Chapter 9. Email Tirades and Four Stepfathers: Alicia’s Case

Client Name: Alicia

Age: 28 years old

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Puerto Rican

Occupation: Unemployed

Current living situation: I live by myself

Why are you seeking services at our clinic?

I got fired for no reason! Every job someone I work with has it out for me. It’s like I don’t have any control and everyone in my life turns on me. No one wants to stay my friend, and I can’t find a good man. I really need someone who understands me and wants to help me. I need to take control of my life.

Alicia: [agitated and oversharing] I just got fired! I keep getting fired. I just don’t get it. It’s not like it was my fault. My coworkers … always causing problems... Every time someone has it out for me. Like this most recent job – a girl I worked with complained about me, and BOOM … “You’re fired” [in “Donald Trump/Apprentice” style]! Or the job before that the nasty witch in the next cubicle asked me – get this! – to keep my voice down when speaking on the phone. [raising her voice] “How am I supposed to do my job if I can’t talk on the phone?” I say to her but she’s not sorry at all--the disrespect. She had no right. In school she would’ve got jumped for doing this to me. But HA! No apology, no nothing. So I go home and I think about it a little and it comes to me: let everybody know what she did. I emailed the supervisor and cc’d everyone! And then that supervisor took HER side and fired me from that job, too! He said it was “inappropriate” [you can almost hear her doing air quotes] – I think it was very “appropriate” – maybe even too nice. It’s hard to get a job when you have to work with idiots like that and you’ve only got short-term jobs on your record. And don’t get me started on my so-called friends and family!

Alicia: My mood. It goes up and down all the time-- it’s like all out of control. Any small thing can set me off. One moment I’m really happy, like everything is great. Like, I feel really, really good… On top of the world. And then … someone calls to change plans on me, and I feel like it’s all over.... Sometimes I just feel numb, like I can’t feel anything at all. That’s maybe the scariest time, because I mean, I have a big heart… I can’t feel just a little bit – but the ups and downs kind of wear me down after a while.

Alicia: Um, let me think. I’m having trouble with my “friends,” too. That’s really hard for me, to try to keep people as friends long-term…finding someone who doesn’t let me down. I want a “best friend” in my life, someone I can go to with anything and share everything with. So when I meet someone I have something in common with or who wants to hang out with me, I get really excited that this person will be that “best friend” I’ve been looking for. So I hang out with her all the time and try to get close, learn her story right away. But it never works out, and then I’m all alone again. Like, one time in high school, there was this girl that I knew was going to be my best friend. We had really been bonding for like a whole week, so I gave her a “best friends” necklace. She just walked away. She started ignoring me, acting like she didn’t see me after that. [pauses, then with more intensity] It really, really sucks. It hurts so bad when people turn on you, reject you like that … but it keeps happening to me. [Brief pause; suddenly brightening] I’m glad I came to see you. Talking to you is totally going to help—I can tell.

Alicia: Even as a kid, I feel like my reactions were bigger than the other kids. My family—a lot of the time it was just Mamí and me-- we were poorer than everyone else, so I got teased a lot because I didn’t have “THE” clothes or the rich-kid toys. They had so much nice stuff, but I didn’t fit in because we didn’t have money. When they teased me I would feel awful, just awful. I had a few friends, I guess. They were like me – none of us fit in. We sort of stuck together because we had that in common, but then we’d get into fights. It got ugly. Whenever I’d try to get close to people, they would be friends with other people, not me, and I’d feel jealous. So yeah, I guess this has been going on my entire life.

Alicia: [conversational tone like she’s talking to her best friend] Well, my parents got divorced when I was only 2. I lived with Mamí most of the time growing up, but sometimes I would live with my Abuela-- my grandma-- for a few months. My dad would contact us, but only when he felt like it. [Suddenly agitated and angry] He would call and promise he would pick me up for the weekend and take me someplace fun, like to the zoo, or to get ice cream. One time I was sitting on the front porch waiting for him for hours and I got so upset when he didn’t come. I would tell myself I wasn’t going to trust him again, he was garbage—not a man, but then he would apologize, be all sweet on the phone… [small, sad voice] and then not show up again. [suddenly resentful] He didn’t give us any child support, and Mamí never had a job for very long, so I wasn’t able to have nice things. Mamí remarried 4 times from the time I was 3 until I left home at 17. These guys were all losers—also garbage. I was never close to any of them.

