Avery Decker

Resident Full Name: Avery Decker
Resident Date of Birth: 10/14/1996
Resident Age: 15
Resident Gender: Female
Current Address: 138 Grantchester Meadows
City/Town: Haverhill
County/State: Cambridge County
Country: England

Resident Hair Colour: Dark Brown
Resident Eye Colour: Dark Brown
Resident Height: 5 feet 2 inches
Resident Weight: 110 lbs, very skinny and petite.
Distinguishing Marks: I have multiple scars on my wrists and forearms from self inflicted wounds. My thighs hold a number of scars as well, though those are considered my dirty little secrets and no one knows of these.

Representative: Thank you for meeting with me today. We will now begin the recorded interview. I will ask you a series of standard questions. Please try to answer them to the best of your ability. So, firstly, how are you feeling today?

Resident: I'm feeling like I don't want to be here. I don't like it here, I don't like you or the other staff, and I don't like sharing with people.

Patient Observation: Patient is avoiding eye contact, refusing to look up during questions. She sits with her head bent, her hair blocking the view to her face.

Representative: And what circumstances have led you to apply for residency at the Highgrove Home for Children?

Resident: I didn't apply, I was forced to come here. They said I need help, and that this was my last hope. I'd rather be anywhere else than here.

Patient Observation: Patient is still refusing to look up, even after asking to do so many times. Her tone as she speaks stays even and low, showing almost no emotion.

Representative: Do you have any medical conditions we should be aware of? If so, please explain.

Patient Observation: Patient shrugs loosely as an answer, but after being told that this would not suffice, she relents and finally answers.

Resident: Apparently I have some medication allergies. The last psychiatrist that I was seen by prescribed me Lexapro, and I broke out in hives. I am also allergic to Ibuprofen. It makes me itchy.

Representative: Have you ever been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness? If yes, have you ever been hospitalised or sent to a special care facility for these illnesses?

Resident: They told me I had Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, apparently I am so messed up there is no fixing me. They also said that I exhibit the potential to harm myself. I am guessing they give out degrees for stating the obvious these days.

Patient Observation: Patient speaks of past psychiatric evaluations as though she has given up on hope. She then lifts her arms to reveal her scars of past self inflicted wounds.

Representative: How does your current state of mind affect your day to day life? Are there any incidences of note which you feel are a direct result of your state of mind, such as suicide attempts, arrests, hospitalisations, et cetera?

Resident: I have attempted suicide, what do you think landed me here? After my second attempt they had finally had enough of me, and couldn't fathom the idea of putting up with me for another moment. So they sent me away. I am now back in a group home, and the state believes that sending me here will help me.

Patient Observation: Patient exhibits some relief at getting away from her home life, a bit more emotion is seen from her as she speaks of them getting rid of her.

Resident:Before that, I was kept under observation for three days because of my last attempt. The time before that, I was released into the custody of my parents because I had lied and said that I had misread the dosage amount on the bottle and took the wrong amount. My foster mother knew I was lying.

Representative: have you ever harmed yourself, others, or animals? If yes, please explain.

Resident: I do believe I answered that in your last question.
[i]Patient Observation: Patient once again raises her arms to show her scars, scars mark her arms from her wrists to the bend in her arm, some look rather fresh.

Resident: I have attempted suicide, slitting my wrists a few times and by taking medication.

Representative: We understand you are having trouble at your current place of residence. Could you please describe the problems you are having, and the results or repercussions that have come about because of them?

Resident: I live, or lived rather, in a foster home. They don't understand me, or what I am going through. No one understands.

Patient Observation: Patient turns to look at the wall, apparently in thought. When asked what she was thinking about she shakes her head and once again looks down at her lap.

Representative: What five words would you use to best describe yourself?

Resident: I don't know. Tired? Hurt? Alone? Confused? Done? You take your pick at which one best describes me.

Representative: Do you have many friends? Could you describe your relationships and where you met these friends?

Resident: I don't care for friends. Don't want any, nor do I need any.

Patient Observation: Patients answers seem to be more short, she is refusing to answer any question at great length. She has also yet to make eye contact.

Representative: How would you describe your relationship with your biological family? Did you spend much time with them? Do you have any siblings?

Resident: I don't want to talk about this.

Patient Observation: Patient is observed drawing her knees towards her body and hugging them as if afriad by the question. Her refusal to speak of her biological family is continues on for about fifteen minutes before I am able to get an answer from her.

Resident: My parents didn't care about me. My mother cared more for her next fix than she did about me. She was always high, always! I never seen her without a needle in her vein. And my father? Well he simply fueled her addiction, selling drugs himself he'd make sure she had enough to stay high all day long. Then she died. And I was left alone with my father. He was able to do with me as he pleased, because no one ever listens to an eight year old child who's the outcast of the entire community. He used me for his pleasure, and then when he wasn't doing that, he made money by letting others have their way.

Patient Observation: Patient shows genuine emotion when talking of this, her voice is low and it is obvious that she is crying.

