January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her (16 page)

But at least Loma Linda has separate wings and programs for teens and kids. I can relax, knowing that Janni is safe here.

When we arrive, we have to wait for Janni to be brought out to us in the visiting room, which has toys, books, and puzzles.

Janni enters the room, Barb following. Susan and I stand up.

“Hey, sweetie, how are you?” we both ask.

“I’m fine,” Janni answers. “Bodhi!” she exclaims, spotting him in
his car seat. I tense, ready to intercede, but she just goes down on her knees next to him. “Baby. I missed you.”

She missed him? I am shocked.

“How is she doing?” Susan asks Barb.

“She’s doing fine,” Barb answers. “She’s definitely a strong-willed child. She only wants to do what she wants to do, and sometimes she has to go into the ‘time-out’ room.”

“Is she getting Thorazine?” Susan asks.

“We don’t use Thorazine here,” Barb replies. “I know some hospitals do, but we don’t.”

“But it works really well for her,” Susan presses. “It helps with the violence.”

Barb smiles. “We don’t believe in using Thorazine. We use Seroquel as a PRN.” Seroquel is another antipsychotic, what is called an “atypical,” one of the new classes of antipsychotics developed in the last few years.

“But she’s already taking Seroquel,” Susan answers her.

“You only have an hour. Why don’t you spend it with her,” Barb suggests, walking off.

Susan gives me a look of concern. “I don’t like that she isn’t getting any Thorazine.”

“I know, but she just said she missed Bodhi.”

Janni rubs her hands. “I love Bodhi.”

Is this the same child?

“I thought you hated his crying,” I say.

“I do hate his crying,” Janni replies.

I spot a box of Legos. “Legos!” I say to Janni. “I loved these as a kid. Janni, do you want to build a house?”

Janni looks at the Legos, deciding if she wants to play, then comes over. I feel a surge of hope. First she missed Bodhi and now she’s actually engaging in play.

“What are you eating here?” Susan asks her.

“Toast and butter,” Janni answers.

“Anything else?” Susan asks, clearly concerned.

“No.”

Susan looks at me, irritated. “I told them she wouldn’t eat.”

All I care about is getting through this visit and it being a good one. Every good visit means maybe we’re getting out of whatever brought this on in the first place. I don’t want Susan to rock the boat.

“She’s not gonna starve,” I say.

“The rats don’t like Bodhi,” Janni suddenly announces without looking up from the Legos. “My seven rats. They’re scared of the big baby.”

“They don’t have to be scared of Bodhi,” I say. “Bodhi won’t hurt them. Can you tell them that Bodhi won’t hurt them?”

“I do.”

“And what do they say?” I ask.

Janni is trying to fit a block on the house I am building. “They won’t listen to me.”

“Janni, they will listen if you tell them to listen.”

She struggles to get a block on and throws it, then knocks over the box of Legos.

“Janni! Why did you do that? Come here and help me clean them up.”

“No.”

“So, Janni,” Susan asks, “how are the other girls here?”

“Fine.”

“Do you like any of them?”

“No.”

“Are they nice to you?”

“Yes, but I don’t like them.”

“Why not?”

“Janni, look!” I call, holding up my half-finished Lego house, trying to get her attention back.

“Do they have imaginations like you?” Susan persists.

“No,” Janni answers.

I give an exasperated sigh and glare at Susan. I know she doesn’t mean to, but I fear that all she is doing is reminding Janni of her differences from everybody else.

Janni moves over to Susan. She looks like she is going in for a hug, so I am not prepared when Janni raises her fist and hits Susan on the arm.

“Janni, no,” Susan says, but Janni keeps hitting.

Susan tries to take hold of Janni’s arms. “She needs Thorazine,” she says to me.

I step out to the nurses’ station. “Where’s Barb? Janni just hit Susan out of nowhere,” I say. “I don’t think the meds she’s on are enough.”

Barb comes around from the nurses’ station and enters the visiting room.

I follow, expecting that she wants to see for herself.

“Janni, did you just hit your mother?”

“Yes,” Janni answers without emotion.

Barb sighs. “Janni, you know the rules. There is no hitting. If you hit, you lose your visiting privileges.” She takes Janni by the hand and Janni screams.

