grooming, and, while she never shared Nancy's love of ultra-feminine things and high fashion, she was always nicely dressed, with attractive clothes, and nattering haircuts. Now she was more slovenly. Her clothes seemed like she had slept in them. Her hair, once shiny and bouncy, stuck together in oily strands, looking as if she hadn't washed it in weeks.
Lori Winters had moved out, so Nancy went down to the city often to check on our Lori. She began to report to me with growing dismay the increasing disorder of Lori's apartment, and her agitation. It was hard to be in the same room with her sometimes, she was so stirred up, pacing back and forth, pulling on one cigarette after another until the room was filled with the foul smoke.
In the meantime, she had stopped seeing her psychiatrist. Shortly after she was released from the hospital, we got a call from him. Lori's problems were more serious than he was prepared to handle, he told us. Lori needed more help than he could give, so he was recommending that we find another doctor. He was saying that Lori was really sick—much sicker than we had thought at first. But I couldn't hear him. I didn't want to hear him.
Partly it was my love for Lori that blinded me: I didn't want to see what was happening before my eyes. My daughter Lori was pretty and smart and talented. She was a model student and a model teenager. Everyone loved her. She was supposed to go to college, meet a wonderful man, get married, have children and live a long and happy life. I couldn't accept anything that got in the way of that picture.
But partly it was my own professional background, my training in psychology, that—rather than helping me—made it almost impossible for me to face what was happening. Back when I studied psychology in the 1950s, there was only one cause for all mental illnesses, even the most severe: a faulty upbringing. Everything was tied to the way you were raised. There were different schools of thought, of course. Some practitioners followed a Freudian model where understanding the id, the ego and the superego gave the answer to everything. Some followed Jung, with his emphasis on unconscious myths. But everyone believed that it was early life experiences that were behind mental disorders. A patient with serious mental problems had been subject at an early age to unacceptable pressures, to confusing messages, or to some destructive behavior on the part of the parents.
If Lori were really sick, my training told me, then I was to blame. I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. So I refused to believe that Lori was really sick.
Nonetheless, Nancy and I were both ready to try anything that would help our little girl. When her psychiatrist suggested that rather than psychotherapy we try drug therapy, we were more than willing to listen. There was a man in New York, a Dr. Nathan Kline, who was experimenting in the field of psychopharmacology. He had established quite a reputation already for treating young people's psychological problems with drugs. There was even a whole clinic named after him. After reading some clippings that described all the good he was doing for young people like our daughter, we sent Lori over to his clinic on the east side of Manhattan.
After several weeks of treatment it seemed to me that Lori was much better. Her depressions didn't seem as severe, and she seemed much calmer. She seemed more in control, more relaxed. I thought the drug therapy was doing her good. Nancy disagreed.
“Marvin, that's not Lori,” she said to me one night. “That's not who Lori is. Look at her eyes. She's just drugged, she's in a stupor. He's giving her way too much medicine. She's taking ten or twenty pills a day.”
I knew he was giving her
Lori Winters had moved out, so Nancy went down to the city often to check on our Lori. She began to report to me with growing dismay the increasing disorder of Lori's apartment, and her agitation. It was hard to be in the same room with her sometimes, she was so stirred up, pacing back and forth, pulling on one cigarette after another until the room was filled with the foul smoke.
In the meantime, she had stopped seeing her psychiatrist. Shortly after she was released from the hospital, we got a call from him. Lori's problems were more serious than he was prepared to handle, he told us. Lori needed more help than he could give, so he was recommending that we find another doctor. He was saying that Lori was really sick—much sicker than we had thought at first. But I couldn't hear him. I didn't want to hear him.
Partly it was my love for Lori that blinded me: I didn't want to see what was happening before my eyes. My daughter Lori was pretty and smart and talented. She was a model student and a model teenager. Everyone loved her. She was supposed to go to college, meet a wonderful man, get married, have children and live a long and happy life. I couldn't accept anything that got in the way of that picture.
But partly it was my own professional background, my training in psychology, that—rather than helping me—made it almost impossible for me to face what was happening. Back when I studied psychology in the 1950s, there was only one cause for all mental illnesses, even the most severe: a faulty upbringing. Everything was tied to the way you were raised. There were different schools of thought, of course. Some practitioners followed a Freudian model where understanding the id, the ego and the superego gave the answer to everything. Some followed Jung, with his emphasis on unconscious myths. But everyone believed that it was early life experiences that were behind mental disorders. A patient with serious mental problems had been subject at an early age to unacceptable pressures, to confusing messages, or to some destructive behavior on the part of the parents.
If Lori were really sick, my training told me, then I was to blame. I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. So I refused to believe that Lori was really sick.
Nonetheless, Nancy and I were both ready to try anything that would help our little girl. When her psychiatrist suggested that rather than psychotherapy we try drug therapy, we were more than willing to listen. There was a man in New York, a Dr. Nathan Kline, who was experimenting in the field of psychopharmacology. He had established quite a reputation already for treating young people's psychological problems with drugs. There was even a whole clinic named after him. After reading some clippings that described all the good he was doing for young people like our daughter, we sent Lori over to his clinic on the east side of Manhattan.
After several weeks of treatment it seemed to me that Lori was much better. Her depressions didn't seem as severe, and she seemed much calmer. She seemed more in control, more relaxed. I thought the drug therapy was doing her good. Nancy disagreed.
“Marvin, that's not Lori,” she said to me one night. “That's not who Lori is. Look at her eyes. She's just drugged, she's in a stupor. He's giving her way too much medicine. She's taking ten or twenty pills a day.”
I knew he was giving her
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