January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her (8 page)

“In order to get an accurate reading,” the tech replies, “I need her to sit perfectly still. Even the slightest movement can affect the readout.”

“For how long?” I ask.

“Ideally, about thirty minutes.”

I exhale, frustrated.

“There is no way she’s going to sit still for thirty minutes.” I had hoped this dumb woman would help me by engaging Janni, teaching her about the EEG machine and what she is doing, but she’s not making any effort at all. I have no patience anymore for anyone who can’t help me with Janni.

“If you don’t think she can do it awake, we can put her under anesthesia.”

“Can we do that now?” I ask hopefully.

The tech shakes her head. “No. That would have to be done at a hospital.”

“Janni, do you want to go to the hospital?” Susan asks, making me jump. I’d actually forgotten she was here. Not that it makes any difference. It might as well just be me. I am the only one who can get Janni through this. I’ll teach her, be silly, do whatever I have to do.

“No,” Janni answers.

“Then come on,” I urge her. “Let’s get through this.”

It takes twenty minutes just to get the electrodes on Janni’s head. She keeps complaining they are cold and trying to take them off, but I hold both her hands in mine and keep talking to her, trying to teach her about EEG machines and brain waves.

Finally, every electrode is on.

“See, Janni? I told you it doesn’t hurt.”

“I want them off!”

“Just keep focused on me,” I tell her. “Focus on my eyes.”

“Okay,” the tech says. “Try to hold perfectly still.”

Janni shifts in the chair and, pulling one of her hands free from mine, reaches up for the wires going into her head.

I quickly grab hold of her hands to prevent her from pulling off the electrodes.

“Are you getting it?” I ask the tech, not taking my eyes of Janni.

“She needs to not move,” the tech replies.

“Janni, just hold still, okay?”

“I want to get out!” she cries, trying to twist free of me.

I feel for her. Even a normal kid would have a hard time sitting for an EEG, let alone Janni. But we need answers, some explanation for her violence.

“Just hold on, Janni,” I repeat calmly. “Do you want to see what your brain waves look like?”

Janni nods.

“She can’t move her head,” the tech says sharply.

“If she can see them she might stay still,” I reply, increasingly pissed off with this tech.

Janni turns her head to see the readout, allowing me to look, too. There are eight lines, all moving at different speeds.

“Those are your brain waves,” I say to Janni.

Janni turns back, which frustrates me. I would have expected her to be fascinated by this. Every time she moves, several of the lines on the screen jump wildly.

“I want to go,” Janni says again. “Please get me out of this.”

I sigh, losing hope. “Are you able to get anything?” I ask the tech.

“Let me go ask the doctor and see what he wants to do.” The tech leaves.

While she’s gone, in between trying to keep Janni from pulling her electrodes out, I watch the screen, trying to see if I can identify something unusual, like one wave jumping wildly. But they are all pretty much the same.

The tech comes back. “The doctor said it would be nice to get thirty minutes, but we don’t need it. If she can just sit still for two minutes, that will be enough to get her baseline.”

Hope rises again. “Did you hear that, Janni? Just two minutes. You can do two minutes.”

I count down from one hundred and twenty. When Janni moves after ninety seconds, I want to scream. We were so close!

“Janni! We only had thirty seconds to go!”

“I want to get out!” she cries.

The tech starts to remove the electrodes. “We’re done,” she says.

I slump, dejected. “So we’re going to have to do the hospital.”

The tech shakes her head. “No, I think we’ve got enough to at least get a sense if there’s anything abormal.”

“Is there?” Susan asks, again reminding me she’s actually here.

“The doctor needs to analyze the printout.”

“Can he do that today?” I ask.

“He can’t today.”

I am so frustrated. I want to know. No, I need to know. I don’t know how many more times I can take holding Janni down during one of her rages, looking into her eyes, and seeing something else other than my daughter. I need to know what that “something else” is. Then I need to know how to stop it.

TWO WEEKS LATER we go back to the neurologist to get the results of the EEG.

Everything is normal.

I can’t believe it. I am so desperate for answers that I would actually have been relieved if I’d been told she had a tumor. I will accept any explanation for the violence. But still no one has one.

