Memories of an Essence — Chapter 4

Chapter Four

From Wildcat to Pussy Cat

The Saga of Lisa Kay

isa Kay was designed and programmed by what happened just before and just after the period

L Becky to protect Sad Marie's rights. She acted out to the ultimate, committing all those "evil sins" we condemn in our society. As of amnesia. Those times would provide the brack- ets around her amnesic episode. "I had my son over for the night," she Becky told me when I complained, "I cannot stop replied. "I must have put him to bed, but I don't her from acting out. She was made to do what she remember tucking him in." does. But I will stop her before she hurts anyone." "What is the last thing you do remember She drank and smoked. She tried to seduce doing?" I asked. anyone with pants on. She wanted to have fun in all "I was looking at my parents' Bible," she the wild and crazy ways Americans have invented replied. to take risks. She had no shame, and she wanted to "What exactly do you remember reading be loved. Oh, how she wanted to be loved and last in that Bible?" treated with respect! What she failed to do was to "Now I know! I saw the date my parents treat anyone else with respect. As a result, Lisa were married, and it was just nine months before I Kay was the most flamboyant and memorable of was born. I remember thinking my mother must all my patient's alter-personalities, the ultimate in have been pregnant with me when they got married. what I called persecutor alter-personalities. Those Then I got this terrible headache and blacked out." were designed to contain and process the intense "OK, then, what were you doing when you anger all the false-front Maries developed against came to again?" those who brutalized her during the first three "I was in a bar smoking and drinking. I decades of her life. Ultimately, she was a protector, could see the clock behind the bar; it was 11:30 at a warrior in the trenches fighting to keep the body night. My son was at home alone, so I got out of alive until the Original Marie could come back there real quick. I went home to check on him. He home. was still asleep, and he was OK. He had been **** tucked in real neat, but I didn't do it. Who did that, The telephone rang. "Dr. A, this is Marie Doctor?" Kelly calling," the anxious voice said. "I don't like "I don't know, Marie, but when you get to what just happened to me." the office, maybe we can find out. You have a three "What was that?" I asked. o'clock appointment, you know." "I was at home last night and blacked out at about 9:00 p.m. The next thing I knew, I was in When Sad Marie arrived, she added other a bar with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the details to her story. other! Doctor A, I haven't smoked in 18 years, and "Yesterday I was watching the apartments I haven't had anything to drink for five years! This while my mother was at work. One of the tenants is terrible!" called me to complain about his dirty rug. He got "What were you doing when you blacked real angry with me, and I found myself getting out?" I asked. The fastest way to determine what angry right back. Then I heard myself cussing him had gone on during her blackout was to find out out, but it wasn't me talking! It must have been

somebody else, 'cause I never get mad. I was so to talk to whomever was responsible for these upset about it I went to see my brother and mother, blackouts. I knew there must be one alter- who had just gotten home. I told them about it, and personality responsible for all these situations Sad Mom went over and apologized to him for me." Marie mentioned. The ISH brought to the patient's "That is strange," I allowed. awareness events that were the responsibility of "I felt like I did one time when I was eight one alter-personality at a time, when it was that years old, and the doctor gave me barbiturates. He alter-personality's time to be involved in therapy. said I had abdominal epilepsy. But I know now that When the new one appeared, I went down I was just in a dreamy state and didn't feel like I my usual list of questions -- name, age now, age of was me. The pills made me feel that I was not in origin, incident of origin, and purpose of existence. my body, but floating somewhere else. I didn't like She identified herself as Lisa Kay, age 21, created the way I felt, but that was the same sort of feeling when her father took her dog away. She did not I had yesterday. Doctor, what's wrong with me?" have a name of her own until 1971 when Sad "Keep going, Marie. What else happened Marie had a therapeutic abortion. Sad Marie had then?" planned to name her second baby Lisa Kay. "Well, I could hear Mary Lou calling to "I'm the fighter, Doc. I have to fight for me, but I haven't let her out like I promised her I Marie, for everything, since she won't fight for would." anything for herself. And I'm going to kill Marie "Why not, Marie?" I asked. for killing that baby. I'm just waiting until her SSI "I don't know, I guess I'm just afraid to. money comes in. Then I'll set up a little auto Actually, the reason is because I don't feel comfort- accident for her after she goes back to Sacramento able with something that I really don't believe is to live. That accident won't be too small, though, true. But I also heard another voice say, 'You hate because I'm going to come back, and she's going to your father.' Now why would anyone say that? I die. The accident's going to be big enough to kill love my father and always have. How could anyone her and let me live." not love their father? I love my father, I mean it. I "Why the blackout in January?" I asked. LOVE MY FATHER. Nobody has any right to say "That was to pay her back for aborting the that I don't love him. He's my father, and I have to baby. No one should ever do that!" she retorted. love him, because he's my father." "Once I tried to kill her brother when we were both The reason she was so intent on wanting little. And that husband of hers! What a jerk! I got others to believe she loved her father was because a gun once and pointed it right at him, but he got she didn't. She had to convince herself she loved his hand on the hammer before I could blow the her father because she had suffered so much abuse motherfucker's head off. from him. I was going to have to tread lightly on "I was the one who shot George, her no- this subject. good husband, when Marie caught him in the nude "Some fathers are not very lovable," I said. with her girlfriend after she brought Mark home "Have you had any blackouts before?" from the hospital. He's a fucking asshole. He was "Yeah," she said. "I had one last January great in bed once, but I took care of him. He when I took an overdose. I woke up at 5:30 in the couldn't keep up with me. He didn't even know that morning, but I didn't know what had happened. I it was someone else he was screwing! He thought found myself choking on a bunch of pills in my it was dear sweet piss ant, Marie! Boy, is he an mouth. I couldn't remember trying to swallow ass!" them, though." "What were you doing out at the bar last I told Sad Marie to close her eyes. I asked night?" I continued, controlling my curiosity.

"Having fun, what else?" she answered. occurred. I also suggested she allow Mary Lou to "Somebody's got to have some fun. That piss ant come out when her own eight-year-old son was Marie won't go anywhere. She just sits around and visiting her. She should explain to him that there feels miserable all the time. I get tired of that shit, was a little girl inside of her who needed to come so I dress up properly and go out to have a few out and play once in awhile. She agreed. drinks and meet some interesting men. And Doc, ***** don't you dare tell Marie what my name is. She "I've just got to see Dr. Allison, and right isn't strong enough to take that." now!" announced Lisa Kay to the mental health That protective feeling of Lisa Kay toward clinic receptionist. Sad Marie was one of the strange paradoxes I "What should I tell him is the problem?" never got used to hearing. Here was an alter- asked the receptionist. -personality determined to kill off her psychic "You tell him Lisa Kay says Marie is sister, and yet she didn't want me to upset Sad about to kill herself, and it isn't time for that!" she Marie by telling her the name of her potential announced. "I've got to stop her, and he's got to killer! It didn't make any sense, but what did in this help me!" system? When the receptionist called me with that "Are you aware of Mary Lou?" I asked. strange message, I came out and ushered Lisa Kay "Sure I am. I've met her before. I let her into my office. out one time when we were in a park, back in "What is going on, Lisa Kay?" I inquired. 1973. We get along OK. She doesn't give me any I could see Lisa Kay was wrought up, but it trouble. I know about a lot of things that go on seemed strange that she, who had so wanted to kill with us." Sad Marie, was trying to prevent her suicide. I was running out of time, and I always Nothing was as it should be with this patient of told Sad Marie what I had found at each visit. I mine. stood up and placed my right hand on Lisa Kay's "This morning Marie had to wait at the forehead, as she strongly protested that she wasn't doctor's office, which really pissed her off. She ready to leave yet. I could see she was not going to can't stand waiting when someone has promised be an easy one to handle, and I had to let her know when to see her. The doctor was half an hour late, I set the limits of time out in the office, not her. and she was fuming when he finally called her in. Lisa Kay got up to leave, and I had to stop her. She When she got home, her little boy told her there was not going to give up control of the body. She was some mail for her. She asked her brother was out, she was going to have fun, and nobody where it was, and he said there wasn't any. Then was going to stop her. Lisa Kay was not going to her mother phoned and told her she heard Marie go back under. I moved swiftly and blocked the had gotten a letter from the Social Security people. door. Lisa Kay did not like that one bit. With my Then, Marie knew her brother was lying. She got hand on her head, I persuaded her to return to her so upset she wanted to kill herself with the pills in chair. I kept Lisa Kay in the chair while I firmly her purse." called for Sad Marie to come out. Within a minute, "What happened next?" I asked. the face relaxed and looked depressed, as Sad "I knew it wasn't the right time for her to Marie had returned. die. I will decide when it is time for her to die! I I explained to her that I had met a Lisa want you to talk her out of it," Lisa Kay answered. Kay, who handled anger and having fun. I sug- "And I don't want her going back into that Ameri- gested that she could de-energize her by having can River Hospital she was at the last time. She some fun on her own and accepting any anger that can't take any more of that place."

What a bizarre situation, I thought. Here Lisa Kay shed that negative energy be- we have a murderous alter-personality coming to cause she wanted to be the one who told Sad Marie me to help rescue her psychic sister from killing when her time to die had come. She would not herself over a couple of minor irritations, and she allow Sad Marie to decide for herself. Control was is so concerned that Marie not be traumatized by Lisa Kay's primary need. She wanted and needed going into the wrong hospital! How weird can that control, and nobody was going to take it away things get? from her, ever. After all, her "so-called" father had Since Lisa Kay was acting helpful, I taken her dog and killed it, and she had had no thought I might as well play it out and let her have control over that. She now had control over Sad a chance to try out that role instead of the persecu- Marie, and she was going to keep it at all costs. tor role she knew so well. When Lisa Kay had shoved all of Sad "All right, Lisa Kay," I said, "close your Marie's suicidal anger energy into the can, her body eyes and go back inside of your head to find Ma- relaxed into the chair. When her eyes opened, a rie." As I spoke in a soft monotone, Lisa Kay depressed, worthless-feeling Sad Marie was in quickly went into a trance. "Now look at her and charge. see the suicidal feelings that are in and around her." "Dr. A! What am I doing here? I don't I knew that patients who saw auras identified red remember having an appointment with you today? with anger and black with evil, so I expected those What's this can doing in my hand?" colors to be Lisa Kay's mental picture of Sad I patiently explained that her erstwhile Marie's anger at the doctor and her brother. enemy, Lisa Kay, had come to her rescue today and "Now take that red-black energy from her had just saved her life. Her eyes widened at this and move it into your arms. I want you to move it news, but she was glad someone had taken charge. from her body into yours and then out of you. That She explained how her brother had lied to her, and will stop her from feeling so suicidal and calm her she was upset at getting mixed messages from her down." This was my chance to use my "bottle mother. routine" in which the patient moves anger energy I decided this was the time to solve this from her body into some object that can then be problem, instead of sitting there talking about how discarded in the trash. she felt about having the problem. Why talk about I looked around for some handy object that it if you can fix it? would fit into her hand, and all I could find was the "Marie," I said, "I have some free time root beer can left in my lunch sack. I took the right now. You're too upset to drive, so let me drive aluminum can out of the paper sack and put it you to your apartment. Then we can see if we can between Lisa Kay's hands. straighten this mess out this afternoon. Is your "Now push all of the suicidal energy from brother still home?" Marie into this can, Lisa Kay. Push as hard as you "He should be, Dr. A." need to to get it all out of her and you." While I "Let's go to my car and give him a visit." urged her on, her arm muscles tightened and We drove the three blocks to her apartment twitched. Her face was becoming contorted as if house. We walked up to the second floor where she she was lifting heavy weights. Her breathing pointed out her brother's apartment. became labored as if she was pushing concrete "Art, it's Marie!" she yelled as she knocked blocks in front of her. Her hands gripped the can on the door. "Open up. I need to talk to you." and slowly her fingers tightened around the alumi- A short thin man in his twenties timidly num cylinder, slowly crushing it between her two opened the door for his sister and her psychiatrist, fists. who stood a head taller than he did. "Come on in,