Barb pulls harder, and another nurse joins her as Janni drops to the floor. “Janni, come on.”

To my immense shock they drag Janni out of the room. Every parental instinct urges me to leap forward and tell Barb to get her fat hands off my daughter.

“We don’t want her to leave,” I cry out. “I just wanted you to know the meds aren’t working.”

“Janni knows the rules,” Barb says through gritted teeth as she continues to drag the screaming and hitting Janni through the hallway. “Janni, we have to go to the ‘time-out’ room.”

“She can’t control it,” Susan cries. “That’s why she’s here.”

“Janni knows that behavior is not acceptable, don’t you, Janni?” Barb says.

Janni is still kicking and screaming, like she’s fighting for her life. And I, her father, am letting it happen.

“You need to leave now,” Barb tells us.

“We’ll wait,” Susan answers.

“She’s not coming back out. Visitation is over for her.”

“We drove a hundred miles to see her and we only get an hour!” Susan pleads.

Barb is unmoved. “She needs to learn there are consequences to her actions.”

“She needs more medication. She needs Thorazine!” Susan cries. But Bodhi starts to cry and Susan has to turn to him.

I see Barb reach for her keycard to open the time-out room.

“I love you, Janni,” I say weakly, but Janni doesn’t see me as the nurse tosses her down on the rubber mat. As Janni gets up to take another swing, Barb quickly slams the door, and it locks, leaving Janni screaming inside.

WE ARE SHOCKED when Barb calls to tell us they’re planning to discharge Janni on Thursday, only five days after she went in.

Immediately, the overwhelming and crippling sense of fear returns. She’s not ready. The violence still explodes out of nowhere. She’s still a threat to Bodhi. I’ve been waiting for a clear sign from Janni that she is better. I want to look into her eyes and feel like the violence is gone for good. But it isn’t. Whatever brought on the violence in the first place is still there. Even if Bodhi was the trigger, he is here to stay. We have done everything, to the point that Janni barely knows he exists. Jesus Christ, we barely let him make a sound if we can help it. We have gone as far as we can go in limiting his impact on Janni.

But in my heart of hearts I know it isn’t Bodhi. He may have been the final tipping point, but Janni has been changing before my eyes for years. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.

And now Loma Linda is releasing her because they consider her stable enough to go home? They want us to pick her up earlier in the day, but we refuse, demanding to see the doctor. The doctor only sees parents on Thursdays during visiting hours.

“But she’s still violent!” Susan cries as we wait in Barb’s office for the doctor. “Nothing has changed. You haven’t even changed her medications.”

“Will it be perfect?” Barb says to us. “No, of course not. January is not an easy child.”

“But she is still a threat to Bodhi! How am I supposed to keep him safe?”

“You are going to have to just bite the bullet and be tougher with her,” Barb insists.

“I’d like to see you handle her with an
infant
in your arms!” Susan shoots back.

“Look,” Barb replies in a way that is meant to be soothing but comes off as condescending, “I raised children and had a very strong-willed child, too. Nobody ever said parenting was easy.”

“We never expected it to be ‘easy,’ ” Susan fires back, frustrated. “But we shouldn’t have to worry about her hurting Bodhi! We can’t live like this!”

Barb nods. “I think I hear the doctor outside. Let me bring him in to talk to you.”

She leaves, closing the door behind her.

Barb comes back in with the doctor, who looks like he just got back from shooting eighteen holes of golf. He’s tanned, wearing the kind of hideous plaid golfer pants that my grandfather used to wear when he was alive. He sits on the edge of Barb’s desk.

“I heard you wanted to see me?” he asks.

“Yes.” Susan launches into it. “You’ve made no med changes. In fact, you’ve done nothing at all and you’re releasing Janni.”

“I didn’t feel she needed any med changes,” he says and smiles. “In fact, I’m convinced that in six months she won’t be on any medication at all.”

I feel an immense sense of relief. He seems so sure of himself.

“What about schizophrenia?” Susan demands of him.

“I don’t see any evidence of schizophrenia. She engages with the nursing staff.”

“What about her violence?” She strikes back at him. “It’s still there. Does she have to kill Bodhi before you people will do anything?”

“Susan,” I say gently. I’m getting tired of her yelling at everyone. Or maybe I am just getting tired of the fight.