Alicia: Um … [silent for a moment, then in a flat, matter-of-fact tone] … Yeah, actually. When I was 8, my second stepfather molested me. It started off as just touching me. It got worse and worse over time. Then when I was 9, he started raping me… I was so scared. I told no one—no best friend to talk to, like I told you. He said he would hurt me if I told anyone. I was so embarrassed. All I could think was why is this happening to me? What am I doing wrong? But finally I worked up the courage to tell my mom. I was sure she would throw him out of the house because she would be so mad. [pause] But Mamí didn’t believe me. She said I was making it up. So Mamí stayed with this molester, this garbage, … and I just tried to hide from him as much as I could. I would say I was doing some clubs and stuff after school, and sometimes I could make excuses to stay late after school, but mostly I hung out in the park near our building just so I didn’t have to be home alone with him. [Suddenly earnest, intimate] I haven’t told that to anyone since I tried to tell Mamí about it. I feel like you really GET me.

Alicia: Yes, totally. I’ve had boyfriends since I was 14. When you like a guy and you can tell he’s into you it’s so great! I know he’s “the one” – every time, it feels that way--and I’m thinking about marriage and children and having a real family, you know? But then I start thinking… maybe he’s getting tired of me… maybe this won’t last. I worry that this guy is going to dump me like all the other guys before. Or I see him looking at a girl and I think he’s cheating on me and I can’t get it out of my head. I mean, all men are cheaters, but I think maybe this one will stay. So I’ll set up “tests” to make sure he really cares about me. Like, I’ll send him a text saying, “how could anyone love someone like me?” I wonder that all the time so why not ask? Then I’ll time how long it takes him to text back. If he doesn’t respond right away, I figure he’s already moving on … falling out of love with me and even if he gets back to me it’s like “you’re so hot, I’m into you” and then I know it’s all about sex and it’s not about me, loving ME. If he tries to give me some BS story like he was in a meeting, I know he’s lying and ignoring me. Nothing lasts. Every single time they start to drop hints they are going to break up with me. Then I get really scared. I’ll do anything to keep them with me. I’ll tell them my grandmother is about to die or that I just got a test back saying I have cancer, whatever I think will work. The last guy I dated—Justin—he was so perfect, really smart and hot. I told him I’d hurt myself if he left—I showed him a razor I had. It worked for a little while, but then he still left me. I felt frantic—like I wanted to kill myself for real. I tried to tell him—I sent emails, I left notes on his car. I thought anything would be better than hurting so much and I kept trying to reach him, to tell him, but he blocked me and…I was alone again.

Alicia: Yes. When I was probably 13 or 14, I figured out that when I was feeling really bad, I could feel a little better if I dug my fingernails into my arm as hard as I could and counted to ten. It started out sort of like a ritual and I’d wear long sleeve shirts to cover up the marks my nails would make. Then I started using a paperclip to scratch my arms, my legs, sometimes till they started bleeding. But then that felt like it wasn’t enough, so I started cutting myself with a razor. I would do it in places my clothes would cover so that no one else would know. I was – I am – embarrassed of the scars. I have to be careful what I wear out, but it was really hard NOT to cut myself after awhile. It just made me feel better—like I could handle things and be okay.

Alicia: No, not today [laughs ironically] I have you to thank for that—I can tell you’re going to make me feel better. But, okay, I’ve tried pretty much everything. I get so down and depressed and just…like you said… overwhelmed, you know? I’ll have these moments when I feel like I’m back in that room with my stepfather doing stuff to me – [pause, like she is back in that moment, zoned out] I’ll see him when he isn’t there, or I’ll feel him touching me when he’s not there, especially when I’m really stressed out. Eating a lot of food all at once seems to help a little. I’ll eat a lot in the middle of the night, standing over the kitchen counter. I tell myself I need to stop doing that because I’m going to gain weight, so I’ll stop for a few weeks but then when I stop eating, it’s like I still need something to help me feel okay. So I’ll drink – beer, whiskey, you name it – a lot all in one sitting. I know that’s not good, either, so every morning I wake up and I think “I’ll never do that again.” But then something happens and I get all out of control again, so I eat, or drink or [quickly, a little embarrassed] … I cut myself. Not for almost a month, though.

Alicia: Hmmm… I don’t know if this is what you are asking, but when I was 17, my 4th stepfather and I got into a huge fight. It started real small, but then I got really angry really fast. I got so mad I ended up throwing a chair through the sliding door onto the balcony. Then that jerk threw me out of the house, and Mamí did nothing to stop him! [pause] Ever since then, I’ve had to move a lot. I’ve lived with some of my boyfriends, but that never lasts. I even had to live in a homeless shelter for a couple of weeks. And that brings me back to my main problem, which is that I can’t hold down a job for very long, which makes it hard to pay rent. [Brightly, intimately] Can I just say, I feel like I can really TALK to you. I know you’re going to help me. I am so glad I’ll be coming to see you.