The insurance company wanted me out of Del Amo fast. They didn’t understand why a person with DID would need special psychiatric care. Of course, they’d spring for a few more unnecessary sinus surgeries, or a heart transplant. But DID? Forget it. They did agree to hospitalize me in the local psych unit, though, if I tried to kill myself.
Ed Mandel went to bat for me, arguing that psychologists and psychiatrists at most psychiatric hospitals weren’t that familiar with DID and would likely be unable to deliver the kind of treatment I needed. But the insurance company people wouldn’t listen and pulled the plug after only six days.
Before we left, Ed hastily found a therapist named Scott Mosely, whose office was in Pleasanton, ten miles from Leona. Scott, whose name Ed located in the ISSD directory, said he had experience working with multiples. He sounded nice on the phone when Ed put me on, and we agreed to meet as soon as I got home. Ed had done what he could; he’d make a note on my chart: Outpatient therapy in place.
We said tearful goodbyes to Kris and Jody, and Stephanie muttered, “Take care of yourselves.” Then Robbie popped out, shook my hand firmly and told me to say goodbye to Dusty for him. Dusty felt his hand in mine, a small, woman’s hand to me, but to her, the hand of a teenage boy. She wanted desperately to talk to him one last time, but was too afraid of Stephanie to come out. She never got to say goodbye.
On the plane ride home my mind was jumping like the kernels in a Jiffy Pop pan. How does the brain work? How does my brain work? How does DID differ from other psychiatric conditions? What’s the psychophysiology of DID? How does emotional trauma affect neuromechanisms?
All those years ago I’d thought about becoming a psychologist. Was it because I knew something was wrong with me? Because I needed help? I looked out the window over the wing and thought about Arly Morelli and Ed Mandel—deft, perspicacious, smart, respected.
I’m smart ... when my mind works. Maybe I’ll never be able to work with people the way they do, but I can learn what they know. Master the mind. My mind. Mastermind. Respect myself. Ooh, big one. How about not hate myself. Hah! We can become a psychologist. Help others. How? Somehow. The Krises, the Stephanies, the Cams. Leif can help study. He can do anything. We can do this. Wait. We can’t be in a classroom with other people. How would we even find our way to school? There must be good programs where we can work from home. Be safe at home. I'll bet there are psychology programs for people who can’t go to classrooms. Working people. Yeah, we can find one of those. It’ll have to be a good one, an accredited one. No Joe’s College and Storm Doors. Course not. We can do this. If I can stay alive long enough.
I borrowed a pen from a young female flight attendant with big hair and wrote on a napkin. Goal: Become a psychologist. Do this now!
* * *
Before I knew it the plane was touching down at Oakland airport, and Rikki and Kyle were at the gate waiting for me. They recognize me. I must look familiar. Goddamn, I was glad to be back with my family. Rik slipped me the GI Joe when Kyle wasn’t looking, and I presented it to him with a flourish. His eyes got as big as boccie balls and he jumped into my arms and hugged me like a long-lost pal.
Rikki looked sparkling in a mauve print dress and turquoise earrings. Meeting with Nancy had replenished some of her strength, and she didn’t seem tepid or scared, just glad to see me. She kissed me like she meant it, and when she did her mouth opened a little and my body lit up inside like somebody’d poured out a long line of gasoline and dropped a match at one end. Maybe later ...
The three of us stopped for lunch at Val’s in Hayward, a restaurant that’s been around since 1958, serving huge milkshakes and juicy burgers cooked by a guy with a big gut and tattoos, and delivered by a waitress named Tina in a white bowling shirt and black Laura Petrie pedal pushers, with a pencil stuck in her beehive hair.
We thought Val’s would be a special treat for Kyle, but we were wrong. Val’s had way too much character for him to appreciate. It just wasn’t McDonald’s enough for him. Imagine that. The little guy had two bites of his Baby Burger and pushed it away. He liked the milkshake though, sort of—the real ice cream was a curve ball, but he got used to it—and of course he had Roadblock to play with, so he was happy.
Rikki and I held hands—holding hands was good—and talked about her going back to work. I tried not to sound too scared about it; I could see she’d made up her mind. Then I sprang my plan to become a psychologist, which shocked her. Not because it was such a huge task—she’d seen me accomplish difficult things before.
“You just got back from...” she wanted to say hospital, but couldn’t in front of Kyle, so she gestured at my arm with a lot of eyebrows.
“How will you be able to do schoolwork?” she asked. What Rikki meant was, “Hey, you usually don’t know what day it is, or even what year. How are you going to go to school?”
“You’re going to see patients?” she said with a lot of doubt.
“Not every psychologist sees patients, Rik.” I played with my napkin. “I need to learn. I need something to concentrate on, to focus my mind on.”
“What you need to focus on is—” She looked for a code word. “Getting ... ah ... feeling ... well.” She gave me a stern look but a smile peeked through. Then it turned into a grin and I grinned back at her. It was kind of fun and funny sitting in Val’s, sipping chocolate milkshakes, talking over Kyle’s head. The only-we-know-what-we’re-talking-about kind of funny. Even if it was about deadly serious stuff. But, truthfully, getting well seemed a lot more far-fetched than getting a Ph.D. at that moment.
“Maybe this guy Mosely will work out,” I said, dunking a huge onion ring in ketchup. “And if he doesn't, we’ll go to that guy’s list ... that guy you met at the meeting ... Sally’s husband.”
“Cam,” she said, taking my free hand and giving it a squeeze, “you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do. We both know it. So, if you’ve made up your mind to get your Ph.D., then you’ve got my support. Maybe there’s a program you could do from home, a distance learning program. I’m sure there are good ones.”
“Exactly.” That was Rikki, always thinking.
“Will you be ... uh, fine ... while I’m at work?” Rikki didn’t smile when she asked me that. It wasn’t even a little funny. Would everything go to hell when she wasn’t there? She wanted to know. I couldn’t answer that. I loved Kyle. Rikki knew that. I wanted to keep him away from the sticky web of my madness. She knew that, too. Would I be able to? Neither of us knew the answer to that.
“We can always call you at work,” I said. “When you go to work you’ll just be a phone call away, right?”
Rikki nodded. Kyle looked up at her from his toy questioningly. Kids hear everything. She smiled at him brilliantly.
“Right,” she said. “Just a phone call away.”