Sis," he said. When you filed this, no one knew about these other "Art, this is Dr. Allison, my doctor. I was personalities of yours. I'll write a supplemental telling him what you told me about no letter coming report about what I have discovered, and I'm sure for me and then Mom telling me there was a letter you'll win the award on appeal." Half the appli- from Social Security. He thought we should come cants were turned down on their original applica- and talk with you to see if we could straighten this tion, but, of those who appealed, 80% won their out. Would you please explain to him what you award. told me, so we can find out what happened?" Marie then had one of her few good ideas. Her brother looked sheepishly at his sister She picked up her brother's phone and dialed her and nervously shuffled his feet. He was used to mother's work number. When she got her mother keeping things from his sister, but he hadn't on the phone, her voice was stern and strong. counted on her coming home with this big, tall "Mom, I'm at Art's place, and I have the Social psychiatrist who loomed over him. Maybe he hadn't Security letter. Mom, why did you tell him to hide been so smart to go along with Mother on this deal. it and then tell me it had come? . . . Mom, you "Mom told me not to give it to you, Marie. She didn't have to protect me from seeing it; it was my said it would get you too upset." letter, you know. . . . I've shown it to Dr. Allison, "Then why would she tell me on the phone and he says we can win an appeal 'cause he's going I got it, Art?" she asked. to write a new report on me. So you didn't need to "I don't know, Sis. I was just doing what hide it. I can take care of it. . . . Mom, please don't she told me," he mumbled in reply. "I'll get it." He hide my mail from me, ever again! Mom, do you knew he should have known better than to get hear me? Don't you ever do this to me again, himself caught in another double play between his understand?" mother and sister. When Sad Marie hung up the phone, her He walked over to his desk, opened the top heart was racing. She started to feel guilty for drawer, and pulled out an official looking envelope, talking to her mother that way, but she had strength with the Social Security Administration address in with her therapist there. After all, he was going to the upper left corner. He handed it to Sad Marie, help her get her SSI. He was a wonderful person, who found the flap already opened. She pulled out even though he told her things she didn't believe. the single sheet inside. She read it quickly and How else could she explain the blackouts? His started to cry. I took it from her hand and read a explanation might be the correct one. rejection letter to her application for SSI. The last She hung up the phone with a defiant look paragraph was what was most important as it told in her eyes. Never before had she dared to tell her the claimant to file an appeal if she disagreed with mother she had done something wrong. It was this finding. The instructions were on the other side always the other way around, with her mother of the letter. pushing her buttons, messing with her mail. Thanks "They turned me down for SSI, Dr. A," to her doctor being there, she had been able to tell she moaned. "Now what am I going to do? I might her mother off. Maybe there was hope for her after as well kill myself. I can't keep on going this way. all! Now Mom will write bad checks for me and go When the time came for the SSI appeal back to jail." hearing, Sad Marie was living in Woodland, and I had heard enough of this sad tale of woe, the hearing was to be in Sacramento. She would be and I had had plenty of experience with patients a danger on the roads if she drove alone, so I with MPD who had been rejected for SSI. "Don't offered to drive her. Her hands were shaking, and worry, Marie," I said. "The facts are different now. her stomach was tied in knots. She was having a

panic attack over the very idea of being at a hear- out. I hoped against hope it wasn't Lisa Kay, as she ing. She was waiting for me when I pulled up to was always angry with me. I had no free hand to her apartment house the morning of the hearing. put on her forehead right now. "Hi, Dr. A," Sad Marie said, as she got Lisa Kay sat there, sassy as ever. "Hi ya, into my car. "I'm sure glad you're willing to drive. Doc," she started. "Well, here we are on the way to This whole thing makes me nervous. By the way, Sacramento, to go to the great big SSI hearing. I Mom will be coming from her job, so she will meet sure hope we get us there." I headed for the freeway to Sacramento. I hoped that Sad Marie would stay calm, as I had no body guard if she started acting up. In the office, I always had arranged to have someone sit in with me, just in case, but I couldn't expect anyone to take the afternoon off because I was scared of one patient. Sad Marie was so frightened her voice was shaking. Inside her head, the voices were talking a mile a minute, and she had a horrible headache, having not slept the night before. I tried to keep her mind off the SSI hearing by talking about other things, but the only thing she could think about was getting the voices to SHUT THE FUCK UP! She didn't tell me about what was going on in her head because we were not in a therapy session, and I was driving. The voices were saying, "YOU ARE

Mine! I'M Going to Kill You Tonight,

Marie! Don'T Think We Don'T Know

What You Are Trying to Do! You Are

Trying to Get Rid of Us, But You

Won'T! We Are Stronger and You Are

Going to Die!"

As we drove east on Highway 80, Sad Marie did her best to keep up a normal front. But soon the tension got the better of her, and she decided to close her eyes and get some sleep, hoping the voices and headache would stop. She knew that I was treating her for MPD, but she didn't believe it because she never saw anyone, and she couldn't understand how other people could inhabit her body and call themselves by other names. Her body was only one. How could others live in it? I saw through the corner of my eye that she had shifted in the seat and someone else had come

until the right time. And the right time is when in a most formal manner. He covered all the legal Marie is dead, and then you are next! This is your points as prescribed by the Social Security code so only warning, you fucker!" that there would be no chance for an argument, This conversation continued the 25 min- once he had concluded this hearing. He had been utes it took to drive to the office building. Fortu- through this type of hearing many times, and he nately, Lisa Kay only wanted to sit there and knew what needed to be done to keep it legal. After badmouth me, flirt with me and taunt me. She he finishing reading the required paragraphs in loved to get under my skin and see if she could front of him, he asked Taylor for his report on this make me angry. This time she kept her behavior applicant. within the bounds of civility, and the bantering "We have here," said Taylor, "a woman back and forth between us two was about equal. who has only gone to high school with mediocre Neither one tried to one up the other one, as neither grades. She attended one trade school but could not wanted a physical confrontation in the car on a hold down a job in that field. She has been unable busy freeway at high noon. Both of us were careful to stay out of psychiatric hospitals for any time at to mind our manners and knew how far we could all before she attempts suicide again. She has no go and not really irritate the other one. marketable talents that I can determine. She is As soon as I parked my car at the office constantly in a state of crisis and cannot be ex- building in Sacramento, I was relieved to see that pected to handle even the minimal stresses of a Sad Marie had come back in charge of the body. simple job. I note here that she is now attending The timid, depressed patient walked into the lobby classes at American River College. I frankly do not with me. After entering the door marked "Board of see how that is possible, as she is too disabled for Appeals," we met Mr. Manuel Gonzalez, the that, in my opinion. She is totally disabled, I am paralegal from the Legal Aid Society who had been afraid, and I see no hope for her rehabilitation." assigned to represent her in this hearing. He had all When Sad Marie heard that gloomy pre- the papers on her case, but this was the first time I diction, she almost bolted for the door. How horri- had met him. ble to say that about someone who is in the room At 11 o'clock, the clerk opened the door to listening! GOD, how the voices had a field day the conference room and asked everyone to come with that one after he finished testifying. They in. In the center of the room was a long mahogany would not SHUT UP! The voices kept saying, table, with chairs positioned around it. The referee, "SEE, WE TOLD YOU, THAT YOU ARE NO Henry Stonebridge, a large, stocky man, sat at the GOOD! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE, MARIE, A head of the table, farthest from the door to the HORRIBLE AND SLOW DEATH, AND WE waiting room. Sad Marie took the chair to his ARE GOING TO MAKE YOU SUFFER! WE immediate right and Gonzalez sat on her right. I sat ARE LAUGHING AT YOU!" directly across from the referee. Across from Marie Referee Stonebridge looked at me and said, sat a man who introduced himself as Mr. Henry "I see here that we have a recent psychiatric report Taylor from the Department of Rehabilitation. The by Dr. Allison. Would you care to elaborate on seat next to Taylor was empty. The clerk had her what you have written regarding this applicant, stool and transcription machine near the door, Doctor?" where she could see everyone and record all that I gave a short synopsis of how I had met was said. her at the clinic earlier that year and my subsequent "I have here a petition appealing a rejection finding of several alter-personalities. I described of the SSI grant for one Marie Francis Kelly," said the hostile and suicidal actions of Lisa Kay and the referee, as he read through the pages before him Lynn. I could tell Stonebridge was politely skepti-

cal. I knew the referee must be used to seeing Lisa Kay just smiled at him like a cat at chronically mentally ill patients at this table look- her prey. ing somewhat like how their doctors described in The referee asked me what he could do to their reports. Here was a quiet, well behaved, stop Lisa Kay, how he could get her to sit outside subdued woman sitting before him while her doctor so he could finish the hearing. described a wild woman. She couldn't be the one he Lisa Kay did not like being dismissed, and was looking at now. she just stared at everyone, refusing to leave. While I was speaking, Sad Marie couldn't Nobody was talking to her, so what fun was that? take it anymore, as the voices were driving her out Lisa Kay decided to retreat for the moment, and of her mind. Her headache was blinding her, so she Sad Marie came back in charge of the body, know- closed her eyes, and that was all she knew. ing only that she had blacked out again. The referee Lisa Kay was out like a flash. She hiked asked her to leave the room while they finished up her skirt and swung her legs around so the discussing her case. referee could see them. She batted her eyes at the Sad Marie hated being dismissed. It was referee while she yelled at the still-testifying doctor, her hearing, so why should she leave? She thought "YOU ARE A LYING TWO-FACED ASSHOLE it was grossly unfair. But who was she to com- OF A DICK DOCTOR, AND YOU BETTER plain? She was a nobody, absolutely a NOBODY! STOP LYING!" With that brazen exhibition, Stonebridge The room was suddenly quiet, and Lisa was convinced that his initial skepticism of the Kay knew she had everyone's attention. She then psychiatric report was unjustified. Here he had a turned to the referee and asked, "Wouldn't you like hussy trying to make a date with him in front of his to leave, go for lunch and then do something fun staff and clients, and he could not call that normal afterwards? You get my drift?" She coyly winked behavior. His voice and manner clearly indicated at him. that no more need be said to convince him that this I looked at Lisa Kay and then at the referee patient had other personalities. All he needed to do and said, "Now you can see what I have to deal was complete the formalities of the hearing. within the office all the time. The person in front of Stonebridge issued his judgment. "I hereby you is not Marie but an alter-personality named find that Marie Francis Kelly is totally disabled as Lisa Kay. She has joined us and is doing her usual defined by the Social Security regulations and is thing." entitled to receive a grant of Supplemental Security Lisa Kay retorted, "You bet that I'm not Income. Now, Dr. Allison, how do you think we that PISS ANT, Marie! I'm me, Lisa Kay! NOW should handle the funds she will now have coming SHUT UP! I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU! I'M to her?" He was obviously anxious to make sure TALKING TO THE CUTE JUDGE AND NOT this claimant not waste her SSI grant or that Lisa AN OLD FART LIKE YOU!" Kay get her hands on it. Turning to the referee, she shifted into her I had conferred with the Yolo County seduction mode. "Judge, now that we got the damn Public Guardian to learn how he might help me. He doc to shut his mouth, let's you and I get out of was willing to handle Marie's money and let a here and go for a drink, and really get to know each responsible relative stay involved as conservator of other. You are very cute, so let's get it on. What do the person. For a mentally ill person, often the you say?" worst person to handle the money was a close Stonebridge's mouth was open, but he must relative. The family relationships were usually have forgotten to breathe, since, when he did severely strained because of problems between the remember, he took a very deep breath. sick relative and the healthier relatives. Money

