She sat in the violet armchair across from me, her legs crossed calmly at the knee and a sweet smile gracing her lips. Her hazel eyes watched me expectantly; her head was cocked slightly to the side, allowing her thick, reddish-brown hair to fall over her shoulder.

“Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” she replied cheerily, her gaze unwavering.

I glanced over the papers in front of me as she continued to watch me; the report seemed typical of someone from this day and age. Depression. Bulimia. Self-mutilation. Honestly, the era in which we live is a doomsday for adolescent minds. I don’t know how life started going so wrong.

“Your papers say your parents sent you here because of cutting and bulimia,” I said offhandedly.

She nodded. “I can’t say I’m happy about it,” she admitted. “The last place I wanted to spend my week was in an institution.”

“I can understand that.”

“Everything here is so white,” she continued. “And the walls are padded, and all the edges here are eerily defined. We can’t even where anything with a metal zipper or drawstring. We can’t even have shoelaces!”

“I know.”

“And they made me strip! There’s no way to make you feel like less than a person than when you’re being forced to strip like some criminal.”

I jotted down some notes on my pad before glancing up at her. “Can you explain what you mean when you say ‘less than a person’?”

She shrugged. “My boyfriend thinks that my cutting and my bulimia comes from feeling like less than a person. Like, I’m not as important as anyone else. That I’m inadequate when compared to the general population. I guess it started when I was sexually harassed a little over a year ago; the whole situation made me feel more worthless than dirt, and that has never really gone away.”

I jotted down a few more notes as she spoke, her eyes still drilling into me. Never in my years as a therapist had I ever felt more uncomfortable than when under her relentless gaze. “Tell me about this boyfriend.”

A dreamy tone overtook her voice. “Oh, he’s amazing. He never forgets our anniversaries, and he’s always giving me little gifts no matter how often I tell him not to. He’s never made me feel like a bad person for the stupid things I do; he’s always been supportive of me no matter what. I love him so much. I don’t deserve someone so great.”

“How long have you two been together?”

She thought for a moment. “A year and a half next week.”

“Do you two ever fight?”

“No, never,” she said with a frown. “He’s not why I cut.”

“Why do you cut?”

“Because I don’t feel like a person.”

“Why not?”

“I told you, feelings of inadequacy from when I was molested.”

“Well, that was a little more than a year ago. Those feelings should have faded a little by now, unless something’s bringing these feelings of inadequacy back.”

She responded with silence, her eyes never leaving my face as she studied me. I could almost see the gears in her head calculating her next word, her next move. It was obvious to me that this girl could be manipulative if she wished it so; her lies were probably what kept her in the good graces of her friends and family for so long, even with all the self-esteem issues she so obviously had. I had this image of a girl with a swarm of puppets dancing beneath her, at the power of her every finger’s whim.

“What makes you feel inadequate now?” I pressed.

A few moments passed in silence. “Will it get me out sooner if I’m honest?” she asked quietly. I nodded, and her hazel eyes narrowed. “Her.”

I frowned. “Who?”

She shook her head, and her cheery, pseudo-smile returned. “Have you ever heard the story of Romeo and Juliet?”

“Of course.”

“Then I guess you can call me Juliet.”

I jotted that down in my notes. “So it’s your boyfriend’s mother.”

She nodded, her face contorted in spite. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have someone critical of your every move, just looking for some excuse to hate you? Do you know what it’s like to have her breathing down your neck at every second for not being worthy of her darling son? I’ve never hated anyone before in my life, but I hate her. I hate the way she makes me feel. She makes me feel like dirt, like…”

“Like you’re less of a person?”

“Exactly!” she blurted, her composure suddenly cracked. “Why can’t I just be with the boy I love? Why can’t she just let us be? Why does she hate me so much? No matter what I’ve done, I’ve never been good enough for her. Never. And I just can’t deal with living up to it anymore.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe that’s why you cut?”

“I know that she’s why I cut. She makes me feel worthless. Like I don’t deserve her son. It’s worse than any other feeling in the world.” A hollow tone took hold of her voice as she spoke, and her eyes appeared to drain of life. “I don’t deserve to be loved…”

I stared at her as she slipped into silence, staring off into space. “Are you okay?” I asked in concern.

“Yes,” she said, her tone still lifeless.

I watched her as she stood up and stared out the window, the gray clouds moving despairingly across the sky. “It’s going to rain,” she said indifferently.

“Yeah, probably,” I affirmed.

Her face retained no expression as she turned back towards me, her eyes darting towards my desk. I followed her gaze worriedly. Her eyes rested on a pair of scissors, and slowly she walked towards the desk and opened up the blades. As she pressed the edge against her wrist, I realized her intentions, and jumped to my feet to stop her.

“No…I need it…” she moaned as I tried to wrestle the scissors from her hands. She clutched the handles desperately, yanking away from me with all her might. I was stronger, and I pulled the scissors out of her grasp forcefully.

She stood trembling in the center of the room, and I watched her cautiously as she blinked once, twice. She shook her head violently, looking at me in confusion. “What just happened?”

I wrote about her dissociation on my notepad. “You just blacked out then. You tried to cut yourself with my scissors.”

Sitting down, she looked at me apologetically. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what took hold of me.”

“We were talking about your boyfriend’s mom,” I told her.

Again her face contorted with spite. “Oh yeah. Her.” She paused, averting her eyes as she continued, “Sometimes…she makes me wish I’d never met him.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a pretty serious thing to say.”

“But it’s true!” She was on her feet again, driven to emotional turmoil by this realization. Tears were springing to her eyes. “I love him so damn much! I could never say how much I love him! But she makes me crazy! She makes me hate myself! She makes me want to slit my wrists and let the blood never stop!”

She quieted down a bit, and took her seat again in the purple armchair behind her. “Sorry…”

“Don’t be,” I replied. “I think we found what makes you tick. The next step is to remove it from your life.”

She blinked away a few stray tears. “I can’t without getting rid of him…”

“Then I think it’s time you got rid of him too.”

She lowered her eyes to the floor, struggling to keep calm under the intensity of my stare. “But I love him,” she said meekly.

“Sometimes love just isn’t enough,” I replied seriously.

After a few moments, she nodded. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay.” She forced a smile through her tears. “I can do that.”

I gave a small smile at her willingness, even though I knew it was killing her inside. “I think we’ve made some real progress here,” I informed her. “I think you’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”

“Good,” she replied. “I hate it here.”

“I know. I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She nodded, grimacing at the idea of going back into the hellish sterility that was the institution. I watched her go with a small amount of sympathy. I had just destroyed this girl’s reason for living, and at the same time had given her a reason to live.