“Janni wasn’t able to sit still for very long. Are you sure you got enough?” I ask, prepared to do it again, putting Janni under general anesthetic this time.

The neurologist shakes his head. “We got what we needed. The point was to look for anything abnormal, and there isn’t anything.”

I am devastated. We’re back to square one.

“So do you have any idea what is causing her behavior?” I ask weakly.

“You need to go back and talk to Dr. Howe,” he replies. “We’ve ruled out physical causes. It’s not for me to say anything else.”

I persist. “Consider it a second opinion.”

The neurologist watches Janni bounce around his office, unable to sit still, picking up things and throwing them. “Honestly, I think it’s ADHD.”

ADHD? That’s supposedly what I had. Why I was on the Ritalin
.

I’d always believed that I didn’t need it, that I was given it simply because my mother couldn’t handle me. But I’m not so sure anymore. I take Lexapro, which is an antidepressant. I’ve tried different antidepressants for years, but none of them worked until Lexapro. Maybe that was because my depression didn’t manifest as sadness.

I got angry … just like Janni.

CHAPTER TEN
Early February 2008

W
e’re on our way to Pump It Up, an indoor play area in Woodland Hills, a half-hour drive away and a good test to see if Janni and Bodhi can ride in the same car while she’s on her new Ritalin medication.

As usual, as soon as we start driving, Bodhi starts crying, but this time, Janni doesn’t react. It’s like she doesn’t hear him crying. We still have her in the front passenger seat next to me, while Susan rides in the back next to Bodhi.

When we get to the play area, I am shocked to see only babies and toddlers.

“Where are the kids Janni’s age?” I ask Susan.

Susan is settling down with Bodhi, preparing to feed him.

“It’s a school day,” she replies.

I feel a pang of pain in my heart. I’d forgotten that Janni should be in school by now. Janni’s peers are growing up, while Janni appears
to be stuck. The world is moving on without her, I think sadly, remembering my image of her as a shut-in.

I don’t expect Janni to last long at the play area. I figure if we get an hour we will be doing well. To my shock, Janni starts helping the younger kids climb into the tunnels or into the ball pit.
She’s interacting with other kids!

The Ritalin is the answer to our prayers, a miracle drug. Not only is her violence gone, but here she is, busy helping the younger children. I haven’t seen her be nice to another child since she was a toddler herself, and now here she is, holding their hands, taking them back to their mothers when they get scared, reassuring them. She is suddenly the big sister I always hoped she would be.

Every so often she runs back to us, but instead of talking about her imaginary friends, she talks about the other children, giving us their names and how old they are.

She is talking a mile a minute. She has always been a fast talker, but this is even faster.

I have read up on Ritalin, just as I have on Risperdal. Like all ADHD drugs, it’s supposed to calm a child down. The fact that it is winding Janni up can mean only one thing: Janni doesn’t have ADHD.

“She’s very wound up,” I say to Susan after Janni runs back to play with the toddlers. “It’s like she’s high.”

“But at least she’s not being violent,” Susan replies. “I would rather her be high and happy than unhappy and violent.”

I agree. So Ritalin makes our daughter high as a kite. At least she’s happy and the violence is gone.

AFTER A FULL day of playing at Pump It Up, we get into the car and drive home. I start to think my original belief was correct: The source of Janni’s rage is a disconnect between her brilliant mind and
her young body. It’s been making her depressed, and that makes her become violent. The Ritalin makes her high, thereby taking away the violence.

It is early evening and traffic is heavy. Bodhi starts to cry. Given that she didn’t scream at him when he cried on the drive here, I am taken by surprise when Janni suddenly screams at him to be quiet.

Okay
, I tell myself.
Don’t panic. The Ritalin is just wearing off
. I tell Susan to give her another pill.

“But if I give her one now, she won’t sleep,” Susan protests. “We’re only supposed to give it to her in the morning.”

Janni takes off her shoes and unbuckles her seat belt, turning around to throw her shoes at Bodhi. I grab at her arms, my eyes going back and forth between the road in front of me and Janni.

