Chapter 27 -- Non-verbal communication disorder
The semester was drawing to a close. No one was more aware of that than counselor Dr. Lynn Hartman, because she was bombarded with frantic calls from many of her clients, some of whom were going to fail classes, some of whom were worried about leaving the university for the summer, or for good, and some of whom simply were stressed out about not having anyone to talk to. During the final days of the semester she thought about a science fiction story she had read years before, by Isaac Asimov about "Multivac" a computer that had been programmed to counsel the entire world and was so overwhelmed with everyone's problems that it wanted to self-destruct.
Multivac...Hartman muttered to herself...I know how you must have felt...
Among Hartman's dilemmas was what to do about her client Ruthie Burns. There were nineteen years of pent up problems and stress in her client's mind and no one she could share them with...so over the past two semesters Ruthie had unloaded in Hartman's office.
For eight months the counselor had listened to Ruthie's deluge of problems and complaints. She had a strong professional interest in Ruthie, because she considered the girl one of her more interesting patients. The girl's mind and memories were like a jigsaw puzzle that the counselor had to re-assemble, with some of the pieces missing and others hidden in places where she had to spend her time looking to retrieve them.
Hartman may have been interested in the intellectual challenge offered to her by Ruthie, but also she felt a growing personal bond. Ruthie was an intense and difficult person to deal with, but she had a lot of positive points. When a person truly got to know her, she had a lot to offer. She was sincere, extremely knowledgeable and intelligent, and talking to her was a nice break from Hartman's normal dealings with spoiled rich people, who had messed up their lives because of too much partying, bad romances, and substance abuse problems.
By the end of the semester Hartman felt that all those hours with her client had paid off, because she was convinced she could diagnose the underlying cause of Ruthie's unhappiness throughout her life. Explaining the situation to Ruthie would require some tact, because many of her problems with social adjustment were due to an ingrained physical condition instead of life experiences. Hartman's hope was that Ruthie would realize that most of what had happened to her was not her fault and that with the right knowledge she could avoid getting into situations where she could get hurt in the future. However, there was no guarantee that she would handle hearing the diagnosis the way Hartman was hoping.
The counselor was convinced that, whatever the risks, she had no right to withhold information from a patient. If she did, Ruthie would continue to have the same problems and her collection of bad experiences and unhappy memories would only increase. To have any hope of coming to terms with her life, she needed to be aware of herself to avoid repeating mistakes and move ahead. Anyhow, a large part of Hartman's job consisted of getting her clients to understand themselves better, to look at them from an outside perspective and say: "here is what I think is going on, and this gives you an explanation that you can work with to make changes in your life."
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Hartman set aside a two-hour block of appointment time during the middle of finals week. There would be a lot of end-of-the-semester issues to discuss, including how she was going to occupy herself over the summer, the relationship with Mike, the ongoing problems of her parents, her horrendous financial problems, and the struggle with her sexuality.
That girl's plate is full...I really wonder if I'm doing the right thing, thought Hartman to herself.
Ruthie already was not in a good mood. Her mother's situation upset her tremendously, partly for purely selfish reasons. With her mother gone, she'd have to rely on Mike for a place to live, because her only other alternative was to go to Nebraska.
"It's funny...how life sucks, with all its ironies. I wanted to go back to Lincoln for five years. Go back there...and now that I really should be going back there, it's the last place in the world I'd want to go."
Hartman leaned back in her chair.
"You've changed. As you'd put it, you've evolved, you're an organism that adapted to a new environment. Your original environment no longer suits you. And maybe it never did."
"I 'spose that's true, Dr. Hartman. But I'm not adapted to this one either, 'cause if I was, I'd be a lot happier."
Hartman took the cue; that was the opening she needed to give her client the diagnosis about her situation.
Ruthie was staring at the floor in front of her feet, but she lifted up her eyes to look at her counselor. It was apparent that Hartman was planning to tell her something important.
"Ruthie...we've been talking for almost eight months now. You've told me a lot about yourself, and about many of things that have happened to you. There's a lot that you don't 'get' about why your life has been the way it has been. As you put it, your life has always 'sucked', and your life still 'sucks', although maybe now it 'sucks' a little bit less because of Mike. The point is to figure out how to make it so your life won't 'suck' in the future. That's what we need to focus on."
When Ruthie did not respond, Hartman continued:
"There's something about yourself that you need to understand. It's probably going to be hard hearing what I have to say, but it's something you'll need to know to better comprehend yourself and move forward."
"What's that?"
"I don't know for sure, because for an official diagnosis you'd have to be formally tested, but from everything I have observed about you and what I know from my training and education, I believe you have a condition that we call 'non-verbal communication disorder'. Have you ever heard that term?"
"No."
"There are several technical names for your situation, but we'll go with 'non-verbal communication disorder'. The short explanation is that your brain is not wired like an average person's brain, because the only way you can learn things is through rote-memory. Social interaction is more of a challenge because the nuances of non-verbal communication and body language are not something you are capable of picking up. It's difficult for you to understand anything unless someone actually tells it to you or you read it. I suspect that's the reason you spent a lot more time with books than with people when you were in high school. It is sort of a learning disability, but not one that affects you in the classroom, which is why it often goes undiagnosed. Usually people in your situation do just fine in their studies, because our educational system relies on rote-memorization and that portion of your brain is the most developed. The challenge is dealing with real life."
Ruthie stared at the floor. Tears started flowing down her cheeks.
"So this...non-verbal communication shit...it's 'cause my brain's all fucked up? There's nothing I can do about it?"
"Ruthie, your brain is not fucked up. It just works differently and processes information differently than most other people. It means that you have to work harder at certain things in your life, but everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing for you is to be aware of your situation...understand why you might have missed non-verbal cues in the past...learn...and apply what you learn from each experience for the next time. If you had been diagnosed earlier, with counseling you could have developed better coping strategies, and that might have given you an easier time in school. But you do have to look at the bright side. You're just 19, not even done with your first year in college. You are more aware of yourself than you were a few months ago, you've got the rest of your life to learn from your experiences and work on coping strategies. Just that, just knowing yourself, is a pretty good start."
"I don't see why it would be. The only thing I've found out today is why I'm a fucking freak. I always knew I was a freak...I just didn't know why. Now I do. My brain's fucked up."
Hartman's heart sank. No, her client was not taking the news well. She spent the rest of the counseling session trying to convince Ruthie that she was not a freak and that her condition was not rare at all. By the end of the appointment, Ruthie understood that she never "fit in" not just because of her screwed-up parents, but also because of a condition that had a name, was identified by science, and was diagnosable. Unfortunately, the only "cure" was learning about coping strategies. In other words, lots of hard work just to live a normal life. Well, that sure sucked.
Ruthie left the counselor's office with a hand full of articles about the deformity in her brain that had totally messed up her existence and made her into the miserable person she was. She could tell that her counselor was extremely worried, but at that moment Ruthie didn't care. She left without saying goodbye or making any arrangements for their next session.
It all made sense...starting with Shannon and going back...through all those rejections in high school...middle school...now it made sense. Everyone hated me because I'm such a fucking freak...and I bet it wouldn't have been any better if I'd stayed in Nebraska...'cause I would've been just as big a freak there too...
Now she was convinced more than ever that she did not belong in the world. The sooner she smashed or blew apart her defective brain, the better. She thought about that path to the ocean...the one that led to the cliff she always had in the back of her mind as her jumping-off point into the void. She needed to get out there and get her jump taken care of. Today was the day. It was totally stupid that she didn't take care of it back in October. Oh well, better late than never...
