A Thoughtful Girl

I wrote this in 1971, can't remember what for, based on a girl whose sister was my best friend in Berkeley, where I lived until 1968:

There once was a girl who was kind, gentle, and thoughtful, very thoughtful.

She thought about her family. Her parents had long ago been divorced. She saw her father, who lived across the country, once or twice a year. He was an unimpressive, undistinguished, quiet individual. She lived with her mother, an active, energetic, involved lady who laughed too much, and her sister, younger than she by two years, also active, energetic, and involved.

She thought about school: irrelevant, boring, and bothersome for the most part, it provided her little satisfaction, pleasure, or promise for the future.

She thought about her friends. It was funny, how she could see the hang-ups that most of them had. But she thought that they were extraneous, had no bearing on her relationships with the people.

She thought about the state of the world. During her lifetime she had seen only worsening, uncertainty, change. When she looked ahead she saw no security, no improvement, and no hope.

One day she took a great number of pills. She was whisked off to the hospital by her worried yet efficient mother, pumped out, and listened to, for possibly the first time in her life. The listening was done by a psychiatrist, who, it was thought, would cure her of her sickness.

She was installed in a clinic, diagnosed as depressive, given electro-shock treatments, chemo-therapy, private therapy, group and family therapy, and days or half-days out for "good" behavior. Her sister and mother were asked to clean out their own psyches of any hang-ups which might be amplifying the girl's own problems.

She seemed to improve. While in the clinic, she completed high school work and received her diploma. She was allowed more and more freedom. She grew interested in colleges. She finally moved out of the clinic and into an apartment and a job.

She was still thoughtful. She thought of her experiences, her present life, and her prospects for the future. She then closed herself inside an abandoned refrigerator and died of suffocation.

It doesn't pay to examine things too closely, for nothing is perfect.