Reviving Ophelia (41 page)

Time travel is another survival skill. All of us have bad days, lost days. Sometimes on those days it helps to go into the past and remember happy times or times when problems were much worse. Sometimes traveling to the future helps. It reminds a girl that she is on course toward her long-term goals and that certain experiences will not last forever. Traveling in time is just like traveling in space. Going somewhere different gives girls perspective on the experiences of the day.

Finally I teach the joys of altruism. Many adolescent girls are self-absorbed. It’s not a character flaw, it’s a developmental stage. Nonetheless, it makes them unhappy and limits their understanding of the world. I encourage girls to find some ways to help people on a regular basis. Volunteer work, good deeds for neighbors and political action help girls move into the larger world. They feel good about their contributions and they rapidly become less self-absorbed.

As a therapist and teacher, I have found adolescent girls quirky, fragile and changeable. I have also found them to be strong, good-hearted and insightful. I think of the girls I’ve seen this week: the girl with lemon-colored hair in a rock band, Veal, who is flunking out of school; the girl in forest-green Dr. Martens shoes who insists on nose and lip rings; the eighty-eight-pound twirler who feels too fat and the deaf girl who insists on being sexually active to demonstrate her normalcy.

But all these girls are at the same developmental stage and moving into the same culture. They must figure out ways to be independent from their parents and stay emotionally connected to them. They must discover ways to achieve and still be loved. They must discover moral and meaningful ways to express their sexuality in a culture that bombards them with plastic, pathetic models of sexuality. They must learn to respect themselves in a culture in which attractiveness is women’s most defining characteristic. They must become adults in a culture in which the feminine is defined as docile, weak and other-oriented.

Girls’ symptoms reflect the grief at the loss of their true selves. Their symptoms reflect the confusion about how to be human and be a woman. The basic issues appear and reappear in many guises. Girls must find, define and maintain their true selves. They must find a balance between being true to themselves and being kind and polite to others. Pathology often arises in girls because of the failure to realize their true possibilities of existence. The best treatment for this pathology is growth encouragement and resistance training.

Working with adolescent girls has changed me. I’m more humble and more patient, less sure of success than I am with adults. I am more respectful of families and aware of the difficulties that they encounter when girls are in adolescence. I’m more focused on our mass culture and the damage it does young women. I’m angrier. I’m more determined to help girls fight back and to work for cultural change.

After a lifetime of work, Freud claimed that he didn’t know what women wanted. I think his ignorance came from his failure to analyze the cultural context in which women lived. Margaret Fuller was able to define what women need in a way that stands the test of time: “What a woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded to unfold such powers as are given to her.”

LET A THOUSAND FLOWERS BLOOM

Margaret grew up in the Northwest, where her father worked at a steel mill and her mother was a homemaker. She and her brother, Neal, attended school a block from their home and explored the nearby woods with the neighbor kids. With puberty, several things happened at once. Neal distanced himself from Margaret, her mother spent many evenings a week with her charismatic prayer group and her father grew disenchanted with the marriage.

Before, Margaret had never worried about who was popular or attractive, but with puberty everything changed. Her body developed rapidly and soon she was tall and full-breasted. As she put it, “I had the biggest boobs of any girl in junior high.” All of a sudden her looks mattered. Boys who played games with her and Neal were suddenly looking at her breasts and making suggestive remarks.

Earlier, she had had two close friends and got on well with other girls. Now Kim and Marsha changed the situation. They picked scapegoats and encouraged the other girls to scorn their unlucky choices. The girls agreed because they were afraid that if they didn’t they would be next.

At first Margaret went along with these girls. “I knew it was wrong,” she said. “I was frightened of being their next victim.” But soon Margaret was picked as the scapegoat, ostensibly because she was flirty, but more likely because she was popular with boys and inspired jealousy. Also, she was a good student.

She was shunned by all the girls in her class, including her two close friends. No one would walk by her, sit by her or talk to her. If a girl accidentally touched Margaret she would rush to another girl and “rub off the germs.” That girl would then rush to another girl with the germs and so on.

Margaret wanted to tell her family, but Neal no longer had time for her. He was off with his friends or on the phone to his girlfriend. Her parents were preoccupied—her mother with her prayer group, her father with his work. She doubted they would understand. She had never lied to her parents, but she faked illness so that she could miss school. She claimed her stomach hurt and that she had no appetite.

Margaret lost ten pounds in a month. Her mother would sit by her bed, read to her and beg her to drink tea. She loved the attention. Margaret promised herself that she would never go to school again. She decided to be as sick as she needed to be to keep that promise. When her mother suggested she return to school, she faked pain and writhed around on the floor.

Her mother carried her to the doctor’s office and he admitted Margaret to the hospital. For three days she was tested and observed, then she was released undiagnosed. When her mother suggested she return to school, Margaret claimed she was having double vision and might be going blind.

Her mother took her to a neurologist to check for a brain tumor. The neurologist referred her to an ophthalmologist, who was the only one to call her bluff. After the eye tests he said, “Young lady, I don’t know why you are doing this, but you are lying. I’m going to tell that to your parents and doctors.” He did tell, but Margaret seemed so sick that no one believed him.

Margaret’s mother took her to a charismatic prayer group, where an exorcism was performed. One woman told her, “There’s an evil spirit in you, a spirit full of fear.” The women surrounded her, prayed in tongues and chanted until Margaret burst into tears.