She turns on me. “You keep thinking they care, but they don’t. If she kills Bodhi, they’ll just say ‘How tragic’ and move on!”

“That’s not true,” Barb replies. “We care very much.”

“Let me ask you a question,” the doctor says to Susan. “She was at Alhambra for three weeks, right?”

Susan nods. “And they didn’t do a damn thing, either.”

The doctor nods understandingly, like he’s the doctor out of that famous Norman Rockwell painting. “And how long was she out before you brought her to UCLA?”

“Four days,” Susan answers.

The doctor sits back with a knowing look on his face. “So she was only out four days before you took her back to the hospital. What does that tell you?”

“It tells me she still isn’t any better, that maybe she has schizophrenia, but nobody will listen to her because of her age. I keep telling her to tell doctors the truth. She says she is telling you, but that you don’t believe her!”

“Why are you so convinced she has schizophrenia?” he asks.

“Because the only thing that stops her violence is Thorazine,” Susan answers.

“Thorazine is a sedative. It would stop anybody’s violence.”

“That’s not true. Janni has been on antipsychotics before and they did nothing. She ran around like she was on nothing at all,” Susan retorts.

I don’t know why I’m not speaking up and am letting Susan do all the arguing. Maybe I’m tired of the uncertainty. I’m tired of living in fear. I’m tired of nobody being able to fix this.

“I can’t speak to that,” the doctor responds, “but don’t you think four days is a pretty short time to be out in the world before bringing her back to the hospital?”

“We couldn’t handle her! She was out of control.”

The doctor softens his tone. “You know what my diagnosis of Janni is? Severe anxiety.” He sighs, like he’s trying to make us understand a difficult concept that we aren’t getting. “As adults, we forget what it’s like to be a kid. The world is a pretty scary place.”

“We’re scared of Janni harming her brother!” Susan says, exasperated.

“You said she was in Alhambra for three weeks and she liked it. She didn’t want to leave. Then she gets out, has a bad day, as kids do, as we all do, and you bring her straight back to the hospital,” the doctor says. “You know what that is teaching her?”

Susan stares at him, angrily waiting for his answer.

“It’s teaching her that when life gets too hard, run away. That’s why I think we don’t see the level of violence you describe here, although I don’t doubt it happens at home. She even likes it here. She’s told Barb and all the staff she likes it here.”

“Because she is with other kids who are like her,” Susan retorts.

The doctor shakes his head. “No, she likes it here because she doesn’t have to deal with problems in her world, like her feelings for
Bodhi. I don’t doubt you care about her. You are both obviously very committed parents. But every time you bring her back to the hospital, all you’re doing is giving her a way of not dealing with life. That is how people become institutionalized. I used to see it when the state hospitals were around, and it was the same thing. It’s not like what you see in the movies. Most patients didn’t want to leave. They didn’t want to leave because life was easier on the inside.”

“She can’t control it,” Susan insists. “She says she can’t control it.”

The doctor shrugs. “Seems like she can control it when she wants to. The question is do the two of you ever actually ask her to control it or do you just accept that there is something wrong and there is nothing you can do about it?”

“We’ve been working with her since the day she was born!” Susan is nearly out of breath from yelling. “She was always different. She never slept as a baby. We had to take her out all day, every day, to get her enough stimulation so she would sleep a little. Even when she was sick, it didn’t slow her down at all. We still had to take her out.”

“Will you let the man speak?” I finally interject. “Getting angry isn’t going to solve anything.”

“They’re not doing anything!” Susan retorts. “They don’t listen to her.”

“How many times are we going to keep bringing her back to the hospital and get the same answer?” I demand. “Has it occurred to you that maybe we keep getting the same answer because maybe they are right?”

“Fine,” Susan says. “You believe these idiots if you want to.”

I wince. I know she is as frustrated as I am, but I hate it when she attacks the doctors so openly.

“So what do you propose we do?” I ask the doctor.

“Stand up to her,” he says simply.

“She doesn’t take no for an answer,” Susan says with hostility.

“She will eventually,” the doctor replies. “It is going to be tough, I
won’t lie to you, but you have to stand up and hold your ground. Right now all she sees in you two is fear, and that creates fear in her. That is why she is lashing out. Stop being afraid and she will stop lashing out.”