Monday, March 30, 1998
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2 pm. Initial Session with Nicole Ulreich. Nicole is a young woman about 15 years of age. She actually seemed quite a bit younger than her age would indicate. She is tall and very slim with long hair that has been dyed cherry red. She's a sophomore in high school. She also reports an extensive history of poly drug abuse, including experience with marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and several others. She expresses particularly concern about her closest friend, Angela, dying of a drug overdose. Apparently, Angela isn't as circumspect in her drug use as Nicole is. Nicole is torn between not wanting to get Angela in trouble and leaving Angela to get sucked in deeper to addiction. Nicole explained that she gets these drugs from rich "preps"--boys from her high school that are often jocks who live affluent lifestyles. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Nicole is expected to provide sexual favors in return for the drugs she gets at these "parties." Nicole told me that she had a stepfather who frequently beat her and told her that she was worthless. She has somewhat ambivilant feelings towards her current stepfather who does not physically abuse her, but who expressed some distaste for Nicole's friend Angela and for Nicole's ex-boyfriend Jeff. Nicole has a younger half-sister, Dianne, who is three and a half.
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Monday, April 20, 1998
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2 pm. Second Session with Nicole Ulreich. In my last session with Nicole, she said that she uses recreational drugs occasionally, and then listed quite a laundry list of illegal substances she abuses. This session, she says that she's quit drugs, as if for a long time, and seems outraged by the lack of trust shown by her parents when they don't believe her absolutely. We spent much of the session talking about trust and how it is earned. She thinks that trust should be hers because she's asked for it, and she asked me to intercede with her parents and get them to trust her. Of course, I demurred. Nicole told me that she was in love with a boy named Shawn whom she met in the cafeteria. Shawn apparently doesn't do drugs. Nicole told me the results of her report card. She's doing well at English and Drama, okay at History and Math, and is failing P.E. She's decided to run for a student government position, although her interest seems only to spend more time with a group of friends who are also running. She's doing well in Choir and her group is going to Chicago to compete in some contest there. She's joined the cheerleaders, too. Besides for the drug use, Nicole seems like a perfectly ordinary teenager, although I must admit that I sometimes feel like I have no meaningful frame of reference with which to gauge her behavior.
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Monday, May 18, 1998
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10:30 am. Telephone Call with Nicole Ulreich. I had an odd telephone conversation with Nicole. I guess she was calling primarily to let me know that she was going to miss her appointment today because of her mononucleosis. But we flitted through a variety of subjects before Nicole abruptly ended the conversation. We spoke of Nicole's success in winning her student government elections, her unhappiness with having contracted mono and how it has limited her freedoms, especially her social interactions with her boyfriend. Angie's grandmother believes that Nicole was responsible for Angie's drug use and so has forbidden contact between the two. Nicole thinks that's especially unfair because Angie introduced Nicole to drugs, rather than the other way around. We also spoke about Nicole's first stepfather. He has been married five times--Nicole's mother was his second wife. Apparently, he had a daughter, Kerri, with his first wife. Nicole, who has contact with Kerri, said that her stepfather's first wife was a prostitute. Nicole expressed surprise that Kerri is so normal, given her family background. Nicole said that Kerri's father still sexually abuses her, even now that she's 17 years old.
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Tuesday, June 23, 1998
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12 pm. Third Session with Nicole Ulreich. What an infuriating young woman! She flits around from subject to subject, some serious and some not. And she won't focus on any one thing in particular. Maybe I'm just hopelessly old fashioned, but I found her to be dangerously ignorant of her own feelings and clearly out of touch, for example, with basic requirements for parenthood--she wants to have a baby herself now. Nicole says that she's recovered from her bout with mononucleosis and she said that she was feeling "on top of the world." She's feeling that way because her boyfriend was "sweet" to her following her illness. She told me that Angie has left rehab and run away from home. But Nicole's response to her best friend's disappearance was somewhat cold. She was worried that she's going to come back pregnant and that Nicole would be obligated to give her help. Nicole apparently took Angie to an abortion clinic a few months ago and Nicole told me that she did not want to repeat the experience. Nicole also said that she would never entertain an abortion for herself. Nicole told me about attending parties which fell into three distinct sets--parties with frat boys, jocks, and druggies. A common requirement for all seemed to be that she sell her sexual favors in exchange for drugs or alcohol. I thought Nicole was beginning to tell me about being raped at one of these parties, but she veered into a discussion of consensual prostitution for drugs or alcohol. At least, that's how it seemed to me. She told me that she'd been tested for HIV and had fortunately escaped exposure. Nicole said that she's in love with her boyfriend and believes that he's in love with her, although he's never said so. At the end of the session, Nicole told me that she wanted to have get pregnant and have a baby with her boyfriend by about this time next year. Nicole is so completely ill-equipped to have a baby that I didn't know where to start. Before I could say much, however, beyond sputtering a few disapproving words, Nicole bolted. She told me that she had some party that she had to go to and she was gone.
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Nicole Ulreich's Patient File
