Onder Zeeniveau

The career choice test

I’m eighteen years old and I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I don’t know if I want to go to college. I don’t know what I want to study. I don’t know how I want to shape my life.

I don’t have a clue. I can’t think beyond the next day, the next week, but I certainly can’t think about what I want the next month.

My parents decided that I will take a career choice test and through our neighbor who is the director of a hospital I am sent to a psychologist in Amsterdam.

How I get there, whether I will be brought I don’t know anymore but I am expected in the morning on the PC Hooftstraat.

It is a large bright house.

The psychologist is, in my eyes, an old man. He has a gray mouse as an assistant, or is it a young handsome woman, the young handsome woman in the morning and the gray mouse in the afternoon, I don’t remember and why I forgot will become clear later.

The first test.

I get to see a lot of pictures of evil-looking men, they all have ugly faces, it goes in pairs, every time two gallows faces stare at me, and out of those two hangdog faces, I must choose the most sympathetic one each time. If I say that I find them both unsympathetic, my objection is brushed aside, and I have to make a choice. The sympathetic ones are placed on a pile, and I must choose from that pile again. I don’t understand the point of this, and it’s not explained to me. I just must do it.

All day long I do tests that I don’t like, I find it all strange, but it will be good for something, and it will come out what a good profession is for me.

At the end of the day, I am expected with the old man, he has a large bright room at the front of the house.

He talks to me and asks me questions and nods.

Then he produces his next question, there is another study where he wants to test my physical reactions, he will ask me questions and touch my body, which is particularly important for the result, the examination has a name that I don’t remember now. It is the last examination, it will take about half an hour. He reiterates the importance of this research.

“Shall we, do it?” he says.

“Yes,” I say.

I must undress for this. That’s the best way to measure my physical reactions.

He locks the door.

What do I know? What do I know about abuse? I am an innocent schoolgirl. Nobody has ever crossed my boundaries, no one has taken advantage of me, and I’ve never been told about men taking advantage.

I undress.

Wholly.

Naked, I lie on a treatment table in the room.

The investigation is about to begin.

I don’t remember how it went, or what questions he asked. I do know that he touches me and goes over my body with some kind of device.

Looking back now, I can think of what happened, that he started to speak increasingly hoarsely. At some point, he wants to put something in me, and I say no.

He also starts to undress and crawls on top of me on the table. I push him away and shout no, no!

I’m young and strong and I don’t think he expected this but I’m working my way out from under him.

There is a banging on the door.

“Professor, Professor.” Shouts a female voice.

He shouts, “Just a moment.”

“Put on your clothes and sit down,” he snaps at me. He points to the chair in front of his table and dresses himself.

He pretends not to know that the door is locked and says in surprise: hey the door is closed. He opens the door and disappears.

I’m not telling this to anyone.

A few weeks later comes his conclusion. It’s a thick piece of paper stating that I’ll always choose the underdog, that I have a calm personality, and it’s best to work in a library.

For me, that test of that pervert has no value whatsoever. I will never work in a library. I’ll never do anything that that goofball thinks is good for me.

A few years later I read somewhere that, as was to be expected, he abused several young people, male and female. I may even had another conversation with someone about this but I don’t remember.

I haven’t talked about this with anyone at all.

It’s something that still makes me shiver with horror now, after fifty years.