She sobbed that she hated what was evil in her. The group assured her that their prayers had removed the evil, just like a surgery would. Margaret didn’t believe them.

By now it was Christmas and Margaret hadn’t attended school since early October. She decided to buy the girls in her class Christmas presents. Hoping to bribe her way in, Margaret carefully selected expensive bath salts for Kim and Marsha.

She was tired of being sick, of lying to her parents and of doctors’ offices. After vacation and her gift giving, Margaret tried school again. The boys with their sexual remarks and the girls with their shunning were still there. She endured two days of scorn and then told her parents, “I won’t go back. I’ll die if you make me go back.”

Her parents tried everything—bullying, bribing, reasoning and pleading—to no avail. Finally they took her to a psychiatrist, whom Margaret hated. She described him as a middle-aged man in a suit and tie who sat behind a heavy desk and lectured her on responsibility. Later he told her parents she was spoiled and insisted she be in school.

Her mother had the horrible job of enforcing his orders. Every day she pulled Margaret out of bed and dressed her. Most days Margaret drooped passively as her mom put on her skirts and cashmere sweaters. Sometimes Margaret fought her and yelled obscenities. Her mother slapped her and cried. She carried her downstairs and out to the car. Margaret sobbed all the way to school. Then, when they pulled up at the school, she flashed her mother a look of hatred and went in.

Margaret threatened suicide. One day she jumped out of the car. Another day she swallowed a box of Ex-Lax. Finally, one Saturday, she ran away from home. It was a snowy day and she walked deep into the woods. She sat down under a tree far off the walking path and waited to die. Snow drifted around her. A rabbit approached and wrinkled his nose in her direction. At twilight people came searching for her and she bit her hand to keep herself from calling for help. She grew numb from the cold and could no longer move her legs or arms. Watching the starry winter sky, she fell asleep. At midnight a neighbor found her and carried her home. Monday, her parents and psychiatrist made her go back to school.

Finally the school intervened and recommended a new therapist. The math teacher knew about the cliques and figured out why Margaret was missing school. He called Kim and Marsha and told them to shape up or he would have them expelled. Kim and Marsha were shocked that their teasing had hurt Margaret so much. They claimed that they had had no intention of doing any real harm. That afternoon they came to her and said they were sorry, that they hadn’t meant to hurt her so badly. A bewildered Margaret accepted their apologies. The rest of the year they left Margaret alone.

When Margaret came to see me, we talked about her school. She still had trouble with the boys. We talked about how she could avoid negative encounters and how, when she was cornered, she could fight her way out. I recommended a self-defense class for her so that she would be more in control. I called the school and her parents about the harassment.

Margaret wished she had talked to her parents about her problems at the time they occurred. But she was not sure that they would have appreciated her despair. “Adults don’t take kids seriously,” she said. She wished the school would have intervened with the girls sooner and that she had had a therapist who listened to her instead of enforcing the social order. But she was proud that she resisted doing something that was so hurtful to her. She was glad that she would not let herself be bullied by the girls in her class, by her parents or by doctors.

“I’m not going to let fear rule my life again,” she told me. “I’ll stay and fight rather than run. Next time I won’t pretend that my stomach hurts when it’s my life that is hurting.”

I handed her a Kleenex and said, “As you told about your school, I had this image from Tiananmen Square. Remember that young Chinese man who stood all alone before the Red Army tanks? He looked so vulnerable and yet he was where he needed to be. He was courageous and so were you.”

“I didn’t feel brave at the time. I felt evil, dishonest and weak. Now, though, I can see that I was fighting for my life.”

While dramatic, Margaret’s experiences were in many ways typical. Until puberty, she was relatively free to be who she was. Then, as her body changed, her social environment became an emotional obstacle course that she couldn’t maneuver. Margaret was exceptional in her resistance to an environment where she was devalued and objectified. She would not tolerate the shaming and the humiliation inflicted on her by anxious classmates. Even then, she realized that this was a “life and death” matter.

Ironically, what was strong about Margaret—her resistance to pressure—looked weak to the adults around her. They saw the surface symptoms and missed the deep-structure strength. This often happens with adolescent girls. The issues are so complicated that strength is labeled weakness and vice versa.

Many young women are less whole and androgynous than they were at age ten. They are more appearance-conscious and sex-conscious. They are quieter, more fearful of holding strong opinions, more careful what they say and less honest. They are more likely to second-guess themselves and to be self-critical. They are bigger worriers and more effective people pleasers. They are less likely to play sports, love math and science and plan on being president. They hide their intelligence. Many must fight for years to regain all the territory that they lost.

I entered adolescence confident, curious and loud. I knew I was smart and expected to make something of myself. I wasn’t afraid of anyone. I changed. By the time I graduated from high school, I was shy and demure, more polite than it’s healthy to be, worried about my weight and my facial features and desperately eager to be liked. Much of my adult experience has been the slow trip back to my preadolescent androgynous personality.

Early adolescence is when many of the battles for the self are won and lost. These are hard fights, and the losses and victories determine to a great extent the quality of women’s future lives. While young women are in the midst of these battles, none of them look terribly strong. Surface behaviors reveal little of the deep struggles that are battles to hold on to true selves.