Back in the day before there was something called
''music therapy'' and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy,
I was hired by the head psychiatrist at a very large
''medical/hospital institution'' as a ''music therapist''.
There were a few reasons as to why she hired me:
she was my best friend's mother, she knew me,
she knew that I was a passionate student of all things
music, and she also knew that I was very interested in
psychology and mental health.
Whenever my friend's mother was available for a
chat I would take the opportunity to ask her about
all things soul, body and mind.
I can't remember when or why, but I remember asking
Kerstin(her name) if music was ever used as a
kind of therapy to help troubled people.
Long story short: Kerstin was open to the idea
of using music as a language of communication
and tasked me to make a plan.
Some time later, I was hired as a sort of music teacher(there was
no such thing as a music therapist at that time) and was
given two hours a day with a number of
hand picked ''students'' chosen by general staff/nurses.
It only took me one day to discover that the ''students''
that had been chosen for me were the most difficult,
hard to handle and understand patients on the wards.
Let me give you a brief introduction to my students/pupils:
Theodora, a teenaged girl who never spoke a word but
was quick to laughter. She was never still but spent most
of her days riding her bicycle at full speed all through the grounds
of the institution while shrieking with laughter and delight.
Ben, a person labeled as a boy though born without
any genitals and obsessively fascinated with feces.
John, a middle-aged man who never spoke but found vomiting
so exciting that he kept sticking his fingers down his throat
constantly and consequently kept throwing up.
Matteus, a young man who never spoke or even looked
my way until the day when I played the ''New World Symphony''
by Antonin Dvorak on the record player and he suddenly
and perfectly started to sing along with the melody.
Sugartop, a young boy who was born without a cranium
to house his brain. Due to the risk of injury he was confined
to stay in his bed and the reason he was called ''Sugartop''
he told me one day, was that his head ''looked'' like a sugartop.
Louie, a man born with Down's syndrome. A very strong,
determined and totally sex obsessed man. I was just a skinny
18 year old girl and no match for him so after some commotion
I had to cease his lessons.
Oliver, a man in his 30's, wheelchair bound and
afflicted with hydrocephalus(water on the brain).
From the moment I started my lessons with him he would
have a go at most of the instruments. There was something
special about him although he never spoke. He would laugh,
grunt and make other kinds of sounds but he wouldn't use
his voice to speak. We connected through music and he
especially loved Janis Joplin. Janis would make him excited
and he would wave his arms in the air as if he was dancing
and when he did, I would wave my arms in the air too.
Then one day something extraordinary happened.
He motioned for me to come close. I leaned in
close to his face and as I did so he whispered
to me:
''I can speak, I can even walk, I just don't
do it. You see, I have been here for so long that
it is my home. If they know that I can talk and walk,
they will send me away and I don't want that.
Here I have a safe home and people who look after
me, if they send me away I don't know what will
happen to me.
I can think, I can speak, I can read,
I can walk and I feel a lot of things but it is my
secret to keep, so please don't tell anyone.''
Dumbfounded I looked at Oliver and then whispered
in his ear that I would never tell anyone.
And until this very moment, I have never told anyone.
What I experienced during my time as a music teacher
at the Institution,
in hindsight I now realize may possibly make a good
script for a horror/suspense movie interspersed with
moments of hilarity.
There were times when I felt as if I was actually
in a movie because some of the experiences I had
were so bizarre and difficult to make sense out of
that I had to put them in the basket marked:
To deal with when I'm older and wiser.
Difficult as it was, with each of my students/pupils
there were moments when I watched something
awaken and come alive in them as we shared the magic
and wonder of music together.
''Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.''
(Victor Hugo)
about the image: graphite on paper
title: ''Oliver''
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