meant control, and the mentally ill relatives usually handle this lady with kid gloves, or the patient resented being reduced to an infantile position of would be the one to suffer. being totally dependent again on a parent for all "Mrs. Garrett, I have heard the testimony their worldly needs. This put too much pressure on in this appeal of the rejection of the SSI grant, and both parties. The Public Guardian was a neutral it has been determined that Marie Kelly meets the party who could handle the money while allowing criteria of the Social Security Administration and a responsible relative handle the social and medical should receive the grant." He could see Mother's crises that inevitably occurred. posture soften somewhat with the good news. Now I knew that her mother had been sitting all he had to soften the bad news and make it sound this time out in the waiting room. I wanted to make like more good news. "In addition, since she is sure that Mother did not come off looking bad in this hearing. I also knew Sad Marie resented her mother's control of her funds, and that anything we could do to remove money from her mother's hands would greatly reduce Sad Marie's internal level of tension. Any reduction of chronic stress in Sad Marie would make my job that much easier. "Mrs. Kelly is now under a probate conser- vatorship in Sacramento County, with her mother as conservator," I stated. "Since she had no money of her own, there has been none to deal with. But she is now living in Yolo County, where I see her in the county clinic. I would recommend that the probate conservatorship be transferred to the Yolo County Public Guardian and he be in charge of distributing the SSI grant. I am sure he would be glad to have her mother still in charge of her personal affairs, such as permission for medical treatment." The referee nodded his agreement and asked his clerk to have Mrs. Garrett come in and join them at the table. She sat in the empty chair to my right, staring straight ahead so she didn't have to look at me. I felt as if an iceberg had moved in next to me, so chilly was the atmosphere. Stonebridge did his best to look as official as possible. He realized the importance of his decision and how he presented it to this particular patient's mother. He had seen the intense love and equally intense hostility that often exists between the severely disabled adults and their guilt ridden parents, who thought authority figures, such as him, were looking down on them with shame for having such problem children. He knew he had to

such a high pressure environment. I mentored one "Well, what a couple of virgins you are second year resident at a time at the clinic in today! I can't even talk you into coming out for a Woodland. This month, Dr. Sam Talbert was couple of drinks after the session? I promise no assigned to journey with me for a while. I invited monkey business. Come on, what do you say?" the ex-USAF flight surgeon to sit in on my sessions "No thanks, Lisa Kay," I said. "Now, let's with Sad Marie. get on with therapy, shall we? What would you like This time, Lisa Kay decided that it was to talk about today?" going to be her turn to be the patient. She did not "Well, I want to talk about you handsome think there was anything wrong with her, since it men, but if you two are going to be nothing but was Sad Marie who was so depressed and suicidal virgins to your wives, then I want you to know that all the time. She liked the looks of that new doctor, I intend to do Marie in even before she gets that Dr. Talbert. So he wasn't as young as the guys she SSI money. I don't think I can wait that long. She met in the bars in Davis, but she had a hankering doesn't deserve to live. You both know that, right?" for older men, too. After all, they should be more I didn't like that kind of talk. It meant Sad experienced, shouldn't they? She showed up for the Marie was getting more depressed, as her depres- scheduled session, ready to do her business. sion always fueled Lisa Kay's murderous impulses. "Hi Docs, how ya doing today?" she piped After all, they were a part of the same energy up. system inside the mind. What one thought affected "What are you doing here today, Lisa the other's emotions. I decided I had better get on Kay?" I asked. "By the way, meet Dr. Talbert, who with age regression therapy to see if I could under- is with us for a while." cut some of the depressing memories I knew were "Yeah, he's quite a turn on for an old man. behind it all. Hey, you guys, I have a great idea. Let's just forget "Just close your eyes and become younger this therapy nonsense and skip out of here, OK? I as I count backwards," I said. With that, Lisa Kay think that we could have a fun time this afternoon. went into trance and drifted backwards in time, After all, you don't have anybody else scheduled growing younger by my count. "Twenty-eight, 27, after me. We can go out for a few drinks and see . . . 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5," I intoned. "When you open what comes next, get my drift? I'll pick up the tab, your eyes, you will be the five-year-old Marie, able I've got some money. Well, what do you say? I'm to talk to me about whatever is important." not as bad as you think, Dr. A. Just give me a When the eyes opened, Lisa Kay was gone, chance to prove it to you." and in her place was the five-year-old girl she used "Well, thanks for the invitation, but I think to be. I'll pass. My wife wouldn't like it, plus a doctor This young Marie talked with me about and patient can't mix business with pleasure. How recently leaving the hospital after a tonsillectomy . about you, Dr. Talbert?" I was hoping that the Her parents didn't visit her during the first two resident, an retired Air Force Flight Surgeon, days there, and she wondered if something bad had would catch my drift and reject the invitation to a happened to them. She also had a little sister now. party with this patient's alter-personality. I didn't She complained that her parents played with her want to tell Dr. Talbert what to do, but I wanted sister a lot, but they never played with her. the two of us to be solidly unified in rebuffing Lisa Her name was Marie Francis, she knew, Kay's invitation. but she hated that name now. The girl next door "I think I'll pass, too, Lisa Kay," Dr. was named Lou. She decided to borrow that name Talbert replied. "I've got too many things to learn and wanted to be called Mary Lou after this. I around here to go out socializing." agreed to go along with her wishes, now I had

discovered where this new name came from. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. What she couldn't tell this strange doctor I had told her how, on the psychiatric ward was that the sound of the name "Marie Francis" in Santa Cruz, I had instructed a helper alter- grated on her ears. But she liked the sound of personality of a multiple how to stop a persecutor "Mary Lou." So she had asked her father to call her alter-personality from running out of the ward. I that. Now, when he raped or tortured her, he told the helper that she could "pull the plug" on the whispered in her ear, "Mary Lou, my sweet Mary runaway one and cause her to faint as soon as she Lou." She loved her new name, but she also came put one foot outside the ward. The would-be to hate it. She knew what her father was doing to runaway alter-personality then opened the door and her was wrong, but he told her he loved her while promptly fell on her face in a full faint. he was doing it. Disconcertedly, she came back into the ward on the After Mary Lou had explained this, I arm of the nurse and tried to escape again an hour started counting up from five to 28 again, so she later. When she woke up with her nose on the could age progress back to the present. When her linoleum of the hallway the second time, she de- eyes opened, it was Sad Marie who was in charge, cided she could not outsmart Dr. Allison that way, but only for a moment. She blinked, and Lisa Kay so she stayed on the ward until I decided to dis- was there again. charge her. Since this was the time after I had met "Inside Lisa Kay there is the same switch Wendy, a helper, I let Lisa Kay know I had some you can pull which will cause her to faint and fall help available. I told her about Wendy, and Lisa on the floor. If worse comes to worse, just pull that Kay told me I was full of shit. Still, she knew that switch and stop her in her tracks before she has a I didn't lie, so she asked for proof. chance to hurt anyone. Then call me. OK?" I asked Lisa Kay to write her name on a "Sure, I can do that, now that you tell me piece of paper, knowing that when she did, I could I can. Well, I'd better let Lisa Kay back now." switch her to automatic writing. She wrote "Lisa With that, she faded from control, allowing Kay Grayce Spaulding." Then I quietly said, Lisa Kay to return to consciousness. When Lisa "Wendy, will you please write something for Lisa Kay came back in control, she looked down at the Kay?" pad and saw the writing. She told me that I was the Her hand started to move as the pencil one who had written the words and signed Wendy seemed to write by itself. "Dear Lisa Kay, you are to it. I told Lisa Kay that I had not, and there was done for. [signed] Wendy," appeared on the paper someone else in there to help Sad Marie if anything in front of us. Then Wendy came out. might happen to her. Lisa Kay said, "Nothing will I warned, "Wendy, I feel it is a risky time happen to Marie, until I decide enough is enough, right now. Lisa Kay is getting too strong, and and then I'll kill that BITCH forever and ever." Marie is not helping, with all her suicidal tries over "Hey, you men," she continued, "I guess every little thing." you're going to just have to miss out on all the fun "I know that," Wendy answered. "Last today. I've got to get back to school to meet with a night Lisa Kay made Marie take eight of her couple of guys there who are willing to enjoy antidepressant pills. Luckily, they didn't seem to do themselves." With that, she stood up, and sashayed any harm, or we wouldn't be here today." her way out of the office. "Keep a sharp eye out for trouble, will We two doctors looked at each other and you, Wendy?" I suggested. "If Lisa Kay acts out burst out laughing. What a sight to see this de- bad enough that you have to stop her, you can 'pull pressed, overweight, suicidal patient come in acting her plug.'" all sexy and seductive, thinking she could invite us

out for a good old time on the town tonight! We explained what had happened. Then, without both wondered if she had really expected us to take warning, Lisa Kay came out and started battling her up on her invitation to party with her. The me with all the anger and hostility that she could whole scene was so incongruous and inappropriate, muster, so angry was she at everyone in the world. we just could not keep straight faces. What was I struggled to keep my skin intact, my eyes coming next, we wondered? in their sockets and my clothing untorn, while As Lisa Kay walked out to the parking lot, calling loudly for help from anyone next door. Sad she was also laughing, but with scorn. She was Marie's psychiatric nurse, Jane Parker, heard me going to fix our wagons. She had pretended she had and came to my aid. The two of us struggled with forgotten something and went back to the office. Lisa Kay all over the floor of that playroom for an She heard us laughing when she went by the door. hour while I tried to push Lisa Kay back inside and She was angry and hurt, and she was going to get call out a stronger helper alter-personality. us -- every last doctor. If she couldn't do that, she For a full hour, no one but Lisa Kay was was going to seriously hurt me for laughing at her. out, and Parker and I grabbed her wrists and She was going to start making Sad Marie's life ankles, fended off her blows, and listened to the miserable and kill her. She was going to hit, punch, most vulgar swearing imaginable. We tried to and anything else that she could do to Dr. Allison. explain to the secretaries, who looked in curiously, How dare he laugh at her! She was just trying to be that we knew what we were doing and, no, we nice. What's wrong with a couple of drinks? She didn't need the police yet. Both the doctor and was just being sociable. She was going to get her nurse wondered who was craziest here, we or the revenge on him. patient. We were rolling around the floor with her I'm going to get that ASSHOLE! SON OF while I kept yelling for a helper to come out, all the A BASTARD, DR. ALLISON! Marie is mine, and while trying to keep a hand on her forehead. I'm going to prove it! It will be so easy to finally I had learned this method of control in kill her, and I, LISA KAY, will be the only true Santa Cruz. One day one of my flamboyant multi- person to live on this earth! Marie is a PISS ANT ples had told me how the bangs hanging down her and does not belong in this world, because only forehead upset her when they touched her skin. the strong should survive, and the weak will die a That evening one of the nurses on the psychiatric thousand times! I'm the strongest one here and ward showed me an article reporting that a patient she is gone. She doesn't exist at all! with MPD could be induced to switch if the thera- A week later, Lisa Kay took over at col- pist put a finger or hand in the middle of her fore- lege and ran toward the street, trying to get hit by head. A Swedish psychiatrist had described this a car driving by the school. Wendy remembered my approach in an hypnosis journal over a decade advice and, as soon as Lisa Kay set foot on the before. When I tried it on my patient, she immedi- grass between the sidewalk and the roadside curb, ately switched alter-personalities. My touch on the Wendy "pulled her plug" and sent her face down on spot just between her two eyebrows upset her the lawn. Before Lisa Kay could recover, Wendy internal equilibrium and allowed the alter- took control of the body and walked to her car in -personality waiting in the "foyer" to come out and the parking lot. She drove to a nearby gas station replace the one then in control of the body. and phoned me for further instructions. When Lisa Kay had finally dissipated her I told her to drive directly to the Broderick anger-energy, Sad Marie was able to take control clinic across the Sacramento River to see me. I of the body. She had no idea why she was sitting waited for her in the clinic playroom. When she on the clinic playroom floor with toys scattered arrived, Wendy appeared quite composed as she around as if there had been a tornado through the

