Name: Chloe Patterson
DOB: 12/12/1992
Sex: F
Race: White
Marital Status: Single
Employment: receptionist
Education: some college
Chloe arrived five minutes early and was waiting patiently in the lobby near the reception desk. She was sitting up straight, feet flat on the floor and staring into space. She was dressed in stylish clothing: faded denim jeans, sky-blue vans sneakers that matched her eyes, and a grey T-shirt that revealed her pierced belly button. Her thick, wavy hair was dyed black and pulled up in a messy bun.
“Chloe?” Her gaze immediately met mine, and she stood with confidence, flashing a charismatic smile.
“Hi!” she said with false genuineness. Before I could introduce myself, she thrust her hand into mine. “It’s great to meet you again. You see my friend, Violet. We met once.”
“Nice to see you again, too, Chloe. Come on up.”
She followed close behind, only waiting about ten seconds before speaking. “How are you?”
“I’m good and you?”
“Could be better, but at least the weather is nice today! The rain yesterday had me in pieces. Violet and I were out working in it all day.”
“Investigating?”
She nodded. “She needed my help.”
We reached the office and I showed her in, closing the door and going to my chair. “Well, Violet told me that she recommended you to see me, so I’m glad we were able to work this out.”
“Me too.” She seated herself across from me, sitting up straight and taking a quick glance around the room before going back to look me in the eyes.
“But she didn’t tell me what prompted you to come to therapy.”
Chloe nodded. “Well, it’s been a rough…. Life.” She leaned back, now looking up into space. “Where do I even start?” It seemed to be a rhetorical question. “I’ve never done this before… well, not seriously anyway. Maybe in middle school or high school to appease a caseworker or something. But it never lasted, I just told them what they wanted to hear.”
“And what was that?”
“‘My dad is taking great care of me,’ ‘I’m so sad that my mom left and that’s why I’m acting out,’ ‘I’m so stressed about school and making good grades.’”
“Those were all lies?”
“Not exactly. I just dramatized it. My dad was taking care of me in his own special way. It was sad that my mom left but I was so happy to not have to listen to all the fighting anymore. School rarely stressed me out… I could always get a passing grade, teachers are easy to manipulate, and school staff even more so.”
“What do you mean?”
She gave a slight blush, now shifting in her seat. “If I wasn’t going to pass a class, I could either persuade the teacher to give me extra credit or figure out a way to change the grade myself.”
I remained silent.
“I only did it once. The school had hired a young IT guy, a real nerd, and I am like, nerd bait.” She shrugged. “One afternoon when mostly everyone was gone, I found him in the otherwise empty computer lab. I had been crying in the bathroom, you know, to make it look real and all. I came in sniffling and just plopped down at a desk, crying into my hands. I pretended like I hadn’t seen him, and when he finally said something I acted startled. Then I made up this pathetic story about how I was failing a class and needed it to go to college and about how terrible my parents were, and you know, a lot of the things were true but just exaggerated, so he believed me. And then I even offered him… Well, Violet has told you about our… ‘lifestyle’ or whatever, right? So I told this guy, what if you give me the login info, and I’ll let you spank me. Give me a good one, I deserve it, but I just can’t fail this class and let it fuck up the rest of my life. And he really felt for me. I think at some point I was crying for real because I believed my own lie. I mean, it wasn’t really a lie. But I told myself it was, it was a means to an end. I needed to get my dad’s attention… God, so typical that I have daddy issues… but I guess it’s true. I wanted to show him that I’m as good of a criminal as he is.”
I nodded. “What do you mean by daddy issues?”
She blinked, a bit stunned that I’d asked that question. “Daddy issues, you know. I never got my dad’s attention and that’s why I like being… you know… spanked.” She squirmed a little in her seat, giving me the impression that she wasn’t used to feeling this uncomfortable. “That’s what everyone always says. If you’re into spanking you must be crazy and have daddy issues. I guess it’s true.”
“I would think that sexuality is influenced by a variety of factors and that our caregivers are definitely one of those factors, regardless of if we like bdsm.”
“That’s a good point…”
“But so you wanted to show your dad that you could be as good of a criminal as he?”
“Yeah…” she’d zoned out a bit and wasn’t fully focused on our conversation anymore.
“And did it work?”
“No, of course not. He was busy plotting his next scheme. This was before he got arrested the last time.”
“When was that?”
“When was he arrested? 2009… damn 10 years ago. But the school thing was like when I was 15. We needed money and he was always going on with some stupid ‘business plan’ (AKA: con) that didn’t work out… He was never really good at being a con. And when his plans actually worked out, he ended up getting caught! Such a fucking idiot. But that’s not the point. Where was I? Oh, so yeah, he was impressed about how I got my grade changed, I didn’t tell him the spanking part obviously, and then I told him that he should just get a real job and he promised he would, then the next day was gone again, just a note that he’d be back in a few days, not to worry. So then I said fuck it, and just started doing my own thing.”
“Your own thing?”
