Chapter 17 - TOVE’S TREATMENT
Tove entered therapy.
Court-recommended.
Later voluntary.
I learned only what became relevant through legal reports.
No private voyeurism into every session.
The treatment summary said:
Tove demonstrates entrenched identity fusion between caregiving and personal worth.
Translation:
If nobody needed her, she did not know who she was.
She had spent two years after Annelise’s death hearing:
Thank God for Tove.
What would Cullen do without Tove?
Mireya is lucky to have Tove.
She believed it.
Then I recovered.
Not completely.
Enough.
I needed her less.
Mireya wanted me more.
Claire became the daily caregiver when I worked.
Tove lost the role that had filled a hole in her life.
Instead of grieving the change, she fought it.
Her therapist did not blame infertility.
Good.
Tove’s old ectopic pregnancy was one grief among many.
Not destiny.
Not excuse.
The central problem:
entitlement to remain necessary.
One report quoted Tove:
“I thought Cullen was taking Mireya away from me.”
Therapist:
“She was his daughter.”
Tove:
“I know that intellectually.”
There.
The gap between intellectual fact and emotional claim.
Then:
“I started believing if I proved he was bad at the medical parts, people would see she still needed me.”
That admission went to prosecutors under negotiated conditions? Need careful confidentiality. Let's say it came in a court-ordered evaluation, not therapy. We shouldn't imply protected therapy disclosure. Better revise: court-ordered forensic evaluation, not private therapy. The evaluator documented:
Tove admitted she wanted objective proof Cullen still needed her involvement.
Good.
She did not say:
I wanted to hurt Mireya.
She said:
“I thought a few minutes without the inhaler would show whether she was actually wheezing or panicking.”
That was criminally important.
She knew she was withholding.
Then:
“When she did wheeze, why continue on later occasions?”
Tove had no good answer.
Because belief can become immune to contradiction when identity depends on it.
The prosecutor offered a plea.
Tove declined initially.
She wanted trial.
Her attorney advised otherwise.
Not my choice.
Then Mireya asked:
“Is Tove sick?”
“No.”
“Then why therapy?”
“People can need help changing dangerous ways of thinking without being physically sick.”
“Do you go?”
“Yes.”
She looked delighted.
“You dangerous?”
Children are brutal.
“Sometimes my anger has been.”
“Like slap?”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Okay.”
Equal accountability felt less humiliating once my daughter treated it as ordinary.
