Her name means sea of bitterness

One of my students, we will call her Miriam, met with me today to tell me she is going to withdraw from my class. How can I tell you about Miriam? How can I tell you how she shakes when you talk to her? How can I say how she avoids your eyes, how she clutches herself, how she backs into corners? How can I say how she rarely smiles, but when she does it is explosive on her face, how it breaks her, how it rips right through her small, thin face? Would you know her from how plain she is, hair pulled into a sloppy pony tail, baggy t-shirt, no make-up? I can’t take it anymore, she said, the class, I can’t take it. It was a mistake. Too many people.

She wants to be a teacher. She wants to study sociology. Groups of more than three frighten her. The arrangement of the desks–so uneven–bothers her. She loves one of the walls in class, the one on which the pictures are lined up perfectly. She writes elaborate stories, fan fiction, she writes about death, about hurting. She cannot be in this class anymore.

At one point, she rolled up her sleeves, pushed them up above her shoulders (was the room too warm?). And there, what I was afraid would be there, what I thought I’d see, those perfect lines, those rows of little cuts on her upper arms, so very perfectly drawn. They must have been traced slowly, so gently, those lines of cuts perfectly spaced. She realized her mistake (was it, though?) and quickly pushed her sleeves back down.

Oh, Miriam, what I wanted to tell you then.

I told her I was proud of her, that she had done a good job staying in the class so long even though it was a struggle. I told her how her writing was strong, how I’d be happy to read more stories even though she wouldn’t be in class anymore. How she was a good student, how she was going to do well, how she was smart. I asked about her other classes, about her future plans.

But what I wanted to ask is who did this to you? Not the cuts, not those lines, because I know you did those–they are so perfect. But who made you this way? Was it your father? What did he do to you? Or a sibling? An aunt or uncle or grandparent? Who did this to you, Miriam, who made you this way? I had spoken with a social worker friend earlier about Miriam, and she talked about abuse, about what can make a person so terrified of other people, of making eye contact, of being vulnerable. I imagined a hundred scenarios, and in the end it doesn’t really matter who did it, what happened, the details, the when and where. What is left is Miriam, in a chair across from me, with cuts on her arms, her voice shaking, her gaze on the table, and my inability to say anything, my inability to fix anything, my stupid voice saying stupid things, meaningless things.

Miriam, you are valuable. You are valuable. You are valuable.

Why couldn’t I say that?