What she didn’t understand, I was convinced, was that I was a rising sixth former at an elite boarding school where you could either get counseling or be perfect, but not both, and that if you were not perfect, you were not safe. People would know you needed help. A psychiatrist visited campus one day a week and I’d never asked for a meeting with him, but I knew most of the kids who did. Success at St. Paul’s was not predicated on resilience or transcendence but on destiny, which meant you did not show defeat, not ever.
