Little Girl Blue (48 page)

Being more than two thousand miles from home, Karen relied on a small but close network of relationships on the East Coast. “Please come and stay in New York,” she would beg longtime friend Debbie Cuticello. Debbie and husband C.J. went to Karen's suite at the Regency several times before taking her out for dinner but always made the return trip to their Connecticut home the same evening. “I would bring Karen here once every two or three weeks, and she'd spend the weekend with me,” Debbie says. “I was much happier to have her here with me in quiet Guilford than being in New York City.”

Karen enjoyed weekends with the Cuticello clan, which by this time included the couple's baby son, Jamie. Babysitting while C.J. and Debbie went to church or out to dinner allowed Karen time to play surrogate mom. Like Frenda Leffler's twins, Jamie Cuticello was quite special to her, and she showered him with love and attention, in addition to gifts including her own needlepoint creations. She also seemed
to enjoy the domestic aspect of the family's home and assisted in preparing meals, washing dishes, and helping with other household duties. “She absolutely adored children,” recalls Itchie Ramone. “She would have been such a wonderful mom. Mothering was totally instinctive. She even taught me how to iron!”

While visiting Guilford, Karen told Debbie the meetings with her therapist were going better than expected. According to her, it was only a one-year process, and she seemed to be “breezing” through. Her therapist felt she could finish in six months—maybe even four. This seemed to be a very self-deceiving declaration. In fact, Karen was well aware that successful treatment would take years, not months. Following her own quick-fix plan, she told friends and family what they wanted to hear and moreover what she wanted to believe.

Outwardly Karen seemed committed to the idea of therapy, but as evidenced by her daily walking regimen, she was not as committed to making important changes that would result in real progress and positive results. Friends including Carole Curb say Karen continued to dabble in—if not delve into—even stricter anorexic practices while under Levenkron's care. “She was still walking a lot, and she was exercising,” Curb says. “And then she was into throwing up and taking water pills that make you lose water weight. Debilitating things like that.”

Several months into his sessions with Karen, Levenkron began to suspect that she had fallen off the wagon. He phoned Itchie, soliciting her help with a matter she would long regret. “When she leaves the room, go into her bedroom and check under her mattress,” Levenkron instructed. “Check underneath her bed, in her bathroom, and anywhere else you can think of.” The therapist wanted confirmation that Karen had stopped using and thrown away all laxatives, diuretics, and other medications. Even the half quaalude she was known to take on occasion was too strong for her tiny body. “But it really helps me to sleep,” she told Itchie, who insists that Karen was in no way abusing quaaludes.

“I felt so horrible, but it had to be done,” Itchie says. “She had been saying to Levenkron that she had stopped the laxatives and stopped the 'ludes. I said, ‘There's just no way. She's just too thin!' I called
Levenkron back and said, ‘Look, I found all these things. What am I supposed to do?'”

With Karen in tow, Itchie delivered her findings to Levenkron's office the following day. Learning of the conspiracy and that her friend had collected evidence against her, Karen became incensed. “When I told her what I had done, I really felt like I'd betrayed her,” Itchie recalls. “All I could say was, ‘I really, really want you to get well.'”

Following that meeting, Itchie realized that in cooperating with Levenkron she had lost her best friend's trust. “It caused a major, major upset,” she says. “In retrospect it caused a bit of a setback. She really started to have trust issues with me. I said, ‘Look, I am really sorry.' And I truly was. I was invading her privacy; I had no idea what I was doing, and I just panicked because I loved her. . . . After that I just felt that she had to do it for herself from that point on.”

But Levenkron was right. Karen had done exactly as he predicted. Like many of the women he worked with, she resisted the very treatment she was seeking. He was not fooled by her tactics and let her know, just as he let hundreds of other patients know: “
You are the victim
of a disease and not the designer of a creative way of being special.” A message entitled “For the Afflicted” appeared in his book and remains a revealing look at the language used by the therapist in meeting with his patients. “You suffer,” he wrote, “and are condemned to defend that suffering so that you will feel powerful rather than ashamed. If you defend that suffering eloquently enough, you may be regarded as manipulative and deceitful, instead of desperate. Surely words that connote being powerful are more desirable labels than words that suggest helplessness.”

Dependence did not come easy for Karen; it suggested incompleteness and vulnerability. Like many with an eating disorder, Karen would oftentimes argue that she was not in need of any care. She felt she was plenty successful the way she was. Levenkron disagreed and did so using language that cut to her core. He told her she was “incompetent” and unable to keep herself alive. Levenkron's goal was for her to relearn dependence and see it as a healthy dependence upon him. “
The victims must learn
how to become patients,” his book reads.
“The patients must risk trusting, and being receptive to support, guidance, care and even affection.”

A
FTER MANY
weeks of exploring the depths of their daughter's psyche, Levenkron invited the Carpenter parents and Richard to a ninety-minute family therapy session at his office. “They did come to New York—finally,” Itchie recalls, “and only after a lot of nudging. By then, Karen seemed to be starting to turn the corner a bit emotionally.”