Representative: Are you sexually active? If yes, are you aware of any sexual preferences regarding gender or situation?

Resident: No.

Patient Observation: Patient doesn't answer more on this subject, and after a moment we move on to the next question.

Representative: Where did you grow up, and what was it like there? How do you feel about where you grew up?

Resident: When I was a child I lived in a two bedroom apartment with my mother and father. I was an only child, and clearly I loathed living there. I used to look out my window and wish that I wasn't confined to the prison I was growing up in.


Representative: How is school? What are your grades like, and do you enjoy it? Do you participate in any after-school activities?

Resident: I don't care for school. I go, pretend to care, and go home. No one talks to me. My clothes aren't the cleanest and they can tell that I live in foster care. Kids are the cruelest when they don't understand something.

Representative: What do you hope to find at the Highgrove Home, and how do you feel about potentially becoming a resident there?

Resident: I was made to come here, they couldn't help me before, I don't see how you can. But it will be a reprieve from where I was at, and I am willing to try anything.

Patient Observation: Patients facial features are that of a person completely lost. Her eyes are vacant and her expression uncaring. As the patient looks from her file atop the desk back up it's clear that she is almost at her end.


Representative: Lastly, how do you feel about what you have done so far with you life, looking back on it. If you have done unacceptable things, how do you now feel about those?

Resident: My life... well it never was my life. It's not been my life for a long, long time. I am sure I have done unacceptable things, but those are things that cannot be changed. I hate this thing called life. I am envious of those who have no worries, no stress, no anxiety over what goes on. I hate it, and I wish it never was. But mostly, I hate that I didn't have the nerve to tell someone sooner what was going on at home, so that perhaps I wouldn't have had to endure it for so long. Perhaps if I told someone of what was occurring at the foster home with my foster brother, perhaps they would have pulled me out of there instead of it coming to this.


Is there anything your character isn't telling us? Do you have more information to add about your character that they would not tell the representative about? Please explain below:

Avery was born an only child to a couple that should have never brought a child into this world. Her mother was addicted to drugs so badly that the idea of Avery making it past toddler years amazed even her. Her father, a drug dealer, who kept her mother the way she was ran the home like his own drug warehouse. Bringing in people from all over to buy and sell his 'goods'.

When Avery was old enough to care for herself, around the age of five is when this began, she did so as best as she could. She bathed herself, made her own food, and mainly kept to herself. She locked herself in her bedroom most of the time, playing with what few toys she had. She would sit on the window ledge and watch children playing in the nearby park with their parents and wish that she had that life.

About a year later at the age of six, her life went from being bad, to worse. Her Mother was rushed to the hospital one night for accidental drug overdose, and her father being who he was, denied ever knowing of her problems. Her mother didn't make it, and Avery was sent home with her father. With her mother not being around, Avery's father said that he grew lonely and took advantage of his six year old daughter every single night. Many mornings she awoke with fresh bruises about her wrists where he'd tied her down, bruises on her hips and thighs and she would wish that she could just run away from it all. But if that wasn't bad enough, her father began taking money from unknown 'Johns' to have some fun with his little 'plaything' as he'd taken to calling her.

She was about ten years old when she got the nerve to run away. Packing only what she could carry, she escaped from her window and never looked back. The police found her sleeping in an alley about ten days after this and with her refusal to talk, they placed her in a group home. During the time she spent in interviews with the police, she had wondered why she was forced to live in such hellish conditions. Why someone hadn't bothered helping her. But the apartment she had lived didn't have any other children in it, and during one particular interviews with the police, she was informed that no report was ever given during her time there with her parents. They had said that most of the people living in that area were either drug dealers or drug abusers, and neither of the two would spare a second glance at a child. Her confusion on the matter was put to rest with that conversation, and she never questioned it again. Her father never came looking for her, afraid that she had told everyone what he had done. But she hadn't, she simply refused to talk at all. It took a good year before she would talk, but not of what she went through. She carried that burden herself.

After bouncing from home to home, she landed in a foster home where the parents were always busy and gone. It was her and another, her foster brother. She was now about fourteen, and he was seventeen. He found her useful too. Every night when their foster parents would leave, he would take advantage of her. And this continued right up until she arrived here. She had began cutting herself about six months ago, and in that time had tired to take her life two times. First with overdosing on medication, which after finding out the attempt was unsuccessful, she lied her way out of it. Her second attempt was done by trying to hang herself. Her foster father found her before she could succeed, and she was taken to the local hospital. During the time of her cutting, her emotional and physical self seemed to change drastically, and her foster parents, never knowing what their foster son was doing, tried getting her help with numerous psychiatrist, but it never seemed to have an effect. After many attempts, and her second attempt at taking her life, they gave up and the state took her back, placing her once again in a group home. It was then that they sent her here in hopes of finally getting her the help she needs.

Character Playby: Emily Browning
Player Nickname: Shan
Chatango Username: SilentxCruelty
Preferred Chore Assignment Group: Placement is up to you.