area, with her doctor and nurse sitting there holding with me, and she preferred to play with dolls. What her arms and legs. All her muscles were sore, and more could go wrong? she could feel her heart pounding as if she had just "Mary Lou, it is your turn to do something finished the marathon. for yourself," I announced. "You have the power to "What's going on here?" she asked. take control of this mess right here and now, and I "We've been fighting with Lisa Kay ever hope you will do so. You are the one who has to since Wendy brought you over here from college," get rid of Lisa Kay before she kills you or someone I panted. "Thank God you came out. I was about else. Now do your job and help me!" ready to give up and call for the ambulance." "It hurts too much," she moaned. "I'm not about to go to any hospital," Sad "What hurts too much?" I asked, puzzled. Marie responded, getting up from the floor and "Growing up. I don't know that I want to sitting herself in one of the child-sized chairs in the grow up anymore. I don't know if I even want to room. "I think I'll just go back to college where I live anymore. It just hurts too much." should be. I'm signed up, and I had better get back With that pathetic announcement, Mary to class, or the teacher will drop me. I can't afford Lou disappeared, to be replaced na06Iisa Kay. By to miss any school, or I will lose my grant money." then, I had had enough of this charade. I picked up Parker and I shook our heads. All Sad the phone, called the local ambulance company and Marie could think about was keeping her college ordered an ambulance dispatched to the Yolo grant money, to prevent costing her mother more money. What about her safety or her health? How about protecting those, too? Sad Marie felt she was going to die anyway, so she didn't care about her safety or health. She felt she was dead already. Exhausted, I decided to take charge. Since, at the time I was operating on the hope that Mary Lou was the original personality, who could grow and mature, I wanted her out to force her to take charge of this mess. I called again for Mary Lou to come out, all the time keeping my right palm on my patient's forehead. I said to Sad Marie, "I'm going to count to ten and, if Mary Lou isn't out by then, I'm sending you to the hospital. One, two, three . . ." As soon as I pronounced "TEN," Mary Lou was facing him, wondering why I had called her out. She immediately started playing with the toys on the floor, ignoring us. I was really irritated by then. I had stalled this long, hoping to get control of the situation so I could avoid the complications of a hospitaliza- tion. I had embarrassed myself in front of the clinic staff by wrestling on the floor of the playroom with an obviously hysterical adult female patient, risk- ing my neck as well as the safety of a nurse. Now I had out the primary personality who should work

could knock on the floor, kick, hit, bite and bruise. thing special for her to love me. So he is supposed to be our new dad, too. "One day, I was playing out in the back Well, I don't need him or any other man for a dad. yard when Dad came rushing out, yelling that they If that nurse, Jane, thinks she is like a mother to had to get rid of Bonnie since Bonnie was too much us, well, we took her down a notch or two. Both of trouble. Well, she did keep chewing up the flower them ended up on the floor of that playroom beds, but he had never been so mad about it be- because that is where I wanted them -- Down and fore." Out. Then, Mary Lou's face went blank, and I bet neither one of them ever laughs at Lisa Kay appeared in her place. I braced for an me again. Now they know what I'm capable of onslaught of insults and threats, but she was doing. Hell, I didn't want to kill Marie when I ran mellow and ready to give her version of what out into the street in front of the college. I knew happened that day. Becky, the ISH, had decided to that Wendy could stop me. I wanted her to do that. test me again that day to see if I was the correct She did what I wanted her to do next, call Dr. therapist for her charge. After my anxious begin- Allison and get me into his office when he wasn't ning in therapy with Sad Marie, Becky and the CIE prepared and didn't have his bodyguard around. had decided to keep testing me to see if I met their He's been too afraid of me to face me all by high standards. This was why they sent out Lisa himself, so I figured a way to get to him on my Kay in a helpful mood this time. terms. And that is just what I did. "Father was mad at Mother that day," Lisa Lisa Kay had assured the body of Marie Kay related. "He just took it out on Marie. As Francis Kelly being sent to Yolo General Hospital. usual, Marie thought she had done something There Mary Lou was primarily in charge, and she wrong, but that wasn't the way it was. It was cooperated in telling me whatever I wanted to know something else that was getting Father so mad at about the origin of Lisa Kay. I needed that knowl- that time." edge to be able to deal with her capably. I had to Since I knew that Lisa Kay had been understand her and her origins to figure out what to "born" as the dog was being killed by Father, she do next. could not know, from her own memory, what had I had heard several times in age regression happened in the minutes before Father came rush- therapy that both Lisa Kay and Marie, a young ing out the back door. I needed to talk to an al- false-front alter-personality, had been created ter-personality who existed before her dog's death, during an episode in which her pet dog, Bonnie, so I politely asked Lisa Kay to let Mary Lou come had been killed by her father. I needed to focus in back and talk with me. For a change, Lisa Kay was on that episode and get the full picture. I asked completely cooperative and faded, allowing Mary Mary Lou to tell me what she knew of that after- Lou to take charge again. noon. "Mary Lou," I said, "I want you to do "It was cold for three days and my cat was something different for me now. You were talking lost outside," she said. "My dad wouldn't let me go about how you saw your dad rush out the back out and find him. I loved that cat, but he didn't door and yell about the dog being too much trou- seem to care. When I did get outdoors, I found him ble. I want you to close your eyes and see in your frozen to death." mind's eye that scene again, as if you are looking at She continued, "That meant Bonnie, my a movie. As the back door is opening, see your dad little Scottish terrier, was my only friend. I knew coming through the doorway. As soon as you can that she was the only living thing in the entire see him in the doorway, freeze that frame of the world who loved me, and I didn't have to do any- movie. Stop everything and go into his mind.

There, I want you to read his thoughts, feel his Lou is no longer there, and a new Marie is created. feelings and tell me what you find there." Marie slides down the slide, crying all the way, and Mary Lou cooperated fully and reported to runs to her father, begging him not to hurt Bonnie. me, "He's mad at Mom, and he needs to get back at She pleads, "Please, I'll do anything for you, just her." don't hurt Bonnie, she didn't do anything wrong! "Why?" I asked. Please, I'll fix it!" "Mom is real unhappy about the marriage. Marie holds onto her father's leg until he She complained to him that she has no one to love kicks her off. Then she disappears, to be replaced her, and even Marie has her dog, Bonnie. She tells by the new Lisa Kay. She starts to kick, hit, punch, him that he is no man, and, if he has any balls at and bite him, all the while yelling to him, "DON'T all, he will do one thing right for her. And that is to KILL BONNIE!" kill Marie's dog. Then Marie will be as miserable Father yells at Lisa Kay, "STOP THAT as she is." OR YOU'RE GOING TO HURT FOR A LONG "OK," I said, "what happens next?" TIME!" "Father has had it with Mother always Lisa Kay hollers back, "YOU CAN KILL complaining about how no good he is. He can ME INSTEAD! JUST DON'T KILL BONNIE!" never do anything right by her. He thinks that Father kicks Lisa Kay out of his way, but maybe now he can please her by making Marie she goes after him again. totally miserable. If he kills the dog, Mother will be At that moment, Lisa Kay sees her mother happy because Marie will be more miserable than standing in the back doorway, watching the drama her. So he heads out the door to get rid of the dog with a sick grin on her face. one way or another." Bonnie is trying to bolt and run away, but "What happens then?" Father has a tight hold around her neck, and he still At this point the entire scenario began to has the BB gun under his other arm. Lisa Kay yells unfold in slow motion in Mary Lou's mind. Here is again that she was going to make him pay if he what she envisioned: hurts Bonnie, but he just laughs and tells his As he bolts out the back door, Father has daughter, "YOU JUST WATCH!" his son's loaded BB gun in his hand. He sees He ties one end of the leash to Bonnie's Bonnie digging up the flower beds, and that really collar and the other end to the garage doorknob. As gets him going. Father is a perfectionist about his Lisa Kay grabs onto one of his hands, he raises the landscaping and cannot tolerate any animal's claws BB gun with the 20 pellet magazine with his other tearing into it. He has also used that area to punish hand and fires the first shot at Bonnie. The dog Mary Lou whenever she is bad, when he would yelps in pain, and Lisa Kay disappears. Marie order her to weed, prune, water, paint, or sand comes back, stops fighting with her father and goes whatever needs improvement. limp like a rag doll. She glances up into his eyes When Father sees Bonnie in the flowers, and is shocked to see a look of joy as he gazes his mind snaps, and he yells at the dog. Bonnie down at his daughter's face. He fires the next shot, bolts and runs to Mary Lou as she is climbing the and the next, and the next, until Bonnie can no steps to the slide on the Jungle Gym in the play- longer cry out. -yard area. As Bonnie tries to climb the steps with Bonnie is still breathing when he runs out her, Father grabs Bonnie by the collar and yells at of pellets, so he goes into the garage to finish the Mary Lou. As he drags the dog away, Mary Lou job. reaches the top of the slide where she can see When Marie sees her father stop shooting Father jerking on the dog's neck. Suddenly Mary her pet, she thinks it was safe to hold her. With her