The stigma surrounding mental illness and a need for therapy was frightening for the family, especially Agnes, who felt Karen was simply going overboard as far as dieting was concerned. If only she would stop being so stubborn and just eat. Over the years, the family tried every possible approach to get through to her and make her eat. “Everyone around
her did everything
that they could have humanly done,” Richard said in 1993. “I tried everything—the heart-to-heart, the cajole, the holler. . . . It can just make you crazy. I tried everything. Obviously it wasn't about to work, and I was upset.”

Levenkron explained that the family's attempts to threaten or bribe Karen out of her behaviors would never make them go away. According to his book, “
Failure of the family
to understand this produces division within the family that in turn results in feelings of anger and guilt. The family atmosphere is chaotic, reinforcing the anorexic's belief that she and no one else knows what is best for her.”

Agnes was what Levenkron termed an “oppressive-dependent” mother. At first she appeared to be overbearing, but that same domineering presence is oftentimes a cover for her fear of losing her daughter—or at least control over her daughter. Levenkron suggested to the family that Karen was in need of a more tactile, demonstrative kind of love. Karen bawled uncontrollably during the meeting. She told them how terribly sorry she was for having put them in a situation where they felt a need to defend her upbringing, and she went so far as to apologize for ruining their lives.

“I think Karen really needs to hear that you love her,” Levenkron told the family.

“Well, of course I love you,” Richard told her unreservedly.

“Agnes?” The therapist tapped the mother's shoe with his own.

Rather than address her daughter, Agnes explained how she preferred to be called Mrs. Carpenter. “Well, I'm from the north,” she continued. “And we just don't do things that way.”

“Agnes couldn't do it,” says Itchie Ramone, who discussed the meeting with Karen and Levenkron after the family left. “
She couldn't do it
! . . . In therapy you're basically stark naked. Then your own mother can't reach out to you? And the way she doted on Richard! Most children would try to dance as fast as they could to make their parents love them, but it was at that point that I think Karen decided it was time to take a step back.”

When Levenkron lightheartedly suggested to the family that Karen might come out of treatment and realize she no longer enjoyed singing, that was it for Richard. His distrust of the therapist was forever solidified. In his mind, there was no question of Karen's deep-seated love for singing. She loved performing and recording more than anything in the world. As she explained to Ray Coleman in 1976, “
I gotta sing
. I love that crowd.” Karen had always considered herself fortunate to be able to make a living doing something she loved. “
A lot of people
don't get the chance to do that,” she explained in a 1981 interview. “They spend their whole life doing a job they hate. . . . We walk in and sing and have a good time and make albums, go all over the world.”

After the meeting with Levenkron, Richard became angry with the treatment plan, which he thought to be worthless. “At that point, he didn't have a lot of respect left for Levenkron,” Itchie says. “At first everybody was grabbing for any information Levenkron might have that could help Karen. Then all of a sudden in a few months it turned around to where everyone was asking, ‘Is this guy for
real
?'”

Richard was upset that Karen had not checked herself into an inpatient facility as one would do to conquer substance abuse, like a Betty Ford Clinic but for eating disorders. According to Levenkron, he also wanted to put Karen in an inpatient facility immediately after she arrived in New York, but she refused to even consider it. The
therapist proceeded to work with her in what he called a “
less-than-perfect treatment
modality,” according to his interviews with Ray Coleman. He went on to say the modality ended up being a nonissue, however, because the damage that would eventually kill Karen had already been done. “In the end,” he explained, “what killed her was all her behavior previous to coming to New York.”

The Carpenter family returned to Downey and, although greatly alarmed, chose to keep their distance after this painful encounter with Levenkron. Wishing to consult exclusively with Karen during this time, they made no further attempts to contact her therapist. “
What I find interesting
,” Levenkron stated in 1993, “is that in the entire time Karen was in New York, I got zero calls from the entire family. I have never treated anyone with anorexia nervosa that their family didn't call somewhat regularly because they were concerned.” Likewise, Richard claimed to have never received a call from Levenkron.

Karen and Itchie were surprised to learn that Levenkron was not an actual doctor. “We used to call him ‘Dr. Levenkron' all the time,” Itchie explains. “Then we found out that he wasn't even a real doctor. Any medical issues she had, we had to go see this other doctor who was a medical doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital.”

According to Evelyn Wallace, “She picked the wrong guy to go to. He wasn't even a doctor! It seemed like Levenkron was simply trying to talk Karen out of having anorexia, but she'd talk to him and she'd go back to the same routine. He was some kind of a counselor. I don't know what you'd call him. Call him a liar! That's what he was.”

Wallace could only do so much from afar. She wanted to see Karen with her own eyes and be able to hug her and show her love and support. Although she refused to travel by plane, Evelyn called an area train station to inquire about a round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to New York. “I think I'll go visit Karen,” she told Agnes one afternoon.

“Oh no, you can't do that,” she responded.

“Oh? Well, I wouldn't stay long or bother her or anything,” she explained. “Just visit.”

But Agnes was adamant that she not try to see Karen. “The doctor said she can't have any more visitors!”

This puzzled and even angered Evelyn. She knew Karen was not in any sort of confinement. “She was alone in a hotel room,” Wallace says. “I was so mad! I thought, ‘What in the heck has she got, something
catching
?'”