Ike tried to discuss with Colonel Mann what Dr. Dingle had said to me.
"Your wife was mistaken," the colonel told Ike. "Dr. Dingle would never
have said such things. And I can assure you he wouldn't get angry," How
could he be so certain Dr. Dingle never experienced anger? Did he consider
psychologists immune to such emotions?
It had been a year since I first took Tony to the pediatrician. Tony's
unexpected behavior had always seemed funny to us. One reason was
probably Tony's attitude. Our other two children became offended and cried
if we laughed at them too much, but Tony seemed to enjoy it. Full of fun
himself, Tony loved to tease. He would sometimes hide in the bushes when I
called him from the yard. When I found him, he would laugh with delight at
his cleverness. During the time I was attending group therapy I still tried to
find humor in Tony's mischief, but I was often on the verge of tears. He
continued to break the glass out of the door when he couldn't get it open. Ike
had replaced it several times. We tried to discipline Tony, but were unable
to find effective punishments. We had to be careful not to punish him to
relieve our fear and frustration or to satisfy people who considered him
spoiled. It's understandable how the myth about child abuse causing
retardation originated. Children who do not respond to normal discipline are
frustrating. I'm sure some have been abused.
My mother had knit Tony a pillow which looked like a big bug. Tony,
nearly five, was still in diapers. He would run and get his pillow, and lie on
the floor with it under his head while I changed his diapers.
"Will you expect me to change your diapers after you start riding your first
motorcycle, you rascal?" I sometimes exclaimed.
Tony, his head on his pillow, would smile impishly at my frustration. He also
slept with his pillow.
"Find piddow," Tony said one night at bedtime.
I searched the house. Tony followed me, repeating "find piddow" more insistently.
"Everyone help find Tony's pillow," I urged, and we began looking in the
yard. It was getting dark and we couldn't find a flashlight. (Flashlights were
one of the things Tony kept dismantled.) By this time Tony was in tears and
screaming,
"Find piddow! Find piddow!"
"Maybe we can use candles," I suggested. "If that pillow comforts Tony at
night, we must find it." Insecure was not a term I would have ascribed to
Tony. Nevertheless it was one of child psychology's favorite themes. I was
determined to do everything possible to avoid any accusation of causing Tony
to be insecure.
Keeping candles lit while walking around the yard was difficult. We
improvised cardboard windbreaks and searched for more than an hour. Tony
began to enjoy the hunt and stopped crying. Although we didn't find the
pillow, he finally went to bed without it. We found it the next morning, in
plain sight, up in a tree.
The next evening at bedtime Tony asked for his pillow. I took it from a
closet where I'd kept it safely hidden all day.
"No!" he objected as he grabbed it from me and ran and threw it out the
window. "Find piddow," he repeated.
"No, Tony, no candles tonight," I told him. "Go out and get your pillow if you
want to sleep with it."
Tony went to bed without his pillow and seemed indifferent about sleeping
with it after that.
"If you don't want money, we might give you Tony," we joked.
Tony was so cute and bright looking no one could resist laughing, and the
rotorooter man laughed too. He retreated in mock alarm, saying,
"The only people who might have use for that young man would be some
demolition company."
We went in to see the doctor. When she tried to look down Tony's throat, he
bit the tongue depressor in two and kicked the doctor in the face.
"He shouldn't act like this at his age," she exclaimed.
"We go to psychologists every week," I said.
"That's good," she said, and continued to examine Tony while keeping out of
range of his feet. "How do you like the Child Guidance Clinic?"
"I hate it."
"You should be grateful for such help."
"I can force myself to go; I can't make myself like it," I protested.
Then I exclaimed in exasperation, "I always thought one should be frank and
open when dealing with psychiatry. But that psychologist goes into a big old
purple funk whenever I try to start a candid discussion. He acts like he'd
rather hide under his desk!"
The doctor laughed. It was refreshing to see a doctor laugh. There wasn't
much gaiety around the psychiatric clinic. Everyone, doctors and patients,
were grimly taking themselves and their emotions so very seriously.
"They've said Tony is extremely bright and he isn't psychotic," I said. "Do
you know of anything else that might be wrong with him?
"Well, childhood schizophrenia."
"But they said he isn't psychotic."
"The psychiatrists would know more about that than I would," she said,
turning her attention back to Tony. The doctor treated Tony's cold without
further comment. As we went out through the waiting room, several people
were on their hands and knees around the scales, presumably still searching for
that missing screw. I'd already done all the apologing I could stomach for one day,
and I took Tony's hand and hurried out the door with him.
On this particular afternoon I couldn't find Tony in the yard. I ran up the hill
behind the house calling him, and met a man leading him down the road by
the hand. Tony was crying. The man declared indignantly,
"He scared me to death! I thought he was a burglar. He walked right into my
house. I had a gun. I almost shot him!"
I apologized and took Tony home. In a few minutes a policeman knocked on
the door.
"Do you have a boy named Anthony here?" he asked. I nodded. "An escapee
from juvenile hall?" he continued.
Tony, traces of tears still on his dusty little cheeks, stamped his foot and
made threatening motions at the policeman.