dog in her arms, she sings, "My Bonnie lies over her off to the hospital, I called her mother and the ocean; my Bonnie lies over the sea; my Bonnie asked her to check her daughter's car to find any lies over the ocean; oh, bring back my Bonnie to such weapons. me!" Mother knew her daughter with the cre- When Father comes out of the garage with ative imagination had put one over on her gullible a shovel in his hands, Marie is still holding Bonnie, doctor again. Knives and razor blades in the car, and he tells her to step away. "NO," she yells back. indeed! To show him for the fool that she knew him When she sees her father raise the shovel in the air, to be, she went to Sad Marie's car to prove to him Marie runs away, hearing the blade cracking down that her daughter had not hidden weapons there. on the dog's skull. She opened the passenger door and pushed When the dog is finally dead, Mother goes the glove compartment latch. To her surprise, there back inside the house. Father puts Bonnie's carcass on top of the maps were five single edged razor in the trash can and tells his daughter, "If you ever blades, still in their paper wrappings. Well, he's get out of line or don't do what I tell you to, I'll do sure not going to find those, she thought to herself. the same to you." That warning stayed with her for He's not about to find out that Marie told the truth as long as he was alive, making it impossible for this one time. She picked up the five blades and her to tell anyone what he had been doing to her. put them in her dress pocket, intending to mix them When I had heard the gist of the story, I with her own in her bathroom. was quiet for a long time. The emotions in the She then went around to the rear of the car room were too much to intellectualize about. and opened the trunk with her key. She looked Finally, I had to put it into context for my pres- under the papers and flares and, to her amazement, ent-day patient, Mary Lou. found three knives that she recognized belonged to "Now that I know the truth," I said, "I can the carving set she had given her daughter as a see that you were not the one at fault. You did all wedding present. She wrapped them in one of the you could to save Bonnie, but you were not big or old newspapers in the trunk, and carried her booty strong enough to stop your father. The other thing back into her daughter's apartment. you can see now is that your mother issued the After she had replaced the knives where execution order, while your father carried out the they belonged, she called me at the clinic. "Dr. sentence. You were only eight years old, but you Allison, this is Marie's mother. I wanted to let you did all you could do to stop them. I can't see that know that I checked Marie's car for those knives there was any more you could have done." and razor blades you told me about, and I couldn't Mary Lou saw my point. All these years find a thing like that. I checked and checked, but she had been filled with guilt at somehow having there were none in her car." been at fault for causing her father to do what he She smiled to herself. She was not about to had done to Bonnie. Now she could see that it was buy the doctor's cockeyed notion that her daughter not her fault, and she didn't have to feel guilty any had any sort of a mental disorder, and certainly not longer. one where she would use weapons. After all, she ***** had raised Marie to know right from wrong and In September of 1978, Sad Marie was never to do wrong. So she would just have to get admitted to Woodland Memorial Hospital Psychi- the doctor to realize just how unreliable her daugh- atric Ward for the first time, under the care of Dr. ter was. You just couldn't believe a thing she said Romero. Michelle had reported that Lisa Kay had sometimes! stored butcher knives in the trunk of their car and I thanked Sad Marie's mother for reassur- razor blades in the glove compartment. After I sent ing me that I had overreacted to this suicidal threat.

I was glad I had already told Dr. Romero about the over. I slapped him hard and told him to get off me knives and razor blades. I would just keep quiet or I would kill him. He started hitting me in the about the patient's mother's negative report and stomach. I yelled, 'You can't kill me! I'm Lisa Kay, avoid looking like a fool to the hospital staff. Why and I will destroy you!' He slammed my head into would a helper like Michelle lie to me? She was the wall. I lost control, and Marie curled up in a supposed to be incapable of lying. What would she ball on the shower floor. George was determined to have gained by fibbing about something as serious kill that baby, and he did." as this? Did she want me to put Sad Marie in the "How did she survive that night?" hospital for some other reason? Did she fake a "She crawled into their bedroom and called report of a supply of weapons to con me into her doctor. She told him she had started bleeding. admitting a patient who really didn't need to be She didn't tell him about the beating. The doctor hospitalized? I had better be careful listening to told her to have her husband drive her to the hospi- Michelle after this, if she had not been honest with tal pronto. That night he did surgery and found he me. had to take out her right ovary, George had hurt When I visited Sad Marie in the hospital, her so bad. No matter how the doctor asked her to Wendy told me Lisa Kay intended to use her lighter explain where she got those bruises on her belly, as a flame thrower, so I confiscated it. Wendy also she would only tell him that she had slipped in the reported Lisa Kay was hiding knitting needles on shower and must have hit the door handle real the ward, so I warned the nurses about them. hard." Further interviews give me the impression that Lisa This was the first time she talked about the Kay was mostly bluff by now, as she was getting real difficulties she had had with other live people weaker. and did not transfer these feelings to Sad Marie or During a follow-up visit in the clinic, Lisa someone in the present-day world. I was relieved Kay came out and actually discussed her unhappy that I had finally been able to get beyond the marriage with George Kelly. "Dr. A, you probably dramatic presentation of Lisa Kay's hostilities that figured out that I was the one who first had sex had been generated by men in her past and were with George right after he married Marie. I thought now being expressed toward inappropriate men in that he might like Marie better if he thought she her present, as well as toward her own "psychic was a sex bomb, so I did everything I knew with sister," Sad Marie. him, and a few things that I invented just for him. During the next session, Lisa Kay dis- But, after a while, he started getting mean and tried cussed the real problems with ex-husband Kelly, to hurt her bad. Then I would have to come back to and I was now able to understand some of the give him some more wild sex so he would lay off dynamics that had existed between them. I learned the beatings." what both of them contributed to the conflict, I nodded patiently as I learned how Lisa instead of only hearing what the abused wife Kay had used her seductive talents to keep Kelly at wanted a sympathetic listener to hear. For a change bay when he was angry at Sad Marie. I could see what both parties contributed to their She continued. "A year later, Marie found battle between the sexes and how Lisa Kay's battle she was pregnant. George was doing great on his with Father at her "birth" was continued with an job then and said maybe they could move to a unsuspecting, but equally uncivilized, George better apartment. But that night, when Marie was Kelly. taking a shower, George came in. He pushed her up ****** against the tile wall and told her there was no way When Lisa Kay and I had completed our she was going to have another child. I had to take second productive interchange, Wendy came out to

tell me why Sad Marie felt compelled to visit her Michelle. "Doctor, sometimes your ideas don't father's grave frequently, where she would sit and work so well. They are all too afraid of that man, "talk to him." I had never heard of this pilgrimage and now is neither the time nor the place to make before, and it certainly stirred my curiosity. Why them face him. Why don't you give Wendy and me would an adult daughter repeatedly sit at the some time to talk to Mary Lou and see if we can gravesite of a man who had physically and sexually get her curious enough to talk to him? She needs to abused her all her life? get over her terror from his beatings first, before I decided to try to duplicate the experience she can approach him at all. Will you give us time in the office. If she thought she talked to her fa- to do that before you continue in this direction?" ther's spirit at the grave, where a corpse is buried I felt appropriately chastised, realizing I six feet under the turf, there was no reason why she had pushed too hard again to confront my patient couldn't talk to her father in my office as well. with the truth, before checking with the inside There was no real communicating being done at the helpers to determine if my patient could handle it. gravesite, or was there? As far as I knew, all I had to admit that the helpers were being quite communication was inside Marie's mind, which patient with me, waiting for me to develop the always accompanied her body to my office. caution needed to match my therapeutic enthusi- "Marie, I want you to sit there and go into asm. trance," I intoned. "When you are deeply in trance, The following week, Michelle informed me I want you to open your eyes and look at the other that Mary Lou was now ready to face her father in chair in my office. In that chair you will see your my office chair. I repeated my instructions, and she father, sitting quietly. He will not move, so he cooperated. When she opened her eyes, she clearly cannot hurt you. He will only be able to talk to saw the image of her father in the empty chair. She you. When you see him, I want you to talk to him asked him a series of questions, and, with my exactly as you do when you visit him at his grave." prompting, told me what her "father" replied to her. Sad Marie did as I instructed, and, upon Mary Lou: Why did you make us opening her eyes, she looked at the previously believe in Santa Claus? empty chair. There she saw a familiar man, a Father: Because I loved you, and I wanted ghostlike image of her father, with his hair long and you to believe in something. stringy, his face gaunt and somber. She stared for Mary Lou: Then why did you keep a moment, but could not stand the sight, and she spanking us? retreated back into her mind in fright. Father: I don't know. Lisa Kay yelled at me, "What the hell do Mary Lou: Why did you take Marie's you think you are trying to do to her, you bastard? dog away? Why can't you just leave her alone? Why can't you Father: The dog kept digging up the just let it drop? He was an asshole, just like you! flowers. He is dead and gone! Just leave it alone, damn Mary Lou: Why did you hit Marie's you!" mom? She retreated in fright, to be replaced by a Father: Because she wouldn't do what I frightened Mary Lou. She screamed, "Stop this, wanted her to. please stop this! I can't do this, Dr. A! He hurts Mary Lou: What about when Marie me! Make him go away! I'm scared! Make him go fainted in her room? away! Please, can't we talk about something else? Father: Marie woke up and hit me. Make him go away!" Mary Lou: Why did you stop seeing She, too, retreated, to be replaced by me after leaving Mom?

Father: Stop feeling sorry for yourself, added. Marie. "Michelle won't tell you this," she said, Mary Lou: Why was I never good conspiratorially, "but there are others inside here enough for you in school? you haven't seen yet. There's a tomboy side, one Father: I wanted your brother to do better who likes to climb trees and is mischievous. That in school, and we were more concerned with your one is more masculine than feminine. Eventually, sister since the doctor said she wouldn't live very he will come out as a boy called Jack. He doesn't long. yet know his name is Jack, but that is the name Interspersed with these questions and assigned to him. After Marie burned her dress, answers were comments like, "He lies, he's not Jack got some matches and wanted to see what fire telling the truth." At this point in the "conversa- was like. He set a curtain on fire, which terrified tion," she began staring around the room as if she Marie." had never been there before. I recognized this as I figured that, since Gwen had come out the sign of a new alter-personality making herself during an "interview" between Mary Lou and her known for the first time. I asked who was there. father, she ought to know something about the "I'm Gwen," she said. "Where am I?" gravesite visiting situation. "Why does Marie feel "You're in my office, Gwen," I replied, pulled to her father's grave?" getting ready for my usual introduction to newly "At his funeral, the casket was closed, so arrived alter-personalities. "What do you like to she didn't believe he had really died. Since her do?" I had to quickly identify her as a helper or a father had rejected her so many times, she felt she hindrance, so I would know whose side she was on. should do something to gain his love. She feels that "Oh, sometimes I help one side and some- he cannot reject her anymore, so she goes to his times the other," she said, apparently reading my grave and talks like she had wanted to when he was mind. "For a while I will help the side that wants to alive. Sometimes she goes away feeling good, get rid of me, and then I will help the side that sometimes bad. She goes every day. She and the wants to keep me stable." other personalities can actually hear him calling "How long have you been around?" I her; the force behind him is that strong." asked, continuing the probing. What a strange story! Now what was I "Since Marie was three, when she took the going to do with this information? How could aspirin. There were other nasty ones inside of her Gwen be on both sides of the morality fence? How then, but they hadn't grown up into personalities could an alter-personality be both a helper and a yet." persecutor? She was breaking one of the primary "And what do you talk to Marie about, rules I had learned in my years of treating multiples Gwen?" I continued. so far! What was going on here? "I like to get Marie depressed when I talk I learned later that Gwen was an alter- to her. Then, when she is all down in the dumps, I -personality who had been created by identification try to help her think of good things. I love to see with a neighbor girl who had a dual personality of her go way down and then way up. That sure her own. She had only her original personality until confused the doctors she saw before you came she was eight years old, when she was raped by an along. They didn't know what to call her problem, uncle. That was when she made her angry, devi- since I kept her on that roller coaster all the time. ous-thinking alter-personality. Sometimes the angry You should have seen how confused I got those one would be out when Marie came over, and docs!" sometimes the sweet, kind one was out. Marie "What else would you like to tell me?" I never knew which one she might be playing with

