Feral
She was a wolf.
Wild.
Untamed.
Free.
Layla made her den in the closet of her room. She retreated because the darkness could hold her until nighttime’s moon. Her brain was on fire with the hallucinations. The main hallucination was the sky people—eyeballs with angel wings. They sat in a semicircle, judging her from afar. They terrorized her with a never-ending barrage of messages to self-harm or worse.
The closet was where she could get a respite from the madness. When the apartment became too quiet, I would gingerly knock on her door, calling, “Layla. Layla Bug.” With no response, I’d move to the closet door and open a crack. I’m not sure what I thought I’d find. Had she become a real-life wolf? Most often she was nestled in the back, arms on knees, staring. The closet was the womb that protected her. This was no way for an eleven-year-old to live. We couldn’t exorcise those demons in the sunlight. She wouldn’t let me. What haunted her kept her confined to the six-by-six box in her room.
Our lives kept getting smaller, like her favorite closet. I could hold our life in one hand. She—we—had nowhere to go. I had resigned from my job to be a stay-at-home mom to care for her. I withdrew her from middle school. It was more like withdrawing her from life; it was her world. Her withdrawal had excellent timing. It was right before COVID hit the world. The ominous existential threat of a worldwide pandemic made me feel okay about my decision. I was quite sure I was right.
The pandemic days and nights profoundly affected me. Compounding the issue was Layla’s complete loss of control. The psychosis made her a different person; I couldn’t parent a wolf. She was ready to bark or bite at a moment’s notice. I wanted my girl back, a happy tween with hopes and dreams.
Homeschooling was my new responsibility. She had to be kept at a grade level. Lesson plans eluded me. Google didn’t give me what I needed or wanted, so I told Layla to study something that interested her. She was on board and seemed excited at the prospect. She would be able to spend a few hours each day away from her closet. This was an ideal situation.
We agreed she’d study the trees outside her window. I treated it like a work project: here are the requirements and deliverables. I need a presentation in a few weeks. I pushed it out into the future. Fortunately, her artistic skills made her proficient in PowerPoint.
Arguably the worst teacher on the planet, I didn’t check in to see if she needed help or had questions. I figured the internet would solve her problems. After a week she wanted to give me the presentation. I found excuses and told her to dive deeper and come back in two weeks.
It was like a Hollywood premiere; presentation day arrived. Honestly, with the bullshit instructions, she came up with a solid, well-researched talk. I gave it a “B.” Then inevitably we had to look to the future. My nemesis.
Shit.
“What’s next, Mama?”
“I don’t know, Bug.”
“What should I do?”
“Whatever you want.”
Layla never asked me about school after that. I left it there. I wouldn’t want me as a teacher.
The days blended; nothing made them distinct. It was only Layla, Teddy (our chihuahua), and me. They were bored. I was bored. We were all bored of each other. We watched Tiger King on Netflix to stay occupied. I made berry blast smoothies to keep us healthy.
Keeping up a brave front, I kept a frenetic pace around the house, lovingly dubbed “Mama’s zoomies.” I was constantly in motion. Layla could barely keep up with me. I don’t think she wanted to anyway. I shouted orders about what needed to be done. Teddy stared with attention, appreciative. Generally, I was ignored.
She was lonely.
So was I.
Layla had been popular, but her friends stopped texting when she got too weird. The symptoms were becoming too difficult to control. More of her irrationality was on display. It was becoming obvious to her friend group something was wrong. I asked about different girls and how they were holding up. She never said a word about it at the time. Later she admitted she’d stopped looking for their messages. One friend mentioned Layla being “too much.” That stung. And Layla held on to it.
Most days, I couldn’t figure out what was going on with her. Her health was declining. She barely ate anything. Sleep was catch-as-catch-can. I could no longer help her. We needed a miracle worker.
With my zoomies, I could pretend to ignore the pandemic and psychosis. If I kept moving, they couldn’t catch me. Couldn’t catch us. Frenetic movement became my incantation. Only a spell could lift this curse.
These were my days with Layla.
Each one went by like the others.
What was wrong with my family?
Here’s what happened: we both became wild. I was free of work and its constraints and commitments. And Layla was free from the hassle of pretending and the need to be normal, to be like everyone else. We were in a world of our making where nothing we knew before seemed to matter.
I switched back into old me, searching Google for answers to existential questions. I was more desperate than I had ever been. There wasn’t a place for Layla—for us—to go. Help was elusive. I needed a social worker but couldn’t find one. I tossed our lives between my hands like a basketball.
We needed structure.
We were feral.
With each potential hope, I whispered into my phone so Layla couldn’t hear what I was saying. I spoke with coordinators, directors, and anybody with a pulse who could offer Layla some services. As luck would have it, I found something promising. My zoomies paid off. I found The Group. I was getting us out of this hellhole of a life. Our bags were packed; we were moving on up.
***
Now we were cooking with gas. We had a team. Professionals were speaking with us. Today. It wasn’t lost on me that The Group was our only option. This was our S.O.S.
I faced my computer camera with a smile full of optimism. I wished my smile could make it all go away. Layla sat on the other side of the computer because she couldn’t be on camera; she was afraid of it. It was the evil eye, a pinpoint of terror. The voices told her we would die if she were on the call.
My mind raced through what I was going to say and how to frame our needs. I went into my work voice, deeper and more resonant than my natural squeaks.
“Hello! I’m Brittany, and Layla is over here,” I said, gesturing wildly to where she sat. I did all the talking, as usual. Layla played Subway Surfers.
I, by myself, held up the sky. I balanced a lot in our little world. There was no support for me. I was drowning. The Group provided me with a counselor who understood my daily struggles. I felt seen, unlike when I spoke with friends.
I booked time for the parental counselor to stop by with a binder of course materials. You would have thought we were long-lost friends; they reached out to hug me. Even with the COVID rules, I embraced them.
It felt good to be held with no one else hanging on. It had been too long.
We continued with The Group and had powerful therapy sessions where we developed individual and family goals. The team was guiding us toward something, but I didn’t know what. Where was the real therapy, I wondered?
It was like dating. The Group looked great on paper, but the chemistry wasn’t there. No sparks, no magic. I hoped that the fact it was free would solve all our problems. It didn’t. We needed a breakup.
Ever the New Yorker, I kept searching for options while we were still with The Group. I found The Program. It was impressive. It included all The Group offered, and then some. There was medical support—the piece missing since we’d stopped seeing our private psychiatrist. I vetted The Program with her former doctor. They’d seen success with other patients in The Program. That was gold to me.
My zoomie ways paid dividends. The Program was bigger—a more focused and dedicated team. I was thrilled. Layla had her doubts. She tried to convince me to at least read the reviews. Stars didn’t matter to me. The Program was manna from heaven. We had a place that felt right—for now.
I was tired of holding up the sky with our untamed ways. Perhaps The Program was a den of another kind. Like wolves drawn to a campfire, we felt the warm glow of domestication.
About the Author
Brittany Miles writes fiction and essays exploring family, motherhood, mental health, and identity through lyrical, emotionally resonant storytelling. Her work appears in Newsweek, Business Insider, and The Seattle Times, and is forthcoming in Open Secrets Magazine, Tir Literary Magazine, and Minding Our Business: A Blacklandia Anthology on Mental Health and Healing.
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