‘JANE’

Every counsellor has a ‘stand-out’ client. He or she is someone who, without the counsellor’s help, probably would have been in gaol or the grave – and taken others with them.

‘Jane’ (not her real name, of course) was introduced to me by her ‘carer’, another client, a psychiatric nurse who herself had a colourful history (spent her 13th year on the streets of Melbourne, sexually abused by two of her ministers – but that’s another story). ‘I have a girl who I want you to meet,’ she said. ‘She’s 15, and the worst-behaved kid Human Services has ever had. They had to pass special legislation to provide her with full-time carers, two at a time for twenty-four hours a day. She trashes every situation and every relationship she’s in. The word they use for her is ‘feral’. And she’s never known a man she could trust. Want to meet her?’

I somewhat reluctantly agreed to see her – but only with her carer. The three of us went walking several times, and we’d small-talk about this-and-that. Then the carer began to drop back and let Jane relate just to me. A break-through came when Jane agreed to see me alone (but with her dog!). We had several ‘sessions’ – walks along a public nature-trail – and with my wife Jan we visited her several times in her – and her carers’ – home.

Jane’s mother was 24 when Jane was born, the third of five to one father (later she had three more to another). Jane’s mum had been sleeping around since 15 trying to get pregnant, so she could live on government help. She was ‘third generation welfare’ – government assistance is easier than struggling to bring up children, and work. But her mother ‘shot through’ when Jane was five, and Jane became her father’s sleeping partner – virtually a sexual slave.

Her only friends were animals – her cats and a dog.

Jane and her four siblings would turn up at school occasionally, but were likely to be dressed in pyjamas, with dishevelled, lice-filled hair. One day the social workers came to the school, and pulled the five of them out of their classes. Jane was seven and remembers the event vividly: they were stuck in a room, not allowed to go to the toilet, with just water to drink. The social workers had trouble finding anyone to take them.

So the five were institutionalised – in an orphanage for children twelve and under. These are kids who can’t be adopted, because, for example, their prostitute-mothers won’t release them. After six months a nice Christian lady, Beatrice, fostered all five. But as time went on Beatrice found she had to either control Jane, or the other four. Jane was so demanding, so angry, the most bizarre. An older brother was sexually abusing her (that’s what his father did, so it must be ‘normal’). This lasted five years, until one day Jane said ‘I’m not going to school any more. I just want to stay home.’ She used her favourite phrase to Beatrice – ‘You can’t make me.’ ‘But they’ll take you away.’ ‘Good. They’ll put me into a room with a TV and I’ll love it.’

For the sake of the other four, Beatrice had to give her up. She couldn’t cope any more. But she stayed in contact with Jane..

Jane went from hostel to hostel, but no family would take her. She had virtually no formal schooling from the age of 12. She worked out how to get out of social settings: if she beat up someone, for example, she’d be expelled from school. She had the attitude, ‘If I say “no” what are you going to do?’ She was allocated to an ‘adolescent care unit’ for kids too young to release into the community, but too old for a foster-home.

So Jane became notorious, the worst kid in the State. Social workers agreed she was the most angry child they’d ever come across. She continued to be sexually abused – sometimes by her ‘carers’ (one went to prison, others escaped interstate). No social worker would take her on for long.

Jane was street-smart. She didn’t steal cars, although she’d damaged lots of property. She’d stabbed someone, but he’d sexually abused her anyway. Because she didn’t technically break the law the police couldn’t charge her, and the Department couldn’t put her into a youth detention centre.

In desperation the Department phoned a psychiatric nursing agency, and asked ‘Have you got anyone who can cope with a severely troubled 15-year old? We’ ll pay you anything!’ She was a ward of the state, so Human Services had to find someone: $100,000 per year had been budgeted for wages, accommodation and food for her care. She went through three nurses in the first couple of hours, until my client ‘Maureen’ took her on.

Jane knew all the tricks, how to ‘play the system’. Eventually she got a house just for herself, with two workers at a time, around the clock to protect/amuse her. Carers would come and go, but somehow Maureen hung in there. Jane infuriated people – like getting into a social worker’s car, locking the doors and leaning on the horn. She’d take the battery out of their mobiles, or remove light globes. She figured out how to immobilise equipment without breaking it. She’d stand in front of someone when they tried to get to the ‘fridge and say: ‘You touch me or I’ll tell the police you’ve assaulted me.’ She did whatever it took to make people’s lives unbearable. She sabotaged every relationship – so workers and therapists continued to come and go.

Then Jane began to hear voices, and developed a mild psychotic personality disorder.

Our conversations were not classical ‘counseling sessions’. We’d walk and be silent, or talk, and she tried my patience in many ways – like putting grass down my back. I asked her ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ ‘Oh, kill a couple of people.’ ‘But they’ll put you in gaol for that.’ ‘Good; at least I’ll know where I’m supposed to live.’ ‘Anything else you want to do?’ ‘Yeah, burn down the Department’s head office.’ ‘Uh-huh, anything else?’ ‘Oh yeah, kill myself and come back to life as an animal’. ‘What sort of animal? ‘ ‘Oh, any animal, s’long as it’s female.’

Jane watched videos most nights, until dawn, so we gave her the Jesus video. She watched it, and watched it, again and again. Something about that man touched her. One day she told me ‘I signed on the line.’ ‘What line, Jane?’ ‘Oh, where it says do you want to know Jesus?’

Our conversations shifted to questions like ‘Jane, if you met Jesus coming around the track ahead of us, what would you say to him?’ ‘Oh, I’d ask if he was a male chauvinist pig.’

Jane’s carer took her to church. A couple of months later we attended her baptism. She came to our place for Christmas once or twice, and joined our family’s cricket games.

When Jane turned sixteen she became independent and slipped out of our lives. But Maureen kept in occasional contact with her. She boarded in backyard bungalows – anywhere she could have pets.

Last year I got a phone call from Jane. She’s ‘working’ on the streets of the city’s red-light district, (‘but I’ll never get AIDs’) and told me she wants to go back to church. I suggested one, but I don’t think she went.

Last week Maureen told me Jane wants to make contact again. ‘You know, Jane says Christians are the only people she’s met who try to care. She’s now twenty-one and a half – and will be just twenty two when her baby is born.’

Jane, if you read this, please know you are not forgotten. Jesus loves you and so do we. Jesus loves you before you change, as you change, after you change, or whether you change or not.

Rowland Croucher

April 2002.