next. up "EEG" and "Multiple Personalities." When she created another personality, she I finally talked "him" into sitting down made one that included both sides of Gwen. The again and started my usual interrogation. Jack was alter-personality, Gwen, had no morality and saw named for the boy across the street, Jack Laney, herself as God, being able to do anything she who kept giving Marie a hard time. "He" was wanted with Marie. Gwen was a snitch or a spy. formed as an identification with her father, so that Sometimes she helped the hostile ones and some- she would be favored by her father. Marie believed times the helpers. She was a double agent who that Father wanted her to be a boy, so Jack was lived a double life. created to do the tomboy activities. "He" felt "he" While I was thinking about the conversa- was 30 years old, and "he" hated her "weird" tion with Sad Marie's "father," Lisa Kay came brother. "He" had come out the previous Friday to forth and patiently waited until I composed myself change Sad Marie's oil and fix the spark plugs in and could pay attention to her. She appreciated her car. "He" was intensely interested in football, how confusing this data was to the doctor, and she baseball, and hockey. "He" knew how to ice skate, found herself actually feeling sorry for me. "Dr. A, something no other alter-personality could do. "He" please bear with us. This is as confusing to us as it hated Lisa Kay, but "he" also wanted to get rid of is to you. But you have to remember that we all Marie, while staying alive himself. need to accept the image of Marie's father so we I had heard almost exactly the same story can understand his reasons, even if we don't like in several of the multiples I had treated before. A him. I know I've been rough on you, but maybe little girl is treated badly by a male chauvinist now you can get an idea of how hard this has been father, who appeared to favor sons over daughters. on us, too." Trying to please such a father, as a girl, seems Lisa Kay continued to explain. "Dr. A, all impossible. The girl child then tries "pretending" to of us hated Marie's father, and we were all hurt by be a boy, hoping to fool the father into liking her. him in one way or another. He hurt each of us She makes a boy out of the characteristics she sees differently. That's why we hate men and treat all in her culture as masculine interests, such as sports men the way Marie's father treated us. He tortured and cars. She denies her own femininity and creates us, had sex with us, beat us, and took us down to a parody of masculinity, based on what she sees size with his threats. Marie's brother and sister around her. In this case, "he" was two years older were safe because we were the targets of his than "she" was, so maturity was also defined as a abuse." characteristic of masculinity. In subsequent sessions, Lisa Kay contin- Shortly after that session, I was talking to ued to cooperate and talked to me about her rea- an age regressed Mary Lou at age three. She kept sons for being hostile to men. She told me it was talking about how she knew her father didn't love time I met Jack, the male personality Gwen had her because he kept saying so. I decided to use the told me about. She went inside to find Jack and "frozen frame mind reading" technique to see if the send him out. three-year-old could find out why her father said Jack was definitely different from all those that. I had met before. "He" eyed all the air condition- "Mary Lou," I said, "I would like you to ing/heating ducts in the office and got up from the see your father sitting in this chair in the office. I chair so "he" could inspect all of them personally, know it is hard for you to see him and talk to him, close up. "He" walked around the room acting like but I assure you I will keep him in the chair so he a building inspector. When "he" came to the book- can't do anything to you. I just want you to ask him shelf, "he" pulled out the medical dictionary to look some questions. Will you do that?"

"If you're sure he can't hit me," she an- were not the primary creation of the human mind, swered. but secondary results of thinking certain thoughts. "I'm sure he won't, 'cause I'm here to I came to realize that if one thought one was in protect you." danger of being hurt by another person, then FEAR She squirmed in the chair, but seemed to would be a natural feeling to have. If a young girl calm in a moment and focused her attention on the had been raped repeatedly by a father whom she empty chair. I could see that her face had com- expected to love and care for her, hatred of the pletely calmed down, and then I heard her voice father for betraying his trust would be a logical take on a softer, older tone. feeling for her to have. Such hatred would be an "Her father doesn't like her," she said. "He automatic result of her thinking a certain set of always wanted a boy first, and, when she was born, thoughts, such as "My father, who is supposed to he was disappointed. He had just come out of the take care of me, has hurt me over and over again." war, met her mother, and married soon after that, I HATE HIM would be a natural feeling to have looking for some stability." for such girls. Hating a continuously abusive father "Who's talking now?" I asked. It was was not a conscious choice the little girl made. The obvious it wasn't Mary Lou, since "she" was feelings were engendered by the thoughts she had talking in the third person about her. after the misbehavior of her father. We all expect "I don't have a name, but I'm the one Mary a certain pattern of behavior from certain people in Lou used to go into the bedroom to talk with our clan. When such expectations are not fulfilled, whenever she felt rejected by her father." we become emotional at being betrayed, hurt, or "At what age did she make you?" whatever happens that is unpleasant and unex- "At two." pected. At that point, the face changed and the The logical solution to the problem of three-year-old Mary Lou returned. I figured we had having people filled with hatred toward others is done enough for that session and age progressed not to forbid everyone from hating, as that only her to the present. engenders guilt in the listener and hateful feelings When I talked to Mary Lou about this toward the preacher. The answer would be in confidant of hers, she decided she would call her somehow having the hater change his or her Dusty. She liked that name for a helper. thoughts about the object of the hate, to get him or Mary Lou also told me about the times her to think of the hated one as one who was pitied, later when the family would go to church. She sat ignored, or loved. listening to the sermon while her younger brother That process is called "cognitive restruc- and sister were sent to play in the nursery. She turing." It requires the patient to see the situation remembered hearing the preacher say it was the from another point of view. I was usually dealing word of God that no one should get angry. She with someone who perceived herself as "victim." A wondered if God ever got angry, and then she victim can always justify hating the "villain." When decided that He couldn't, if He thought that was the victim can put herself into the role of the evil. The preacher said God was all good, so He villain, then her point of view changes, and her couldn't do anything evil. She knew that sometimes feelings will change as well. Such was the reason- she got angry, just a little bit, so that must mean ing behind the "frozen frame mind reading" tech- she was evil. Maybe that was why her father told nique and many of my other psychotherapy meth- her he didn't like her, because she was evil, because ods. she got angry at him. Over the next several weeks, Lisa Kay I knew that any emotions, including anger, kept planning and failing to kill Sad Marie. One

date after another was picked for the "execution," she told me she had watched her mother-to-be only to be foiled by one of the protectors inside. change from one personality to another so fast she Lisa Kay repeatedly referred to Sad Marie's guilt at was confused. She also saw her father-to-be acting allowing her second child to be aborted, although angry and hostile all the time and beating up her several of the helper alter-personalities had decided mother-to-be. she should not be allowed to raise another child. It "I'm not very happy thinking of what it will was her "psychic sisters" who had asked for the be like being born into this family," the "fetus's abortion on the grounds of Marie's psychiatric spirit" said. "It looks too much like it would be a illness, and the doctors at the hospital had all repeat of what happened to Marie in her family, agreed. The main problem was that someone had and look how she turned out!" scheduled it for Valentines Day of that year. I had no argument with that logic. I asked In an attempt to help Sad Marie get a her to write a note stating her attitude if she should different viewpoint on the abortion, I decided to try not be allowed to be born. I needed something in a dramatic experience. I hoped the ISH and the writing to show to Sad Marie when she came out of CIE could use their creative skills to help me trance. change Sad Marie's mind about her guilt from She wrote, "If I were not to be born into having had the abortion. I asked the ISH and the this family, I would wait for another family that CIE to fetch the spirit of the aborted fetus so "she" was loving, and everything will be all right. I would could tell me and Sad Marie what it felt like to be not be unhappy not being allowed to be born into aborted! This was the fetus whose name was the Kelly family. [Signed] Lisa Kay Grayce Kelly." planned to be Lisa Kay. That exercise completed, I thanked the I didn't expect to actually be able talk to "spirit" and told her she could go back into Marie's the spirit of an aborted fetus, but I had a good womb. I then age progressed my patient back to the reason to ask this be done. In Santa Cruz, I had present and told Sad Marie what I had seen and talked to the "spirit of a dead friend" of one of my heard. multiples, only to find that this "spirit" had been She listened in disbelief as I told her this invented by her ISH to give her a dramatic lesson ridiculous, impossible story, wondering why I had as part of her therapy. now started lying to her. When I handed her the With my prior experience interviewing the written note, she knew I had not made it up. "spirit of a dead friend" of my patient, I hoped She blacked out, and Lisa Kay took over. Marie's ISH and the CIE would be as creative in She grabbed the note, reached with her other hand this situation. I asked Mary Lou to regress back to for her cigarette lighter and set fire to the paper. age 21, when Marie was pregnant for the second When it was burning intently, she put it in the time. A 21-year-old Marie showed up as requested ashtray on the desk, carefully keeping it out of my and told me she had not yet told her husband about reach until it was nothing but gray ashes. the new pregnancy. I asked her to imagine her As soon as Sad Marie returned, I showed baby's spirit coming up from her uterus into her her the ashes of the note she had read. She still head and coming out to talk to me, using her vocal didn't believe a word of what I had said or she had cords. I told her that I wanted to talk to the baby to read. I asked her why Lisa Kay came out and find out what it was like to be almost born. burned the note if it hadn't been true. She had no She agreed to let me talk to her unborn answer. baby that way. In a moment, her face changed to At a later session, I thanked Faith, a CIE, that of a sweet infant who had no name. When I for having manufactured this "fetus's spirit" that I asked her what she knew about her surroundings, had tried to use to help Sad Marie get over her

constant guilt about having aborted the pregnancy. Such episodes wreaked havoc with Sad Faith asked me, "What do you mean, manufac- Marie's school attendance. Even though she had tured?" dropped all but two courses, Physical Education I said, "Well, I know there is no way I and Intermediary Sign Language, she couldn't keep could have really talked to the spirit of her fetus. up with the assignments in the sign language class. That's impossible. I know you must have made the The teacher, a middle-aged male, had told her she whole thing up to try to get Marie over her guilt. I might as well withdraw from the course, or other- want to thank you for all your help." wise she would flunk. He was trying to keep her "But doctor," Faith patiently explained, from having an F on her record, since such a grade "we didn't make it up. You asked for the spirit of would be impossible to remove later. But Lisa Kay Sad Marie's baby that was aborted, and we got it took this teacher's well meant advice as the same for you. That is whom you were talking to. Didn't sort of hurt her father had inflicted on "them" at the you realize that?" age of two, when he raped Marie and she became I gulped and swallowed my next words. I physically ill with disgust and self-loathing. didn't know what to say. I was trying to be polite On the next visit to the clinic, Lisa Kay and thank a CIE for creating an artificial spirit so complained this terrible teacher had "kicked Marie I could persuade my patient it was real. Now she out of his course just because she had been in the was telling me it was real! I couldn't believe what hospital," making him sound like an ogre. She I was being told, but a CIE never lies. What could walked around the office moaning about the fire in I say? her belly, describing it like a small campfire that Sad Marie was unmoved by the entire had turned into a raging conflagration of an entire demonstration. She continued to believe she was a forest. All the personalities were as sick as she sinner for having had the abortion, even though it was, and several came out to complain of the same had been sanctioned by her ISH and arranged by fire in their guts. her helper alter-personalities. Lisa Kay still played Only Jack, the male, was immune from this on that guilt string, using it frequently to push her "burning belly syndrome," and he amazed me by into a suicidal depression. Real or not, my inter- casually trotting around the room, inspecting the view with the spirit of an unborn fetus had no light fixtures to see how they worked, and having therapeutic value for my guilt-ridden patient. nary a complaint of physical discomfort. I had been ***** trained in a traditional medical school where one During the spring semester of 1979, Sad learned that when the body got sick, it was sick. Marie was in and out of the hospitals because of There was no explanation of how it can be sick Lisa Kay's frequent suicide threats. Once, while only if certain personalties are in charge, but not Lisa Kay was telling me how she hated all men, sick when a personality that is delusional in think- including her son, her ex-husband and her psychia- ing it is of the opposite sex is in charge. None of trist, her hand was writing a note to me. Becky thus this made sense to my scientifically trained mind. warned me Lisa Kay had hidden razor blades in the But there it was right in front of me. The ladies ashtray of her car in the clinic parking lot. When were miserable, but the gentleman was not. I Lisa Kay had vented the hatred of her father that challenge anyone to explain how it could happen, she had displaced to the entire male half of the but happen it did. human race, Becky took over and walked with me Another surprise to me was the concurrent to Marie's car. There we found a package of single ill health of Becky, the ISH. When she came out to edged razor blades in the ashtray, just as Becky discuss the crisis with me, she looked very peaked had warned. and wan. She explained that she had become

