Free The Girl Behind the Door by John Brooks Page B

back to therapy, and I wasn’t about to fracture the parental alliance.

    We found Casey’s next therapist, Tori, at Apple FamilyWorks, a community-based mental health center in San Rafael. She reacted to the prospect of more therapy as if Mom and Dad were about to send her off to a Soviet gulag.
    â€œI HATE YOU!” she spat as she yanked her bedroom door closed. I was furious at her—a thirteen-year-old acting like a spoiled, bratty two-year-old totally devoid of coping skills. Why couldn’t she grow up and accept that things couldn’t always go her way?
    When tears wouldn’t work, she resorted to relentless negotiation to wear us down. Erika and I were convinced that if Casey didn’t become a writer, she’d have a promising career negotiating arms control treaties.
    â€œIf I go to therapy and I don’t like it, I get to drop out!”
    â€œIf I go to therapy, then I don’t have to do any chores!”
    â€œIf I go to therapy, then I demand an increase in my allowance!”
    Perhaps she was angry and humiliated because her parents forced her to see a therapist in a low-rent district of San Rafael rather than the chichi therapists in Larkspur that her friends went to.
    After several months, we met privately with Tori to discuss their progress together. Sitting in her office, I spoke frankly. “Casey won’t stop complaining about therapy. She refuses to get in the car no matter what we say or do.” We were spent.
    Tori responded, apologetic. “I understand. At first she started to open up and talk, but then after a while she refused to cooperate.”
    â€œDo you run into this problem often, with teenagers who simply refuse to work with you?” I asked.
    â€œHonestly? Very rarely.”
    Erika spoke up. “Why do you think she’s so resistant, Tori, when other kids aren’t?”
    â€œWell, she is very strong willed.” Tori paused to think. “She’s just an extremely private person.” Once again, we had no discussion of her early abandonment, the orphanage, or her adoption.
    We agreed that it was counterproductive to force Casey into therapy as long as she resisted. So, with great reluctance, we stopped the sessions with Tori. Casey would have to understand that this concession was with conditions. She needed to maintain her grades and keep her behavior under control or she’d be back in therapy. But next time—if there was a next time—we’d let her choose the therapist if it would motivate her to go.

TEN
    C asey entered Redwood High School in Larkspur as a fourteen-year-old freshman in the fall of 2004. With about fifteen hundred students, it was four times the size of her middle school, Del Mar, and drew kids from the surrounding towns of Corte Madera, Kentfield, and Greenbrae. The student body was more socioeconomically diverse than at the Tiburon schools, where the kids lived in a bubble of relative privilege.
    In a way, Redwood’s size afforded the opportunity for a middle schooler to reinvent him- or herself, shake off an unwanted nickname or reputation, and cast a wider net for new friends. It was a fresh start. But it also meant change, and I knew how hard it was for Casey to adjust to the unexpected. She’d had many of the same friends since kindergarten, and while some of her friendships had been strained over the years by breakup, betrayal, or rejection, there was still a measure of comfort in those familiar faces.
    Several of her best friends—Roxanne, Maryse, Max—had gone away to private schools. Others—such as Joel, Julian, Ben, and Emily—enrolled at Tamiscal, a small, alternative independent-study school. I hoped Casey wouldn’t be intimidated by Redwood’s size. She would need to keep up with a heavier workload and start thinking about college. Maybe she’d put her writing gift to good use by contributing to the student newspaper. She might even find a