But don't fret! Just follow the steps given to you below and edit your application appropriately. When you're done, please reply to this thread to let us know that the application has been edited, and we will review it again.

• Hello and welcome to Highrove! You're off to a great start, but there are just a few little things we need you to fix before we can get Avery approved
  
• First off, the top section, with the distinguishing marks and appearance questions, is supposed to be 1st person and IC, like the rest. A little wording tweak here should be enough.
  
• The observations in italics are supposed to be just that, notes on her behaviour by the interviewer. They won't be making notes about quacks. Can you move the little comments up into her speech?
  
• Can you clarify where she's living now if she's not at the foster home anymore? If she's transferring to the home from there, she'd still be living with the foster family when the interview is done
  
• Lastly, can you just give this a quick read? You've got plenty of detail there, but it's all OOC. Highgrove won't know about any of it unless she tells them. The OOC section is just for a few dirty little secrets, if they don't know any of the details about her life, they're not going to let her in. Hard as it might be for her to talk about things, I'm afraid she's going to have to, just for the application.
  

But don't fret! Just follow the steps given to you below and edit your application appropriately. When you're done, please reply to this thread to let us know that the application has been edited, and we will review it again.

• Almost there, just a couple more tweaks, and you'll be good to go!
  
• We'll need some explanation of her medical allergies, so Highgrove don't accidentally give her the wrong thing and cause a reaction.
  
• We'll also need to know what was done about her suicide attempts. With so many in a short space of time, why wasn't she sectioned? Something would have been done.
  
• In a similar vein, how did the abuse go unnoticed for so long? Did social services never get involved in anything? If not, why not? Did she just slip through the cracks?
  

Okay, so here is what I did.

• I reduced her suicide amount to two because after considering the matter and reading your response it really didn't make any sense that she wouldn't have been placed in some permanent place long before here. I also switched up her methods a bit.
  
  
• I also went through and listed a few medication allergies, I hope those will do. I don't want her over allergic to anything.
  
  
• I also fixed her history some, I didn't put it in the interview because it wasn't asked.. But if I should I will be happy to go back and fix that as well. I fixed it so that it states why she wasn't pulled from the home long before she had to run away at 10.

I also wanted to say thank you for being honest and critical on my application. I take criticism very well, and actually try to benefit from it with my gaming. Thanks for this opportunity and hopefully this time my application will meet your requirements.

But don't fret! Just follow the steps given to you below and edit your application appropriately. When you're done, please reply to this thread to let us know that the application has been edited, and we will review it again.

• Okay, firstly I want to sincerely apologise that you've been waiting this long, and that this stuff wasn't caught in the other pends. We were going to try to IM you instead of posting another formal pend notice, but it appears that our schedules are conflicting. So we apologise profusely, and hope that you'll stick with us on this (hopefully) last pending notice. It may seem a little heavier than the last pends, but don't fret! We just wanna make sure we've covered everything so we can just go ahead and get you approved and ready to play!
  
• Right, onto the meat! - Avery says that she has Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I can definitely see why she would develop this, between living alone with her father and the abuse from her foster brother. But we don't really see it in her character yet. All we have is her word on it. You could clarify this by having her tell us about how her issues manifest and how they affect her, somewhere on the application, just so we know she has it and isn't just saying she does. A quick perusal of the wiki page on it should give you an idea of some of the symptoms she might manifest.
  
• She says she has deliberately harmed herself, and that she has attempted suicide. Could you clarify whether she's harming herself and attempting suicide, or if the self harm was the result of attempted suicide. We won't be able to label her with Deliberate Self Harm if she's suicidal, as a diagnostic criteria states that the harm must not have suicidal intentions. So we need a little clarifying here to figure out what to label her with exactly.
  
• We know that her father wasn't overly pleasant, but it's typically unlikely for someone to become a paedophile due to trauma, or out of nowhere. Typically paedophiles have a certain age bracket which they prefer and prey upon, and they tend to have harboured paedophile intentions beforehand (fantasies, owning child pornography, or other incidents of inappropriate conduct with minors, etc). We'd like to know if he and his clients are indeed paedophiles, and we'd like to see this mentioned and discussed somewhere. Otherwise, if this is just a plot tool it could be perhaps tamed down to just the father being abusive towards her physically. Parental molestation is a slippery slope, and given the passing of her mother from drug overdose, and her father's profession, it's fairly unlikely that Social Services wouldn't be monitoring the home and investigating the father to assure that he is a capable parent.
  
• Other than this, the last point is a quickie. You missed out a closing italics tag on your app, in the section "How does this affect your state of mind etc etc" at the end of the patient observation.
  

This application has been inactive for three days, and as such it has been marked as dormant. If you wish to continue the application process, you must make the appropriate changes listed in your pending notice, and reply to this thread within the next two days. Failure to do so will result in this application being denied, and you may not apply to play this character again in the future.