And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (26 page)

I picked up the trail where I'd left off four years before and found a school in Florida that seemed capable of treating Nancy, but part of the entire staff had just been arrested for smoking pot. Then I found a fine school in Topeka, Kansas—Menninger's Clinic. They worked with emotionally disturbed children of Nancy's age. They also charged $18,000 per year. There was simply no way we could afford it.

I even went so far as to see the senior rabbi at our synagogue. He was a learned, prestigious man. Maybe
he
could help us.

Frank and I weren't devout members, but we did like to go to Friday night services sometimes. We both found comfort in the ritual and prayer. The temple was a retreat from Nancy.

The rabbi saw us in his office. He listened with great patience and empathy as we told him of Nancy's pain and of our confusion. We asked him if he knew somewhere she could go. We asked if he could help us, if the Jewish Federation could help us, if
anyone
could help us.

He was kind, but he was no help.

“You have a dilemma,” he said, “to be sure. I am sorry to say, however, that I have no answer. As far as I know, the Jewish Federation will be unable to help you. I wish I myself could ease your burden, but I cannot. I know of no place for your Nancy.”

We were lost again. We had no idea where to turn.

Then one day I read an article in a health magazine about Dr. Allan Cott, a psychiatrist in New York City who believed that certain types of mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, were caused by chemical imbalances in the body. Thus, he felt, talking therapy was meaningless. His unorthodox and controversial method of treatment, called orthomolecular medicine, involved treating patients with chemicals, large doses of vitamins, and a sugar-free diet. There were a few other psychiatrists practicing this orthomolecular medicine—none of them very popular with the American Medical Association.

What attracted me to Cott's ideas was that the article referred to the case histories of several children who had shown remarkable improvement under him, children who had, from infancy, been restless, poor sleepers, angry, and incapable of holding on to friends. Children like Nancy.

I mentioned the article to Frank. Coincidentally, he'd just been speaking to a customer whose problem child had been helped by Cott, helped so much that he was now able to function at home.

“Do you think we ought to talk to him?” I asked.

“She's not getting any better where she is. It's certainly worth a try. What have we got to lose?”

We had nothing to lose.

I made an appointment with Dr. Cott. It was two months before we could see him—evidently a lot of other people had similar problems and were anxious to talk to him. A week before the scheduled appointment he sent us a very detailed twenty-page questionnaire covering Nancy's physical and behavioral development. We filled it out. Then Frank and I rode up to New York City to see him.

As we drove I began to understand the plight of the families of terminal cancer victims. Often they will seek out controversial treatment for their loved ones. And why not? It's impossibly difficult to stand by and watch someone you love deteriorate right before your eyes. So you begin to grasp at straws. This is not to say that Dr. Cott was a straw, but he was unpopular with the medical establishment. So what if he was? Here was a chance to administer another form of treatment. The present one wasn't working.

His office was on East Thirty-eighth Street. He was a small, slightly built man with gray hair and a concerned manner. He had thoroughly digested our questionnaire.

“Mr. and Mrs. Spungen, I have a few more questions about Nancy. Some of them may sound a bit odd to you, but please bear with me. They could be important. Okay?”

We nodded.

“Was Nancy an affectionate infant? What I mean to say is, did she like to be cuddled or did she react negatively by, for example, stiffening her limbs?”

I gasped. “How did you know that?”

He made a note in her file. “Would you call her affectionate now?”

“She doesn't like to be hugged,” I said. “At least, not by us.”

He made another note. “You mentioned this psychotic episode
she had at age ten, an apparent allergic reaction to Atarax. You mention she inflicted punishment on herself. By that, do you mean she began to bang her head and pull her hair out? That sort of thing?”

“That's exactly what she did,” exclaimed Frank.

“And she continued to do it during other episodes?”

“Yes!” we both cried, excited. Cott was the first professional we'd ever seen who actually seemed to know Nancy!

“Does she take drugs?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “We think she does.”

“What kind?”

“Marijuana. Pills.”

“Hard drugs? Heroin?”

“No way,” Frank assured him. “Nancy's hysterically afraid of needles.”

“Even so, I'm afraid she's a real candidate for serious drug problems. She's vulnerable. She was overmedicated as a child, and society has failed to provide the means to ease her pain.”

“What exactly is
causing
the pain, Doctor?” Frank asked. “What's wrong with her?”

“Well, I'd have to examine her before I made a definite diagnosis. But based on reading your report, and talking to you, I'd say Nancy's a schizophrenic.”

At last, after fifteen years of searching, someone had told us what was wrong with our child.

“Can you help her, Doctor?” I asked.

“I believe I can, yes. I'd need thirty days to stabilize her. I'll put her in a hospital so I can control her intake, get the sugar out of her diet. I'll feed her megavitamins. Then we'll see.”

“What are the odds?” Frank asked. “What are the odds you can help her?”

Dr. Cott took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I can't make you any promises. It wouldn't be fair to you. All I can tell you is that I have seen other young people like Nancy and I have helped them.”

“We didn't know there were others like her,” I said. “We've always gotten the impression that … that …”

“That she's some kind of unique specimen? A freak? She's not. She's just misunderstood. Nobody's gotten to the root of her problem, which, in my opinion, is chemical. Give me thirty days. There will be a dramatic improvement in your daughter or none at all. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground with this kind of treatment. If it doesn't work, I'll be the first to tell you.”