“If you don’t give her one now,” I roar, “we’ll never make it home.”

Janni keeps screaming at Bodhi and trying to hit him, while Susan searches in her purse for the bottle of Ritalin.

“Janni, put on the headphones.” I reach down to the floor of the passenger side and retrieve the headphones I bought for Janni. They’re designed for shooters, rated to block out thirty-five decibels. I’ve tried them on myself, and I know they won’t completely eliminate the sound of Bodhi’s crying, but they do dull the sound so it’s like he’s yards away.

I slip them over Janni’s head, but she rips them off, slamming her hands over her ears.

“Janni, I told you to wear the headphones!”

“I can still hear him!” she wails.

“But they will dull his crying,” I insist.

“They don’t! I can still hear him!”

“But not as loud.”

Janni violently shakes her head. “It’s still the same!”

I don’t get this. How can it be the same? It’s almost like the sound of Bodhi’s crying is inside her head.

•  •  •

A FEW HOURS later it’s nighttime.

“Her eyes are dilated and her heart is beating faster than ever,” Susan shouts to me from her bedroom. I’m on the couch by Bodhi, zoning out on TV.

“You should go to bed,” I tell Susan. “I’ll stay up with her until she goes to sleep. You wanna watch
Survivorman
?”

“Yes,” Janni answers, and she snuggles beside me on the couch. This is one of our favorite shows.

Susan and I make eye contact. “No more Ritalin,” she says.

I nod. Another medication we can’t rely on. The second dose never kicked in. I drove all the way home, with my arm guarding Janni, while Susan shielded the screaming Bodhi with her body. It took us two hours to get home because of traffic. And now she can’t fall asleep. Her heart is racing.

I put my hand on Janni’s chest. It’s still fast. From the moment it first begins to beat, the heart has an internal clock. Genetics has programmed a certain number of beats, and when that number is up, the heart will stop. The faster it goes, the closer to the end we get.

I am terrified.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Valentine’s Day, 2008

I
t feels strange to be standing outside a public school, waiting for Janni to finish afternoon kindergarten. For so long we thought we’d be homeschooling Janni. Because of her high IQ, we knew she would be bored out of her mind with public school, but there is no way she would pass the entrance interview for Mirman and I have to work. Janni is still a danger to Bodhi, so we have no choice but to put her somewhere and this is our only option.

“How was school?” Susan asks nervously as Janni comes out to greet us. We’re both on eggshells hoping today was better than yesterday, or any of the days since she started.

“Fine,” Janni answers.

“Janni,” the kindergarten teacher calls. “Don’t forget your backpack.”

Janni runs to get her backpack and brings it over to where we are standing. She pulls out her red folder and removes a heart cut from red
construction paper. “I made this for you.” She hands it to me, excited. I read it: “H
APPY
V
ALENTINE’S
D
AY
, F
ROM
76.”

“Thank you, Janni, I love it.”

Janni smiles and runs off to the playground. Susan tells her that one of the girls from her class is at the playground, too. I watch, always hoping to see Janni playing with another child. But she never even looks at her classmate.

“Do you have a minute?” the teacher calls to us.

“You go in today,” Susan says under her breath to me. “I’m tired of talking to them. They don’t get it and I’m tired of explaining.”

Susan wheels Bodhi’s stroller after Janni while I head for the classroom. I already know this is going to be about Janni’s behavior. It is always about Janni’s behavior.

As I walk, I look at the other papers inside the red folder. On top is a small piece of white paper, Janni’s behavioral report for the day:
Didn’t want to participate in activities. Screamed. Hit another child
.

I look underneath at her work for the day. Every sheet is either scribbled all over or ripped in two, both things Janni will do if she makes a mistake. Rather than just taking an eraser and erasing it like she’s supposed to, she acts like the mistake is written in stone. Some of the torn sheets are completely blank. When I look at the top of the sheet, I see why. The teacher wrote “January,” which will automatically make Janni tear it up.

“So how did she do?” I ask, stupidly, hoping for some good news.

The teacher, a nice enough young woman, fresh out of college, shrugs. “She had to go to the principal’s office for a while because she wouldn’t stop hitting.”