"Get out a here," Tony warned, advancing menacingly. He stopped just out of
the policeman's reach and stamped his little foot again. "You get out a here!"
"He's only four years old! How could he have escaped from Juvenile hall?" I
asked.
The policeman stood in the door without answering, a look of disapproval on
his face, watching Tony's efforts to drive him away. I doubted he was really
searching for an escapee from juvenile Hall. Surely four-year-olds would be
incapable of such break-outs. Perhaps the man who brought Tony home had
called the police before discovering how small his "burglar" was. Maybe the
policeman was trying to emphasize that housebreaking was a serious offense,
and trying to convince Mother she should do something about her young
delinquent, so he wouldn't end up in juvenile hall one day. Psychologists
weren't the only ones who felt I should do something about Tony.
"That young man needs a good spanking," the policeman finally said, as he
turned and left.
I tried to laugh about the predicaments my four year old could get into, but
found myself crying again. What did the psychologists think might happen to
Tony? He was a notorious cookie snatcher. Did they think he might grow up
to be a criminal, for heaven's sake? Surely somewhere I could find a doctor
who would discuss this mysterious thing doctors seemed to think might be
wrong with my little boy.
A friend recommended a civilian pediatrician. As I met the new doctor in his
office, I tried to explain that the psychologists claimed my little boy was
extremely bright and wasn't psychotic. By this time I was unable to talk about
Tony without crying.
"What else might be wrong with him when he grows up?" I asked, struggling
with tears.
"Well, he might not get married or something like that," the doctor said.
He seemed puzzled at the bitterness with which I spoke of Dr. Dingle.
"If you are undergoing therapy somewhere and are angry at the psychologist,
you should tell him," he said. "In therapy feelings of anger must be brought
into the open."
The pediatrician didn't feel qualified to discuss Tony's condition and
obtained an appointment for me with a well-known child psychiatrist.
I hoped Tony would get married when he grew up. It seemed a silly thing to
worry about while he was only four years old. I'd read Freud was the first to
suggest mother was responsible for her son's homosexuality. He made his
discovery by psychoanalyzing Leonardo da Vinci, who had been dead for
some five hundred years and was reportedly homosexual. Leonardo didn't
write an autobiography, but he did leave one account of a dream. Dreams
were Freud's specialty. There had been other dream-analyzers, but Freud
claimed to be the first to do it scientifically. (Freud was disappointed that he
never received a Nobel Prize for his scientific discoveries.) Leonardo had
dreamed a vulture came and flicked its tail on his lips. Everyone familiar
with psychiatric theory must be aware of Freud's scientific discovery that a
bird's tail, as well as a snake, a cigar and just about any other similarly shaped
object, is a symbol for a penis. In Egyptian hieroglyphics a vulture is the
symbol for mother. Leonardo was Italian, but Freud thought he might
know Egyptian hieroglyphics. (Actually, the Rosetta Stone hadn't been
translated, and no one knew Egyptian hieroglyphics in Leonardo's day.)
According to Freud's analysis, Leonardo's dream indicated his mother had
stolen his manhood, thus accounting for Mona Lisa's smug smile. Someone
later discovered Freud had used a faulty translation, from Italian to German,
of Leonardo's dream. The bird in Leonardo's dream wasn't a vulture, but a
kite. In Egyptian hieroglyphics a kite is only a symbol for that species of
bird, nothing else. It was further asserted that Leonardo, who was illegitimate,
spent his infancy and childhood with his father and stepmother, not his mother.
However Freud found a painting by Leonardo with two Mona Lisa's, both
sporting smug smiles. He continued to insist mothers cause homosexuality.
Since Western society became permeated with psychoanalytic theory early in
this century, psychiatry had been busy trying to fix all deviations from average,
including sexual orientation.
I would have found it difficult to worry about Tony's sexual orientation, if
that was what the pediatrician was questioning. Even at the age of four,
Tony's every movement and gesture seemed to suggest exaggerated masculinity.
The psychiatrist invited me to leave Tony in the waiting room and come into
his office.
Leave Tony in the waiting room? Alone? The psychiatrist didn't
seem to
have a receptionist. A couple of chairs and a lamp seemed to be the
only
furniture. Maybe there wasn't much for Tony to destroy or dismantle.
"Be
a good boy," I admonished with a display of confidence as I put
Tony
on a chair. He looked angelic. Although alert looking, and curious
about
everything, there was never a trace of guile on Tony's bright, innocent
little face.
A plate-glass wall of the psychiatrist's office overlooked a small-boat
harbor. I seated myself in a big comfortable chair. The psychiatrist, a
likeable, friendly man, listened as I told about the Child Guidance Clinic and
my disagreements with Dr. Dingle.
"Dr. Dingle says Tony is very bright," I explained.
The psychiatrist sat waiting for me to continue.
"Extremely bright!" I said.
The psychiatrist, still didn't react. Probably all mothers who consulted him
considered their children to be expremely bright. I didn't know how to suggest
Tony's superior intelligence apparently had some mysterious relationship to his
unusual development. When I tried to talk about some of Tony's mischief, the
psychiatrist kept glancing nervously toward his waiting room, where Tony
was sitting unattended.