Frank and I looked at each other, nodded. Then Frank stood up, beaming, and stuck his hand out across Dr. Cott's desk.

“You've got yourself a deal!”

We practically sailed home on our enthusiasm. He'd given us
hope, the first real hope in ages. We were so thrilled.

I phoned Walter Froelich, a staff social worker Mr. Sylvester had assigned to us, and told him about Dr. Cott. I explained that Dr. Cott thought she could be schizophrenic, that he wanted to examine her and, if his diagnosis held, withdraw her from school for a month so he could hospitalize her. Froelich said he would have to discuss it with Mr. Sylvester.

Mr. Sylvester's response was swift and negative. He phoned personally.

“We had a boy here last year who had been on this Dr. Cott's program,” he declared. “He wasn't any better at all. The whole thing is a lot of meaningless garbage, a scheme to peddle a lot of vitamins.”

“We don't see it that way,” I said. “We see it as an opportunity to help her.”

“It's not,” he snapped.

“We'd like to withdraw her for a month,” I said firmly.

“Fine, but I can't guarantee her place will still be here.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying we have no such thing as a leave of absence here. If you withdraw your daughter she won't automatically get back in. She'll have to take a place on the waiting list.”

“How can you do this to us?” I cried. “We're trying to
help
her!”

“And I'm trying to save you unnecessary grief and expense, Mrs. Spungen.”

I hung up, enraged, and phoned Dr. Cott. He was sympathetic.

“You've got a difficult decision on your hands,” he said.

“What do you advise?”

“I'm not going to lie to you, Mrs. Spungen. There's a good chance I can help Nancy. There's also a chance I can't. If I can't, and Darlington won't take her back, then there won't be any place for Nancy to go after her month is up, except home. She has to remain in a school environment. She can't just move back in with you and not go to school.”

“So we should forget it?” I asked, not wanting to hear his answer.

“For now, I'm afraid so. I can't take the responsibility for pulling her out of the Darlington system. It's the only system I know of that can handle her. There's certainly nowhere else in this area. It would put you in a terrible position if she couldn't go back there. I'm sorry.”

“So am I,” I said, crushed.

“If they change their minds, let me know.”

Frank and I discussed it that night. Reluctantly, we agreed that there was no way we could risk freezing her out of Darlington. We had no choice. We were forced to abandon the Cott alternative.

We were furious with the Darlington Institute for extinguishing this spark of hope. We simply could not understand Mr. Sylvester's motive in denying us a chance to help Nancy. We still can't.

I phoned Froelich and asked him to tell Sylvester we would not be withdrawing Nancy. He said he would. This done, we thought the matter was closed. It wasn't.

We hadn't told Nancy about Dr. Cott. We saw no purpose in it, at least not until we knew the treatment was going to come off, at which point we planned to explain it to her as openly as possible. Since it did not come off, we said nothing to her.

Somehow she found out what had happened—I don't know who told her—and took our intentions the wrong way.

She phoned, screaming.

“You bitch! You're trying to prove I'm a schizo so you can put me in a fucking hospital! You want me locked away! You never wanted me, and now you're trying to get rid of me!”

“Now, Nancy, that's just not so! We weren't—”

“You tried to hide it from me! You
know
you did! But I found out! I found out that you wanna put me in a hospital for fucking schizos!”

“We're
trying
to help you! We had some conversations with a doctor. He seemed familiar with your problems. That's
all
that happened!”

“You're the one with the problems! Not me!
You!
You're the one who's fucked up!”

My head began to throb just over my left eye. I took several deep breaths. The lid. I had to keep the lid on. “Nancy, how can I make you understand that Daddy and I love you?”

“I hate your fucking guts!”

“Nancy, if you're going to talk to me—”

“Hear me? I hate your fucking guts!”

“—talk to me like that, I'm going to hang up.”

“
Go fuck yourself, you fucking bitch!”

I hung up on her, shaking.

By now, Nancy was in the spring of her second year at Lakeside. Frank and I were called in for a meeting with Mark Meadows, the
Lakeside schoolmaster, Mallory Brooke, and Walter Froelich, at which time we found out that they'd pretty much had it with Nancy. They came up with a novel way of ousting her. Meadows informed us that Nancy would be ready to graduate in June.

“We wanted you to know,” he said, “because she should be getting her college applications out.”

Frank and I just sat there staring at him, mouths agape.

“You've got to be kidding,” I finally said, incredulous.

“Not at all,” Meadows said. “Scholastically, she's ahead of her age in most areas. She's a very bright girl.”

“Look,” Frank said, “she may be ready academically to handle college work, but she's also fifteen years old. Don't you think you're rushing her a bit?”

“She's ready,” Meadows insisted.

“But even a well-adjusted child isn't emotionally ready for college at fifteen,” I countered. “And Nancy is
not
well adjusted. She has to stay here for another year.
At least
another year. She
has
to.”

They said they would let us know. A few days later Mr. Froelich called to say that Lakeside would keep Nancy for one more year, but that she would definitely be graduated after that, at age sixteen.

“We feel that by then she'll have caught up emotionally to her scholastic level,” he reported.

I had to laugh.

“What's so funny?”

“Nothing. It's just that people have been telling us that since she was four years old.”

Within a few days Nancy had found out that Lakeside had been ready to graduate her until we insisted she be kept there for another year. Her response was to slash the veins in her left forearm with a razor blade.