I suppose it's time to take my own advice. I'm constantly encouraging my patients to journal, yet I've never actually done it. Let me tell you a little about myself.
My name is Harleen Quinzel. Dr. Harleen Quinzel. I am a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. The youngest ever hired, though not the newest hire. We've had a lot of turnover lately. One of the patients in maximum security … well, let's just say there is good reason for him to be behind bars. Plenty of good reason for him to be housed in an asylum. One of the most vicious criminals Gotham City has ever seen, and he's about to become my newest patient.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
To say that my childhood was difficult would be an understatement. My parents were teenagers, both far too young and immature for the responsibility I represented. Mother was only 14 when she gave birth to me. Father was 19 and in prison for statutory rape. It turns out that the circumstances of my conception happened to be consensual, but Mother's parents were furious when they discovered she had lost the "only thing about her that mattered" – her virginity; Mother was raised in a very strict Christian household. They brought Father up on charges within minutes of finding out in retaliation for his "ruining" their daughter. Upon authenticating her pregnancy, Mother was given two options – give the baby up for adoption and be allowed to remain at home, or keep me and leave. She was still a child herself, and should never have been forced to make such a decision alone. The man she loved was in jail, her parents were barely speaking to her, and her friends had all but abandoned her as teenage pregnancy was still mostly unheard of at that time… my heart aches whenever I envision that young girl all alone. Luckily for her, Father's parents heard about the ultimatum she had been given and they reached out. They would take the baby and raise it. Mother was relieved and went through a healthy pregnancy. She gave birth with Father's parents in the room, as her own refused to attend, and the doctors whisked me away before she even had a chance to hold me. I didn't find out until I was an adult what happened to her after that, but she next went through a very severe depression. Her parents would only tell her to pray for forgiveness and Jesus' healing, though there was a family history of mental illness for both of them. She hung herself before I was six months old.
Father's parents were not exactly what you would call warm and loving. They refused to give me their last name, since Mother wasn't Father's legal wife, and so Mother's last name went on my birth certificate. They treated me as a burden, often muttering that they had raised their babies and shouldn't have to be raising grandbabies. I confronted them on it once when I was about 14, demanding to know why they had taken me if they didn't want me. My grandfather, Harold as I had been told to call him, stared me dead in the eye and said, "Ain't nobody takin' my blood away from family." Don't ask me, I don't understand it either.
Mother was one of their favorite topics to complain about. They called her a succubus and "that bitch who ruined my son." Her name was never spoken, instead they would say "your mother" as if she were an epithet. But Father, now, he was an angel, a "poor misguided boy who fell to the charms of that vile temptress." I was the family shame. My two aunts, both older than Father and married, tended to avoid me. They would let their eyes skip past at family functions, never failing to mention how much they missed their brother. Their children, my cousins, were told not to play with me and to stay away. Eventually, as soon as I was old enough to be left alone, I was no longer brought to family gatherings.
I craved affection. Any time I saw a parent doting on a child I felt a searing pang within. I remember clinging to my worn teddy bear at night, trying to pretend its little arms could reach all the way around me, as tears streamed from my eyes. One of my first memories is of telling Henrietta, my grandmother, that I couldn't wait to meet my daddy. Everything that I had seen on television and in movies told me that my daddy would love me and take care of me, and I just knew that as soon as my father was out of jail I would finally have that love that I desired. From behind me, Harold snapped in his gruff voice, "You don't have a 'Daddy,' idiot. You have a Father. He was tricked into fatherin' you, and ain't nobody expect nothin' else from him." My little heart shattered and I burst into tears. Harold started yelling then, and didn't stop until I was hiding up in my room. He hated when I did anything remotely childlike. If he caught me playing pretend, he would throw away my toys. When I confessed my fear of the dark, he removed all the lightbulbs from my bedroom and the hall outside. And whenever I would cry, he would start to scream. His favorite thing to yell was, "Grow up, Harleen!" Then, he would inevitably go on with, "The fuck kinda name is Harleen anyways. Your mother was an idiot, and passed on her stupid genes to you. Dumbass good for nothing." You certainly don't have to guess why I ached for affection.
Henrietta tried to make up for all the negativity of my childhood in the only way she knew how – she enrolled me in gymnastics, just as she had done with my aunts. Not to be confused with actual caring. Henrietta hated me just as much as Harold and her daughters, evidenced by her daily habit of cursing Mother and spitting that she wished I'd never been born. But she was, after all, a mother herself, and she remembered how much my aunts had loved their classes. I think partly she just wanted me out of the house, but whatever her reasoning I excelled in the sport and spent all my free time practicing in the cold cement basement. Anyone who has ever done gymnastics knows that the cushioned floor at the studio is necessary to prevent injury. But there was no way Harold was going to "spend that kind of money to carpet a perfectly fine basement" so I practiced on cement. When it would inevitably cause my body to ache and bruise, I would go to my bedroom and read. If I wasn't working on homework or household chores or practicing, I was reading. I craved knowledge the way a starving man craved sustenance. Libraries fed my addiction and I burned through hundreds of books in my youth. I was especially fascinated with the inner recesses of the mind and what it was that made us human. On that subject there was never enough information to satisfy my thirst.
In my teens I had my fair share of boyfriends. Looking back, I can say that I was trying to fulfill my need for love. But teenage boys are not equipped with the emotional maturity required to give me the kind of love I yearned for, and I was always left brokenhearted.
Shortly after I turned 16, I came home to find Henrietta lying cold on the floor. She had suffered a massive coronary and had been dead for hours, but I was instantly filled with dread at the thought of being left alone with Harold and so I spent the next two hours desperately performing CPR. I don't remember Harold coming home or calling 911. I don't remember the EMTs pulling me off of Henrietta or my repeatedly screaming that I needed her. I don't remember being checked into the psych unit of the local hospital. But I remember the doctors. I remember their kindness and the therapies. I remember starting medication and the way that my essence seemed to dim after that first pill. I became more subdued and calm.
When I was finally sent home, I was not so pleasantly informed that gymnastics was cancelled, as Harold never wanted to pay for classes in the first place. He'd only done it to appease his wife. I'd missed Henrietta's funeral due to being in the hospital, but I was there the following month when the family got together on a particularly hard day for Harold. I saw Father with his new wife and child, a little boy who could only babble "Dada." I'd always thought that he would come for me when he was released from jail, but I reminded him too much of "his greatest mistake." Apparently I look just like Mother. I hadn't even been invited to his wedding, or met any of his little family before that day. Father had taken a page from his sisters' books and avoided me. But he couldn't avoid me in my "home" and so we shared some very awkward small talk.
I threw myself into my studies after losing my grandmother. My already good grades improved and I earned a full scholarship to college in Gotham City. Leaving the house I grew up in wasn't difficult for me, as it finally rid me of Harold and his hatred, and I looked forward to life in the dorms. Shortly after my freshman year began, I learned what had happened to Mother. I found myself continually thinking of her and the pain she suffered. It led me to major in psychiatry and I have never worked harder than I did while working for my degree. There were many nights I skipped sleep for study. While my friends went to parties, I poured over textbooks. When my classmates were hooking up, I was writing my thesis. I was going to do everything I had to do to become the best doctor I could be. No one should have to suffer from mental illness; it's a terrible plight that afflicts so many. And I was going to do everything I could to help those who were suffering.