"I honestly don't understand why you consulted me," he finally said.
"I want to know what might happen to Tony."
"I've seen many of these children end up in institutions." he said gravely.
I stared at him in horror, afraid to ask what he meant. I couldn't think of any
reason for putting people in institutions other than retardation, psychosis or
criminal acts.
"Do you believe children are born like Tony, or do you think their condition
is the result of something in their environment?" I finally managed to ask.
"There are psychiatrists who believe children are born like this. I'm not one
of them."
That was at least an honest answer. I wondered if he would take offence if I
asked where I might find one of those psychiatrists who disagreed with him?
It probably wouldn't be very tactful.
"The purpose of psychotherapy is to get to know yourself," the psychiatrist
said, apparently still puzzled about what I wanted.
"But I already know myself better than most people do. And it's damned
unpleasant having that psychologist sit around waiting to pounce upon one of
my so-called problems."
"Therapy is not like a social relationship. If you get angry at the
psychologist, don't keep your feelings to yourself. Tell him exactly what you
think of him." After a moment's hesitation he added, "What would you like to
tell him?"
"I'd like to tell that pompous little fugitive from the Organization
Man he has
more problems than I have!" The recent book, The
Organization Man,
criticized psychological tests among other things.
Most psychiatric theories were
accepted with religious fervor in those days, but I
eagerly read anything
I could find critical of psychology.
"What could telling that psychologist off possibly accomplish?" I asked.
The psychiatrist stared at me. Not a muscle of his face moved. He sat staring
at me. I was reminded of the time a year ago in the first pediatrician's office.
Something about me, my grades in school, had seemed to suggest Tony's
strange diagnosis. Other people's thoughts had always been a mystery to me.
I've recently read the difference between analytical and intuitive brains
lessens as we get older, and linear thinkers sometimes acquire more intuitive
abilities. Under the awful trauma of the past year, my mind seemed to have
made a quantum leap. To my surprise, I felt insight into this psychiatrist's
thinking. I knew he was finally recognizing Tony's mysterious diagnosis.
"Is Tony a rocker?" the psychiatrist suddenly asked. "Or have you ever
noticed him attach something to a piece of string and spin it?"
"He rocks his head back and forth before he goes to sleep, but I've never seen
him spin anything."
"Did you work before you were married?"
That first pediatrician had wanted to know what type of work I did in Alaska.
"I was an architectural draftsman."
"And your husband?"
"He used to be a newspaper reporter."
The psychiatrist smiled and nodded. He suggested sympathetically,
"You consulted me because you don't believe they have been honest with you
at the psychiatric clinic, didn't you?"
"They have refused to tell me anything."
The psychiatrist suggested I try another clinic, Langly Porter Psychiatric
Institute. The last thing I wanted was to be treated at another clinic. I was
looking for someone to tell me all they knew about this mysterious diagnosis
they suspected.
"Would you be willing to take Tony as a patient?" I asked. In spite of his
belief that Tony's condition was caused by environment, this psychiatrist did
seem sincere and candid.
"Do you think you could afford my fees, several hundred dollars a month?"
"We have some money saved. I would pay anything to learn something
definite about Tony."
"Actually, I don't have any free time right now. But if you'll give me the
name of your psychologist, I'd like to phone him."
"Please don't do that," I said. "He's already angry at me. He'd probably kick
Tony right out of the clinic."
"I don't think you have to worry about that! No, I'm going to phone him,"
repeated the psychiatrist. He sounded provoked.
Not again! Please God not again! The psychologist's annoyance did
seem
directed at Dr. Dingle, not me. Nevertheless, this doctor visit was
going to
be as futile as the others. It was like a nightmare, where one is
aware of
dreaming, but powerless to stop the terrible events from running
their awful
course. If only there were something I could say to stop
this doctor from
dismissing me without discussing Tony!.
"I read all the psychology books in the local library," I confessed, just in case
the psychiatrist was angry at me for withholding information.
The psychiatrist looked startled.
"Now, I'm not going to charge you full price for your consultation today," he
said, ignoring my confession. "Fifteen dollars will be enough."
It had happened again. He expected me to leave.
"I think I've made a wonderful adjustment to life, considering the way I am," I
defended myself. "I could have been an alcoholic like my father." Secretly,
I still preferred "however I was" to being normal, and that was the truth! In
any case, no one could possibly accuse me of withholding information now.
The psychiatrist only looked bewildered.
Reluctantly, and feeling defeated, I got up and collected Tony from the
waiting room. For some reason he hadn't found anything to dismantle. I had
apparently hit bargain day, and the psychiatrist had only charged me half-
price. However, the only advice he'd given was to go tell Dr. Dingle exactly
what I thought of him. But the psychiatrist planned to reveal my feelings
over the phone, and Dr. Dingle was probably already be aware of them anyway.
Over the years, I made other attempts to find a doctor who would talk to me.
The results were similar. Psychiatrists would not contradict each other, and
medical doctors would not interfere with their colleagues, the psychiatrists.
The only medical treatment available to Tony seemed to be psychotherapy.