Chloe sat up in her seat and glanced around the room. “Violet told me you can’t tell anyone anything, right?”
“Only if you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else...”
“Define hurt?”
“Kill. Assault. It would have to cross a strong line.”
“What about like… illegal stuff.”
“Generally speaking, I won’t tell anyone if a crime has already been committed, because what’s done is done. Planning a crime is a different story. Probably I wouldn’t have to say anything either way, but feel free to talk about any past or present endeavors ‘hypothetically’.”
Chloe smiled. “Hypothetically, my own thing would mean that I was committing crimes similar to those of my dad… scamming people online mostly. Online is easy. Especially middle-aged men… they’ll pay for almost anything that gets them off. I had 3 different identities with bank accounts, hypothetically. It was how I paid for life all those years. Because when I was 15 was basically when he stopped being around much. And then when he was arrested, I just stopped. I wanted to be legit. I wanted to get a real job. But life. Ughhhh. Fucking life. When I was in college, my grandma fell and broke her hip.” She paused to suck in a deep breath, willing herself not to cry. “It changed everything. I was taking care of her, but I couldn’t with her broken hip. She needed to go to a nursing home, and those things are so expensive. My cashier salary wasn’t covering it. Conning is just so easy for me. It kills my conscience or at least makes him give me the silent treatment for a while. But besides that, and the idea of getting caught, the risk seemed worth it. This was my grandma. I couldn’t just not pay her bill.”
She took another breath and wiped a few silent tears away.
“So I started doing it again. Re-opened a couple of my aliases. Tried to balance the guilty conscience by only targeting people I deemed as bad. Hypothetically still,” she added with a laugh. “Some of them were real dicks. Online predators type. I had a friend make me a virus that locked people out of their computer but gave them an account to send money to… and we didn’t actually ever unlock their computer, so some people sent us multiple payments. It’s fucked up, I know, but I needed the money. And by then Izaak had already joined the FBI here in New York so I didn’t have him to help me manage my finances better. Excuses, I know.”
“Actually, I was thinking we should probably back up a bit. I realize that I assumed you were from New York, but sounds like you’re not?”
“Oh right, yeah, I’m from Michigan.”
“Ohhh, yeah okay, I guess I did know that just forgot. And who is Izaak?”
She became dreamy-eyed for a moment. “Izaak is my roommate. Actually, the reason that I’m here.”
“Here in therapy or here in New York?”
“Ummm… well, kind of both.”
“Oh? Tell me more.”
“Well, we met in college, he’s 4 years older than me, but we had some of the same classes because he left for a little while to be in the military, but that’s not the point. We hit it off from the beginning, great chemistry. Everything felt right with him... Neither of us was very trusting of others, so being in a real relationship was out of the picture, but we were best friends. He looked out for me. Filled some kind of void probably, since I have daddy issues, haha. Then he left to come to New York after he graduated, the FBI recruited him, he asked me to come with him, but I couldn’t because I was still taking care of my grandma. And I couldn’t ask him to stay. What an amazing opportunity for him! So he left and we stayed in touch until my grandma fell. Then I just kind of spiraled and avoided him because… of my hypothetical crimes and his association with the FBI.”
“Ohhh… that sounds tough. Does he know about the hypothetical crimes?”
“I hope not! Oh god, he would kill me — not literally!... but I guess he would have questioned me about it by now if he knew, right?”
“Maybe. Anyway, you kind of spiraled…”
“Yeah, so we fell out of touch for a few years. Then my grandma died a few months ago.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks… it’s hard… but she wasn’t doing well, and she was old. I miss her. But… when she first passed I was just… depressed. I was self-medicating in a bad way. I was getting careless with my ‘work’... the hypothetical stuff. I knew I couldn’t keep it up but I didn’t have the strength to do anything else. So I called Izaak. I knew he’d be there… I knew he’d help me start over... He’s family. And he was, the next day, no questions asked. I guess he assumed I just couldn’t live in my grandma’s house anymore, all the memories. And part of it was. Like always, I just exaggerated it… and didn’t tell him about the rest. I threw out my old IDs and shit. No more fake accounts. And he brought me here.”
“Just like that? No hypothetical crimes since then?”
“Nope.”
“And so now what?”
“I guess that’s the question, right? Molly got me a job with Gabe, so now I’m working with him and Violet. And it’s okay, but I’m not great at it.”
“But you haven’t been doing it very long, have you?”
“No, just a couple of weeks. But it’s not my thing. I’m too disorganized to try and organize my own life, much less someone else’s. That’s probably why I’m working more with Violet. She’s been helping me. But she can be so mean sometimes.”
“How so?”
“Really? You know her, I’m sure you can imagine.”
“It’s just part of the process,” I said with a slight laugh.
She laughed, too. “Like, she has this habit of smacking me on the butt HARD when I’m too nice to someone. But she would bite my head off if I tried to do the same to her! Gabe, our boss, you know that I guess, he’s always yelling at her to knock it off but it doesn’t work.”
“Sounds really stressful. How do you deal with it?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe I’m not dealing with it.”