contaminated by helping out too long and too hard. hospital administrator, whose name and address I Her humanitarian efforts had not only exhausted supplied. She appreciated my taking this complaint her personal and limited supply of energy, but she seriously and telling her how to file a formal had become infected with the "germs" of the human complaint. Sad Marie later learned that the man side of her charge, as if she were a toxic waste was fired, as her complaint was only one of several disposal expert. No one had yet invented a decon- by female patients. tamination suit she could wear on the site when **** dealing with the explosive anger, putrid resentment, Now I talked to Sad Marie about the early and burning desire for revenge. She needed a sexual trauma that this episode reminded her of. vacation during which she could partake of cleans- She told me it came from her first birthday, when ing rituals to recharge her spiritual batteries. her mother had baked a cake for her. Her father Becky sent out Honey, a lovely helper, to appeared jealous after he saw how much time and meet me. She sweetly introduced herself and attention Mother was spending, making the cake assured me Becky had briefed her on all that for her. needed to be done during the time Becky would be After the birthday party was over, Mother recuperating. She had already started the healing cleaned up the food and dirty plates and prepared processes that would bring a halt to the bellyaches to go to work. She dressed baby Marie in clean now experienced by the various alter-personalities. nightclothes and put her in her crib. She left for I added a prescription for a stomach sedative and work as usual that afternoon, leaving Marie alone antispasmodic to Marie's psychiatric medication in the house with her father. orders. Never let it be said that my knowledge of After his wife had gone, Father came into pharmacology would be unavailable to my patients Marie's bedroom and leaned over the crib, breath- in their times of need! ing heavily in her small face. "I hope you liked The next visit found Lisa Kay chipper and your birthday party," he rasped in a hoarse whis- free of abdominal pain. In the interim, Sad Marie's per. "Now I want to give you my special gift for back had been giving her trouble again, as it had your birthday. I'm going to give you something for years, and she had gone to the Yolo County special, something you will really enjoy. I'll show Hospital orthopedic clinic for help. The doctor had you a special love that is meant for two people to ordered an orthopedic corset for her, and sent her enjoy together." to the man who did the fitting for such garments. He removed all of Marie's nightclothes and The fitter had been too familiar with her body with then her diapers. When she was lying there naked, his hands, and she had felt violated. Sad Marie he stripped off his own clothes, leaving them in a didn't know what to do, so she went into hiding as pile by her crib. Then he picked up her tiny body, her only defense. This allowed Lisa Kay, the man clutched it to his own bare chest and walked slowly hater, to take over, and she had enjoyed full control to the master bedroom. of the body for the subsequent two days until she There he stretched out on the bed face up, came to my office. holding Marie above him. When he lowered her to To investigate the complaint, I called out his abdomen, she could only see the ceiling. Slowly Sad Marie to determine exactly what the fitter had and steady, he massaged her between her small legs done to upset her. Her description made it clear to while she heard him tell her, repeatedly, "I love you me that I needed to alert the administrator that his so much; you are my special person; I love you so hospital might have a serious legal liability because much; this shows how much I love you." With one of that fitting room employee. I called Wendy out hand exploring her genitals, and the other reaching and advised her to write a letter of complaint to the for his, he masturbated the both of them while

moaning and shivering as he reached his climax. for somebody to take control, and Michelle promptly appeared. I thanked her, and she brought After telling me the story of this first back Sad Marie, as she was the one who had come incestual experience, Sad Marie could barely talk, into the office. In her usual obedient manner, Sad and whispered, "Father hurt me, and he hurt me all Marie accepted that she carried the body into my the other times he did that. I must have done some- office each time and back out the door again. She thing awful for him to hurt me that way so often. I hoped that one of these days she would have a little must have been a bad girl, 'cause he had to punish time to talk to the doctor about her problems and me." feelings. Well, maybe next time! Before I could answer her, she was re- During the next week, Sad Marie faded in placed by an angry Lisa Kay. "Now you see what strength, as she was "dying" little by little. It was the bastard did to her!" she snapped. "Now maybe time for her to be replaced by the Original Marie. you can see why I hate all you Goddamned men so Becky explained that the integration was going to much! And her father's birthday is coming up on continue for some time, and they required someone June 14, so I've got some plans for Marie then! in the physical world to tell Sad Marie daily that You just wait and see what I'm going to do to her she was cared about. then!" I knew that I was the primary messenger of She then faded to be replaced by Lynn. I such news for Sad Marie, so I called her out. I expected a fight from her, but she was unexpect- talked with her about her current situation, and edly mellow this visit. She reminisced about some tried hard to express the idea that she had been of the other traumas of the early years and even very important to me in helping me understand wrote a note for Sad Marie. "Marie -- Neither your what was going on inside her. I told her that I father nor your stepfather was able to love you no needed this understanding, since I would someday matter what you did to try to please them. It was pass it onto other doctors and their patients who not your fault." needed to get well from MPD. I assured her I She then faded to be followed by Kathy, a greatly appreciated her teaching me so much about helper. She explained that Lynn was being re- herself so that other patients could benefit from formed by those inside. Soon Lynn would be a what I had learned from her. helper, too. They had decided that she was getting About a year after starting therapy with too hard to handle as a potential killer, so they had me, Sad Marie came into my office with Jane slowly but surely been infusing her with human Parker, her psychiatric nurse. Parker explained that compassion and forgiveness. I was grateful for they had a problem they needed to talk to the their efforts, since I had had my fill with Lisa Kay's doctor about. constant threats of my extinction just because I "Dr. Allison," started Parker, "Marie told happened to have been born male. me that she felt sick and hot yesterday, so she went Finally Sad Marie returned to the body, to the Davis Hospital Emergency Room. She was and I explained to her generally what I had seen seen by the nurse there, who took her temperature and learned. I told her that I thought now she had and then turned her down because it wasn't high the power to control and imprison Lisa Kay inside enough. Marie went home and waited to feel better, her mind. But as soon as those words were out of but she didn't, so she went back again. The nurse my mouth, Lisa Kay appeared suddenly and yelled did the same thing, and told her that she didn't have at me, "What kind of motherfucking nonsense are enough fever to qualify for help with her MediCal you trying to tell her?" card, so she couldn't get any treatment there. Have I put my hand to her forehead and called you heard of any such rule like that, Doctor?"

I had worked with MediCal patients ever can't tell what is wrong with a patient without since the program started. I had never heard of a examining them, as you know full well. Thanks for rule barring care for an infection because of a letting me know about this problem. I'll get on it too-low temperature. I also knew of plenty of right away." malpractice cases where the survivors of patients This was a lesson to Lisa Kay that there had won large awards after their relatives died after were proper ways to express grievances and re- being treated inadequately in an ER. I wondered ceive due attention and redress. One didn't have to how any emergency room administrator could take tear up her "psychic sister's" bedroom to accom- such a risk without the hospital's lawyer being all plish that task. over him. Because both Lisa Kay and Lynn insisted "No, I haven't, Jane. Is that what hap- on coming out while Marie was training as a pened, Marie?" I asked the patient. receptionist at the Sacramento Rehabilitation "Yes, Doctor. I just saw the nurse, she Facility (SRF), Rebecca Worth, the Program took my temperature and told me I couldn't get Coordinator, asked to sit in on some sessions with treated because MediCal wouldn't pay them if my me so that she could figure out how to keep peace temperature wasn't higher than that. Then, after I in her facility. There was too much acting out for came back and the same thing happened again, I the other clients to tolerate, and Sad Marie was blacked out. The next morning, I found everything forever feeling abused by one person or another in my room smashed and my bed all torn apart." there. The nurse interjected, "I talked to Lisa Kay I regressed Sad Marie ten years back to the in my office earlier, and she admitted tearing up the time she had worked for an orthodontist. I found bedroom after the second rejection. She was really that her primary problem then was trying to deal angry when Marie was treated that way." with inconsistent instructions. She expected to be I called out Lisa Kay and confirmed told exactly what to do when, and, if that didn't Parker's report. I explained to Lisa Kay that, in my happen, she became confused and frustrated. She opinion, she should not have been treated that way was unable to see a goal and figure out how to get when sick, and I hoped that the ER nurse was there. She wanted the course clearly laid out by her acting without authority. Since the nurse was an supervisor. If she wasn't doing the job "right," then employee of the hospital, I was sure that the hospi- she felt like a failure. It didn't matter if she accom- tal administrator would want to know about this plished the proper goal, if she hadn't done it in the incident. "right" way. "Since I'm a doctor and know the adminis- Lisa Kay then came out to complain she trator," I said, "I'll write a letter to him telling him felt neglected at the SRF. Since she was always a what you reported to me. Then we'll see what trouble maker, the staff did their best to ignore her. happens." But her feelings were hurt. Worth and I decided When the administrator read my letter, he that she could be indulged a bit now. Worth offered was shocked to learn what was happening in his Lisa Kay an assignment of two hours a week in the ER. He phoned me and apologized for what had printing plant and her own time for occupational happened with Marie. "Dr. Allison," he said, "if therapy. Lisa Kay was very pleased to be consid- what you tell me happened, it shouldn't have. We ered a person in her own right. She had been have a doctor on duty all the time, and he should ignored long enough. have seen the patient, fever or not. It certainly is The next visit, Sad Marie brought in a note not hospital policy to turn away a patient because from Becky. "Marie needs to learn that her father her insurance company might not pay the bill. You was bad. It will take many sessions to get that

message over to her. She is stuck at age two until That really got to Lisa Kay. "I'll show you she can get through her head that her father did not who is afraid, you yellow livered bellysucker, you! act like an angel when he raped her repeatedly from I'm not afraid of anything or anybody, least of all age one." you!" Such notes were commonly given to me by "Well, if you're not afraid to let Marie talk Becky. Becky had great faith in my ability to to me, now is the time to prove it!" change the minds of her charge. She knew what I Totally suckered by the challenge, Lisa needed to do, and she made sure I knew it, too. Kay retreated behind the face and let Sad Marie Unfortunately, I did not have the faith Becky had in come out. my ability to do what I often considered impossible "Dr. A," Sad Marie said quietly, "did you psychotherapy. I figured Becky would not ask me know my dad put me in the closet a lot when I did to do anything completely impossible. But when I wrong? I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, but tried my best, and listened to my own Essence, he kept telling me I had done something he didn't Michael, I found myself saying just the right words like, so I must have done something wrong. I knew to turn the key in the lock of my patient's mind and I had to do whatever he told me to do, or I deserved heart. to be punished. Father said so." This time I called for Sad Marie, but Lisa I had to figure out a way to make this child Kay came out instead. She was clearly protecting understand her father was not a normal man, that Sad Marie from my probing questions, as she knew he had something seriously wrong with him. How how stubborn their psychiatrist was when trying to could I do that? I tried a new approach. complete one of Becky's assignments. He was one "Marie, what kind of parents did your pushy bastard, and she didn't mind reminding him father have?" I asked. of her opinion of him. She had to admire his tenac- "When I met my grandma and grandpa ity, even though she didn't think he was very nice to McKenzie, they seemed real nice. They lived in a want to hurt her sister that way. Hadn't they had small town, and, when I visited them, everybody enough hurt from adult men in their lives? waved to them and seemed happy to see them. I decided to try an end run around Lisa They seemed to have a lot of friends. Why do you Kay. "Lisa Kay," I said, "I realize you are trying to ask?" protect Marie from thinking about all that trouble "Sometimes parents train their sons to act she had when she was a year or two old. But you in a certain way, and that is the way the son raises don't need to be afraid of what will happen if she his children. But I don't hear anything from your comes out and talks to me." description of your father's parents that would "Afraid? Who's afraid?" she responded. make me think they trained him to punish his "I'm not afraid of anyone, least of all you." children by putting them in the closet? Did they I knew I had hit a sore nerve, as I had punish him that way when he was a little boy?" deliberately used an accusatory tone of voice when "I don't think so. When I saw them, they I said, "You don't need to be afraid." Now I had her were real kind to me and to everyone else. I loved on the defensive, just where I wanted her. She them a lot." would do anything she could to prove a grown man "So, it seems likely your father didn't raise wrong. you the way he was raised, doesn't it? It sounds like "Yeah, I think you're afraid, Lisa Kay. he raised you just the opposite of how he was You're afraid of what will happen if Marie says raised, right? It doesn't seem like he was doing anything to me. You're scared shitless, as a matter what his parents wanted him to do, when he raised of fact!" his children, does it?"

