Obscurity

Chapter 13: Assessment

Alma

Cindy has come to take me to meet with the doctor. I follow her down the hallway to the group therapy room. I've never been in this room before, and it's a good-sized room. Just like Cindy explained my first night here, it's large enough to accommodate everyone on the unit for group sessions.

I enter the room, and she leaves and shuts the door behind me. I look around to acquaint myself with my surroundings. There are several chairs stacked up on the side of the room and a wide open space where I imagine they put the chairs into a circle formation during group therapy. The doctor is sitting at a small desk in the corner of the room.

"Please, Alma have a seat." He motions to the chair on the opposite side of the desk. I walk over and sit down.

"I'm Dr. Kavanaugh. I'll be completing your assessment today." He offers his hand and I shake it.

"Nice to meet you." I say for lack of anything better to reply with.

He jots something down on a legal pad he has before him. I'm too far off from the desk to actually read or even see what he's written.

"Let's just start from the top." He says. I assume he means we're going to start the assessment from question one and not pick up where me and Nail Biter Brenda, the intake officer, left off. "You were brought in by police? Is that right?"

"Yeah. The report should be in my file." I offer. Surely Chris went over everything with him. I don't want to waste anymore of anyone's time with this whole predicament. The sooner we get through everything, the better.

"I saw the report." He says, almost dismissively.

"And?"

"Pardon me?" he says.

"And what do you make of it?" I ask.

"Let's just get the preliminary questions out of the way, shall we?"

I straighten in my chair. This is not how I imagined this meeting would go. I'm starting to get the impression he may not believe me when everything is said and done here today. I've got to be on top of my game and not let emotions overtake me during this meeting. I remind myself I've got to be a pillar of good mental health in front of this man. I nod to acknowledge his suggestion.

"It says here you have no family. Is that correct?"

"No family. They're all gone."

"What happened?"

"Life. Death. It was an accident." I say coldly.

"Who died?"

"My parents and my brother."

"Car accident?"

"Yes."

He jots some more on his legal pad. When he finishes, he looks back over to whatever the form is he's asking the questions from.

"Do you have any close personal relationships?"

"I have a cat." I offer.

"How well would you say you do in social activities?"

"I don't see how this has anything to do—"

"It has everything to do with why you're here, Miss Weaver." He interrupts.

"Okay. Well, I don't really partake in social activities. I guess I could hold my own if forced to engage with others." I reluctantly say. I'm beginning to worry this line of questioning isn't going to bode well for me.