“No?”
She became lost deep in thought. “Nope, I’m definitely not. How should I deal with it?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“What would Izaak tell you to do?”
“To stand up to her. Tell her to back off.”
“What do you think about that advice?”
“Easier said than done. I’m not that great at telling people to back off. I’m much better at being what people want me to be… bending to their expectations and convincing them to agree with me.”
“So can you use that to your advantage in this situation to help you deal with Violet?”
“Only in a way that I’m sure Izaak wouldn’t approve of.”
“I really want to say, who cares about what he approves of? But I know that’s not exactly… professional.”
“Haha, no it’s okay, that’s why I’m here, I want your honest opinion, fuck professionalism. About Izaak, yeah, I agree, who cares? I care I guess. Maybe I agree with him. Or I feel like he should know best. Probably goes back to daddy issues.”
“Usually it does, or mommy issues.”
She laughed. “If I was bending to Violet’s expectations, I’d do that and then trick her into letting me take advantage of her, and that’s probably a bad idea.”
“Yeah, since you’re trying to get out of those hypothetical crimes.”
“Exactly.”
“So what made you, and Izaak, decide that you should come to therapy?”
She mulled over it for a moment, blue eyes glazed over, lost in thought. It was a comfortable silence, a brief 45 seconds or so, then she looked at me and smiled. “Izaak says that I don’t have any ‘drive’ or motivation or whatever. I guess he’s right. I dunno. I think I’m depressed.”
“What gives you the idea that you may have depression?”
“Some days I just can’t get out of bed. I don’t have any energy. I feel numb. I have a lot of hatred — Izaak says that’s a sign of depression, being angry. Is that true?”
“Sometimes depression can manifest itself into anger, yes.”
“I’m not angry like Violet’s angry. It’s more like, hatred and apathy. Violet cares too much. Me, I mostly hate myself and my parents, even sometimes I’m mad at Izaak for not being there after my grandma fell, but I know that’s unreasonable, he couldn’t have known how bad it was because I never told him, so that’s why it’s not a hatred for him.”
“So you’re able to decrease the intensity of your angry feelings towards Izaak, but are still holding onto the hatred for yourself and your parents?” Chloe nodded. “Is that helpful for you somehow, to hold onto those thoughts? Are you gaining anything from it?”
She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“What are the thoughts that encourage you to hold onto that hatred?”
She shrugged. “I shouldn’t have committed those crimes, I deserve to be punished for it. But also, my parents should have been there more for me. They’re the reason that I turned out like this. My dad’s in prison for God’s sake, and, by the way, acting as if there’s nothing abnormal about it. I’m so lucky my grandma was there for me. I dunno what kind of person I’d have become without her.”
“Do you have any thoughts that encourage you to let go? To forgive yourself and your parents?”
“No,” she said abruptly. There was a moment of silence as she tried to think about it. “Nope. Can’t think of any reason why I should forgive.”
“Okay, fair enough. So your symptoms would be fatigue, numbness, anger… sounds like maybe some feelings of guilt, too?” She nodded. “How’s your appetite and sleep?”
“Izaak has kind of taken charge of that, trying to keep me on a routine. It’s hard but… I guess so far it’s working. But usually I don’t have much of an appetite and I’m a night person so usually don’t get much sleep.”
“Any suicidal thoughts?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, I’m glad to hear that. And so through therapy, you hope to decrease depression symptoms?”
“Sure, or whatever. Violet said that just talking and venting can be helpful at times so I might as well give it a try. What do you think about it all? Am I crazy?”
I laughed. “We’re all a little crazy. But you have nothing to worry about. I do think that therapy could be helpful for your depression. We can work a little on developing more helpful thinking patterns so that you’re not carrying around too much anger or sadness.”
“That sounds good.”
“I also want to point out something else I noticed. It’s possible that you could have a bit unstable identity or sense of self which could be contributing to the negative feelings. It seems that many years of your life your identity has been dependent on others. It’s literally been your job, the way that you’ve kept yourself and your family alive. Add that onto the fact that you had a criminal father — yes, I know, the ‘daddy issues’, but I promise it’s only a small portion — criminality must be quite enmeshed with your identity. So all of that, added onto the fact that you just lost your grandmother, and then have been transferred to a new home, stripped of the very thing that has helped you survive for the last 10 or so years? No wonder you’re having trouble with things lately. Does that make sense?”
“I think so. Like, I don’t really know who I am anymore?”
“Exactly.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“You tell me.”
“Isn’t that what my new fancy health insurance is paying you to do?” she said with a laugh. “Ok… hmm… I guess I just need to figure it out, right? Like… figure out what I’m good at, or what I enjoy, without being so influenced by other people.”
“Sounds like the perfect plan to me.”
“Cool! I see what you did there. And I think I like it.”
“Good! Is there anything else for today?”
“I don’t think so… see you next week?”
“Yes, same time.” We both stood and she gave a firm handshake again, waving goodbye as she sauntered out of the office.
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