"No, I guess not." She disrupted everything Worth was doing, and it "My point is, Marie, your father himself soon became plain Lisa Kay just had to have all didn't do what he said you had to do. He told you to her attention. The only way she knew to do that do whatever your parents wanted you to do. But he was to be nasty and confrontive. She had lots of didn't do what his parents wanted him to do, did practice with that approach. he? He didn't treat you the way his parents had Worth was fed up with being irritated all treated him, did he?" day long at work. She also knew that this bad child "I guess you're right, Dr. A. His parents approach to attention was Lisa Kay's way of would never treat a child like he treated me!" saying that she liked her. Lisa Kay had even let it "So, he was not doing what his parents slip once or twice that she already saw Worth as a wanted him to do, was he? He was disobeying his perfect mother for her. Worth was flattered, but, at own parents by putting you into the closet, no the same time, exasperated that this trouble-making matter what the reason, right?" alter-personality was latching onto her and interfer- "I guess so. I wonder why?" ing with her ability to give adequate time to her Michelle took charge of Marie's hand to other clients. write a note to her. "Your father was raped when When I saw Lisa Kay and Worth together he was in the Navy on board ship before he mar- in my office, it was apparent from their behavior ried your mother. He vowed he would never let it that there was a bond between them, weird as that happen again. This was one reason why he raped might seem. Lisa Kay was desperate for any type his own daughter." of maternal attention, so hungry for it that Worth I had been told other bits and pieces of the felt sorry for her. Worth had to set limits on behav- story before. I had written numerous court ordered ior, and she could not allow any client to manipu- psychiatric reports for sexual offenders, including late her or monopolize her time. She tried to get the those guilty of incest with their daughters. In message across to Lisa Kay that she knew from her Marie's case, I knew Mother worked evenings own upbringing how important the love and atten- while Father babysat. He worked the day shift, tion of a mother were to a teenage girl, which is getting home after Mom had already left for work. what Lisa Kay still was. There was only so much Between the incompatible schedules and the fact she could take before she would have to expel Lisa that they argued most of the time when they were Kay and, therefore, Sad Marie from the center. together, there was little sexual activity between I knew I needed to decrease the "volume" her parents. On the one hand, his incestual behav- of the negative emotions from Lisa Kay's nature to ior with Marie punished his wife for neglecting him allow Worth to keep her at the center. She had sexually and putting him down during their argu- done it before in crises with the "bottle routine." ments. On the other hand, he received sexual She called out Sad Marie first to see if she could gratification from molesting his daughter. Such take some of the anger from Lisa Kay. Sad Marie was the typical scenario I had heard repeatedly told her that there was too much anger there for her when interviewing fathers arrested on incest to handle, and she couldn't help me with this prob- charges. lem. I would have to figure out another way to do When Marie read the note, she looked at it. me and sighed. Now she could see she was not to Worth then had a go at Lisa Kay, and blame for being raped. She was not the bad one spent the next twenty minutes trying to show her here. Her father had faults of his own, she realized. affection, understanding and tolerance, hoping that Worth joined me for the next session, as would help her reduce the anger she was holding Lisa Kay was getting on her nerves at the SRF. against her father. They were both crying, plead-

ing, and hugging in turn as Worth tried to be loving love and acceptance from on High. When she toward Lisa Kay, who wanted her love, but re- seemed to me to be totally relaxed and bathed in jected it at the same time. sunshine, I let her come out of trance. Finally, Lisa Kay did agree to my offer to Lisa Kay was now the friendliest of the use the "bottle routine" to let her shed what she friendly people in the world. She glowed with good could of the anger she had stored against her will toward mankind. She talked about how she father. I had a soft drink can left over from lunch, was formed when her father tried to kill her dog, in and I put it into Lisa Kay's open palms. I then told an objective, story telling way, without rancor. She her to gather the anger against Father from her tried to fill Sad Marie in on all her history, expect- head and neck, shoulders and arms, chest and ing her to be listening in on what she was telling abdomen and then her legs, and to move all that me. When Sad Marie came back into control, I anger into her hands and into the can. She concen- found that she hadn't been paying attention to Lisa trated with closed eyes, as all her muscles rippled Kay. She didn't realize that Lisa Kay was now her as the anger energy flowed outward from her into friend! Once I explained to Sad Marie what had the can. With a final burst of energy discharge, she happened, I suggested that, without Lisa Kay there threw all of her anger into the can and slammed it to take all her anger, she, Sad Marie, would now be onto the floor. able to feel her own anger. Sad Marie recognized I After she had composed herself, she still was telling the truth when she thought of the odd knew she was Lisa Kay, but she was not the Lisa behavior of one of the boys at the house and how Kay of old. She had shed her anger toward her irritated she was with him for bothering her when father, and she was friendly and warm towards she was studying. For the first time in her life, she both Worth and me. She chatted with us like any could feel the early glimmer of anger toward a man teenage daughter would, expressing views, accept- she didn't like. She didn't like the feelings of hostil- ing compliments and tolerating different points of ity she had, but I reassured her that such feelings view. She was a daughter any set of parents would are part of what life is made of. If she couldn't feel be proud to have. anger, she couldn't feel love, either. In health, she When seen three days later, Becky in- would have to take both or neither one. When she formed me that Lisa Kay had discharged into the looked at it that way, this new experience didn't can all of her hostility toward her father. Now the seem as bad as she had first feared. vacuum had to be filled, or she would start sucking ***** into the void Sad Marie's anger toward other Lisa Kay left the Original Marie important people. I had done only half of the "bottle routine" characteristics which are part of her to this day, her ritual, and the vacuum had to be filled by positive fun loving spirit and risk taking adventurous emotions or she would suck in anger-energy from nature. elsewhere. Lisa Kay complained nobody else ever I asked a pleasant and cooperative Lisa liked to have fun, and she was the only one who Kay to go into a trance and open up the top of her would go out to enjoy herself. Lisa Kay is the one head to God's healing energy, to let in all of His to thank for giving the present day Marie that healing light and power. I instructed her to imagine spirit, because she can have fun. She doesn't drink, that brilliant beams of pure sunshine were focused smoke or take drugs. She goes out and enjoys what on the crown of her head, penetrating into her brain life has to offer. She goes out to nightclubs, enjoys and skull, and into the rest of her trunk, arms and the music, and, if out on a date, she will dance and legs. I kept the patter going while she allowed her act crazy for a time. She sings to the music, laughs, entire being to be enveloped in a cocoon of pure cracks jokes and just enjoys her partner's company

and the evening. If she is out by herself, she will go did I pay money to jump and possibly die? She up to a man by himself and ask him if he would knew she was stupid. But she couldn't back out. No like to dance. She is used to rejections by now since refunds were allowed, and it cost her $105 for two she used to be a very obese woman, but is no jumps and pictures. She couldn't back out because longer. So men will dance with her. she had told everyone at work that she was going to Marie doesn't sleep around like Lisa Kay do it, and, if she came back without proof, she was did, because that is too much of a risk these days. going to look foolish. She knew she was a fool to She sets limits on those men she dances with. be there in the first place. What was she trying to People may think that Marie has been drinking prove? because she gets loud and boisterous, and every- When Marie's turn came, she climbed over body thinks that she is drunk. Now she can act up the edge of the bridge and held on tight. Her in- and not be drunk so she can remember what she structor talked to her and told her to have faith. did. She enjoys life, because she had no life until After all, everyone else came back okay, and now 1981. it was her turn to trust. Boy, that was some big Because Lisa Kay gave Marie her risk-- word, when one was going to let go of a bridge and taking spirit, she took up bungee jumping. One trust that a bungee cord would save your life. may say, "What a stupid thing for someone to do." She let go, and, when she did, her first But no one should judge her, unless they have done thought was, I am going to die. But when she felt it at least once. She has done it three years in a that bungee cord grab her and bring her back up row, and she loved it every time she jumped. That into the air, Marie knew she was all right. She first time is the one she will always remember most didn't yell when she let go. When she did yell, after vividly. she knew the cord had saved her from certain That first time, she knew it was illegal to death, it was, "I DID IT, I DID IT, I DID IT, I jump from a bridge in California. Those who were DID IT!" It was the most awesome feeling, floating scheduled to jump that day met at the jump site at in the air. It was the closest thing to flying. 4:00 a.m. and planned to be finished by 9:00 a.m., She remembered Becky, her Essence, as the Highway Patrol would be out by then. They yelling at her, "What are you trying to do?" But she had lookouts stationed to warn them if police were needed this experience. The CIE were blissful, but coming. Their instructor gave them a lecture on Becky thought she had lost her mind. how to jump correctly. He fitted each jumper with When one jumps, the new sounds, sights, two harnesses, a chest harness and a seat harness. and smells are so wonderful. There is nothing like Each signed a waiver saying that none of it anyplace in this world. Her first jump took place their relatives would sue these people if they died. when she was turning 41 years young. After Marie With that, Marie's hands shook. Was she some came back to work with the pictures and video of kind of fool? Was she the most stupid person on her jump as proof, the people at work made her the face of this planet? She couldn't have been, walk through a 21 YO-YO salute to the YO-YO because there were 15 other people there, also. So who went bungee jumping. This was more terrify- it seemed there were 16 of them who were stupid. ing than bungee jumping, as all the people who After signing the waivers, they all marched were doing the 21 YO-YO salute were doing out onto the bridge. None of them had been on that around the world with their YO-YO's, and Marie bridge before. When she looked down, Marie saw thought that she was going to get hit with one of her life pass in front of her eyes. This was a 250- the YO-YO's. foot drop into water that was not too deep. With The second time Marie went jumping was big boulders. Now, she asked herself, why the hell when she was turning 42 years young. And the

third time she went bungee jumping was when she was turning 43 years young. The next thing that she wants to do is sky dive. Her son thinks she is crazy, but he's also proud of his mother. Lisa Kay is still living in Marie, and she knows that wherever Lisa Kay may be, she is smiling down on Marie, telling her, "Fun does not hurt." She is so happy that Marie is now having fun.