"Ok Lexie, I want you to tell me the first painful childhood memory that you have." The shrink requested from his comfortable chair that faced the sofa she sat on.
She looked down at the floor and searched her memory bank. "I guess it would have been a car accident that we were in when I was around 9." The doctor nodded. "It was one of the rare occasions when my parents were actually at home and we were going on an actual family vacation, not flying to some resort where a nanny would watch us, we were going to a cabin up in the mountains and I remember feeling frightened even before we left and I didn't know why. So anyway, my brothers and I were in the back of the car and I was sleepy so I was sitting sideways with my head pressed against the window and I didn't have my seatbelt on and just as I drifted off a terrible noise came from somewhere, a skidding and then the next thing I know I am laying on the roof of the car and we are upside down in a ditch. I mean keep in mind this was long before we knew that you should move someone if they had an injury so my father got us out of the car and our mother had blood dripping down her face and they took me to the side of the road and laid me down because I was crying and complaining that my back hurt. It had turned out that the state maintenance crews had just laid down fresh oil and had not put the sand down yet and several other cars had skidded off of the road too but we were the only ones who flipped over. I remember lying on the ground with my head between my mother's knees and the people from the other cars running over. One was a doctor and made me lay still and I was so scared. The ambulance even skidded when it came." She smiled slightly at that. "I ended up having a fractured my sternum and it would heal itself over time. My father sprained his back, my mother had 18 stitches in her head and both of my brothers escaped with minor bumps and bruises. I wouldn't say that it was a painful memory and I don't really know why I mentioned that." She looked at him questioningly.
"Is it the first time that you were truly scared?" He asked
She shrugged. "I don't know. It is very possible that it was. Maybe it was the first time that I saw my parents as real people and not these superheroes that couldn't fix everything; almost like they let me down." She looked up at him. "But that would be ridiculous right? To blame them for something that they had no control over?"
"Lexie, our mind isn't always logical. We have a tendency to think with our emotions when we are faced with a traumatic incident. Tell me another memory where you felt let down by them."
She sighed. "There were hundreds of times."
He shook his head. "One has to stand out."
She thought again and then nodded. "Yes," She looked at him and he could see that she was struggling.
"Take your time." She reassured her.
"This is something that I don't even think my husband knows about. When I was 13 I was sexually assaulted. We were up at our summer home in the Hamptons and I had a friend that lived down the street over. She and I were the best of friends and we would hang out all day long each summer. There was a rec center at the country club that our parents belonged to and they would do different things for the kids and one night they had a sock hop. We went all out with the poodle skirts and saddle shoes and we had so much fun. When we got home from the dance we hung out in the tree house and giggled about the boys we had talked to or ignored, you know, normal girl stuff. Well our curfews were coming and I begged my mother to let me walk her home cuz a boy I liked lived on the way and I hoped to catch a glimpse of him or have him get a glimpse of me rather. My mother told me that I could walk her half way and that was it but Mike lived further down so I decided to just walk her all the way home. We got to Mike's house and I saw that no one was home so I decided to go home so Vanessa and I said good bye and I started back. Well while we had been walking a man on a bike rode by but we thought nothing of it because it was somewhat common but as I started back he turned around and came back and rode the bike up against me, pinning me up against a wall. I was so scared. He was young, maybe 20 or so but he was still bigger than me and he had me pinned. He started to grope me over my clothes. I was terrified. I was 13 and up until that point I had lived in a very sheltered world and fully believed that bad things happened to other people, never to me. I still have no idea where the courage came from but as he started to pull up my skirt I yelled to Vanessa who hadn't made it home yet and she called back and he jumped on his bike and fled. I ran to Vanessa as fast as I could possibly go and then went to her house and we tried to call my parents but the line was busy. So her parents kept me there until the doorbell rang and it was my older brother Bobby. Mom had sent him down to get me and he was pissed until he saw me and then he freaked and took me home. The police came and took statements from Vanessa and I and then left. The story ended up in the paper, my name was left out but the rumors had already spread so everyone knew. When I finally went back to the rec center Mike had a copy of the article and had passed it around to everyone and they all knew. I got mad at him and I will never forget this, he yell that I had enjoyed it. I never went back to the rec center again. My father who has never been father of the year actually told my mother that I had been dressed to provocatively." Lexie laughed a sad laugh. "I was wearing a poodle skirt." She covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head and looked up at the doctor.
"Do you think you blame yourself? Because you walked her farther than you should have?" He had the cap of his pen resting on his mouth.
"I don't know if it so much that as wondering how my father could not have been livid. I can't imagine anything even close to that happening and Robert not loosing his mind and finding the man and killing him. I guess it is just another example of the love that I lacked from him. He was never on my side, always against me. I guess I just feel cheated. He is off living his life and here I am fighting the demons and he has never had to pay a penance for any of the hurt he caused me."
"Have you thought of confronting him?"
Lexie laughed and shook her head. "It wouldn't do any good. He is too wrapped up in himself to see any blame other than the blame he places on everyone else. He is the perpetual victim in every scenario. Nothing is ever caused by him but done to him. And he doesn't want to hear anyone else's problems, he always finds a way to bring it back to some injustice he is facing."
"It sounds like you have a lot of resentment towards him." She nodded. "Ok Lexie, you did great. I want to pick this up some more next time."
She let out a deep breath.
