Sarah was brought to me with a diagnosis of mental retardation.

No
if, no buts, and no maybes—the opinion was unanimous. Every
physician, every hospital, and every clinic came up with the same
diagnosis: Retardation. The only one who sometimes questioned it
was her mother....

Sarah hadn’t slept through a night since she was two and a half, she
hadn’t eaten a proper meal since she was two and a half, hadn’t gone
to the bathroom since she was two and a half except when she could
not hold her eliminations any longer. They would fall out of her or
run out of her, wherever she was standing. She hadn’t focused her
eyes since she was two and a half. She hadn’t gone to a window since
she was two and a half, nor had she looked in a mirror since she was
two and a half, and she had not let her mother out of her sight since
she was two and a half. “She always wanted packages,” her mother
continued. “Wrapped and tied packages.” And whenever any of these
requirements weren’t met, which was often because of the
impossibility inherent in the nature of the demands, Sarah had
terrible rages, terrible screams, and terrible tantrums. Lately she had
developed something new, her mother was saying. She stretches out
her hand in front of her, looks at it, and has long conversations with
it...

At the beginning, working with Sarah was like walking through a

minefield. There was a mine buried under every bush, and the field
was full of bushes.
Sarah and I were forever stepping on the mines; the explosions were
endless. And she expressed the explosions through incessant crying,
wailing, or raging until she became breathless.
If we walked past the window—explosion. If there was a mirror in
the room—explosion. If I offered her food—explosion. If she saw the
bathroom—explosion. If I mentioned sleep—explosion. When I
mentioned her brother—explosion. If anyone looked at her—
explosion. If she accidentally focused her eyes and looked at
anybody—explosion. When you mentioned bowels—explosion.
When there was no package—explosion. If the package was
wrapped—explosion. If it was unwrapped—explosion … and if you
asked why she was exploding—explosion. These are just a few.

Dougie was eight and a half years old. His beautiful face shone with
intelligence and curiosity. His Asian-shaped eyes, larger than plums
and darker, carved into that handsome swarthy face with beautifully
proportioned features, made one think of some exotic fruit or prince.
His body, again, perfectly proportioned, lithe—that is, when he did
not look like he was in the last months of pregnancy.
He was a liar and a cheat. He stole with the most innocent
expression, and when he did not, you still suspected him of it. He was
a fire starter and a potential killer, so great was his rage.
He could neither read nor write, and his conniving had no equal. He
was thrown out of every school he went to, and was now in danger of
being hospitalized.

Kate was unloved. Unloved by her family, especially by her mother.

She was twelve years old. Big ugly, clumsy. She had a funny way of
walking. From her knees. The rest of her body was stationary.
Unmoved. She was too fat, too heavy, like a boulder. A big gray
boulder, and like the boulder, unmovable. She never laughed, never
cried. The scowl on her face was imprinted.
She talked, not too often, but when she did it was always a
complaint. Nothing was ever good enough, nice enough, pretty
enough, bright enough—like her. Her hair was not cut; it was
chopped off. She would do nothing, or maybe could do nothing.
Every so often she would mutilate herself. Gashes on her arms, legs,
neck, and sometimes face were self-imposed ... She hardly ever slept,
that is how watchful she had to be. Her diagnosis was childhood
schizophrenia.
 Lee was like a tightly closed artichoke. He was a good student in
school. His marks were great. But suddenly one day, like the flower
that closes upon human touch, he shut down. Very tightly. The
teacher could hardly recognize him; the mother said she saw it
coming on for years. He just did not love anyone or anything, nor did
he let anyone or anything love him. Someone must have hurt this
child terribly, to close him up so tightly. Lee sat and wrote for hours,
but nobody could see his writings.

Tommy was basically a thief, a cheater, a liar, a provoker of pain to

himself, and a giver of pain to others. Constantly being expelled from
schools. Constantly in fights. Always on the verge of being thrown out
of the house. He was also very bright.
He hallucinated, or just had imaginary friends, because he was so
lonely and so isolated—many, many friends, but really none at all. He
was a bed-wetter, and allergic seemingly to everything that existed.
He was selectively mute. He did “not like to talk,” as he said. He cried
a lot, but never that you heard out loud, and never with tears. It was
all in his face, in his whole body.

Lesser He was a picture of a child in total isolation, in total

abandonment.

Matthew With that hat of his pulled hard over his forehead, half
covering his eyes, the ear flaps covering his ears. His jacket was
buttoned down no matter what the temperature was, scarf tied
around his neck, gloves shielding his hands, and those big shoes
covered by galoshes. Even inside the warm League School room. He
looked like a caricature of a baby owl, eyes big, bulging with fear, and
always on the watch, lest someone come close to him, touch him,
talk to him, smile at him. Those were transgressions he could not
tolerate.
His face always contorted with anger, and teeth bared in rage. He
came to us from a world totally inhabited by enemies. A world
inhabited by legions of huge, angry, hopeless, helpless, shapeless,
raging women, with bared teeth and terrifying eyes. A world
inhabited by Lilliputian men, who were all out to kill and to get killed.
It was a hurting, angry, desperate world, and so Matthew was an
angry, desperate, hurting little boy.

Rickie Herby. He was a fluffy little thing; he looked like a plump

bundle of fur. A little fat kitten, a puppy, or a baby teddy bear. He
was six years old when he was brought to me. Rickie was very bright.
When he imitated you, he imitated only the few sentences out of all
that you said that described you, or summed up or gave the essence
of whatever it was you were trying to say.
Usually when he spoke to himself in those various voices, or when
he became those people, they were: Daddy, Mommy, Grandma,
Rickie, Sister, Mira, and later, in camp, Tev. There was also a seventh
voice, or part of him, which represented nobody we knew, and it was
called “the shadow.”

Then Amy came, with her deranged look, dark hair flying all over her
face, eyes wandering in opposite directions, hallucinating out loud
and masturbating constantly. At age seven she looked like a painting
of insanity captured for one single moment and arrested for eternity.

Jonny. When I first saw him, in 1957, he was six years old, could
barely walk, seemed totally deaf and dumb, could not look me in the
eyes, and from time to time hit himself in the face with a
heartrending savagery. At the time, I was working with other similarly
impaired (though uniquely bizarre) children. All of them had been
diagnosed as suffering from childhood schizophrenia. Their parents, it
was believed, were responsible for their “madness,” though no one
was sure exactly how. There was no cure. Best to warehouse the
children, some experts said. Treatment was impossible.