nightmare on sassafras hill
I’m sure this story will make someone say, “I’ll take things that didn’t happen for 500, Alex.” But it really did happen.
At 8 AM on October 31, 2009, my teenage self had an appointment at a now-defunct psychology clinic called Sassafras Hill. And the whole thing felt off.
My parents couldn't find the place. When they called to ask for directions, no one answered, so we were 20 minutes late. Eventually a dull-eyed woman let us into a waiting room whose penny-colored carpet had presumably been there since the 70s. On the wall facing the entrance were a poster of anthropomorphized balloons, and a “How Are You Feeling?” chart that probably didn’t contain an option for “slightly creeped out”.
The woman called the doctor (her husband) to remind him that, yes, he had an appointment that day. A few minutes later, a guy resembling a disenchanted mall Santa in jeans and suspenders trudged through the door.
He turned to the other family in the waiting room and said (and I quote) “Did you bring that armadillo stew? We’re gonna have to heat that up.” Then he approached me, and I went from from “slightly creeped out” to “significantly creeped out”. When he called me by the wrong name, I had a flicker of hope that maybe Armadillo Stew Santa wasn’t the psychologist after all, just a slightly confused fellow patient I wouldn’t actually have to interact with.
No such luck. While my mom stayed behind to talk to the dull-eyed woman (who I'm told asked the same questions over and over), my dad and I followed Armadillo Stew Santa to a another room. The room contained maybe three items besides the furniture: a bulky beige 90s computer, an old-timey cash register, and a VHS tape about ADHD. Then again, I might have missed an item or two; I kept my eyes down almost the entire time.
With little explanation besides “We’re gonna do some stuff together,” Armadillo Stew Santa put a booklet of puzzles in front of me and started saying “A pieeece is missiiing…” with every new page. I could tell from the initials on the booklet that this was probably an IQ test, but he didn’t actually explain that it was. At least, not until I asked why he wanted to know what a thermometer is for and how many seconds are in a minute.
I was in that room for about an hour and a half. Armadillo Stew Santa never asked me anything beyond the standardized questions, and I was too anxious to give anything except terse answers. Then it was over, until I got back an evaluation report riddled with inaccuracies.
Basic facts such as why I'd been brought there were wrong. The report contained scores for subtests I hadn't taken, like block design (I'd know if I'd been given those iconic red-and-white cubes). The tension in my body and voice was read as hostility rather than anxiety, and I was said to have "lashed out at the examiner for no apparent reason". He'd diagnosed me with everything from agoraphobia to emerging BPD without explaining his reasoning at all, and despite having barely talked to me.
My mental health was already in a tough spot before visiting Sassafras Hill. I often don't process events quickly, and it took me a while to realize it had been traumatic to be misunderstood so badly by a professional at such a vulnerable time. I only knew I couldn't let it go, and couldn't stop talking about it. I would wake up in the middle of the night, agonizing over whether those test scores determined my worth and future, distraught about the fact that a document describing me as hostile was now sitting in a file somewhere. I tried to recreate the speed and memory tests to see how I'd do on them if I wasn't facing a creepy stranger. I started learning about the dark history of IQ tests in America, and the prejudices that still exist in psychology as a whole... and I didn't know what to do with my anger at it all.
My therapist (yep, the same one who believed women's brains weren’t built for math) dismissed my fixation on this topic as just another autistic obsession. Unsurprisingly, her admonitions to "just let go of it!" didn't help at all. She even told my parents, right in front of me, to ignore me when I mentioned it... as if she or they could dog-train me into forgetting it.
I wonder if I'd have been less traumatized if I'd had a very different therapist: one who also had righteous indignation at the biases in their field, who could've both validated that anger and taught me to channel it into something good... while also helping me to laugh at the absurdity of that day.
So that's the Nightmare on Sassafras Hill. Happy Halloween, everyone.