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by
Dr. Harper
He’d fallen in love with a girl named Emma, and she didn’t feel the same way. Typical high school heartbreak. The problem was, he wouldn’t back off. He kept asking her out, and she kept rejecting him.
Maybe you’d suggest a 5150 (involuntary hospitalization). Probably the best idea, but I’m a control freak, and I think I know more about Alex than anyone could learn in 72 hours. Involuntary anything would only worsen his state.
“Sometimes, when we’re carrying around abandonment and rejection, we just keep finding more of it,” I said. “But Emma isn’t a bully for not wanting a relationship. So what could you gain from hurting her and her friends?”
Did Alex really want to stop this, or was he still playing me? He was clearly capable of fooling me, but I really felt like his breakthrough earlier was genuine. Or maybe that was all just part of the distraction. But he told me about the distraction before the alarm went off.
It explained so much… Alex’s rapid descent into darkness last month. The sudden calm. And the ancient graphing calculator, which students never used anymore. I had to admit, it was a clever way to communicate without leaving a technical trace.
Maybe you think this will scare me away from therapy forever, but I’ve seen it all… A patient with OCD whose loved ones really did suffer every time he missed a ritual. A choir boy who claimed he was being molested – not by a priest – but by God Himself. A patient with PTSD who gave me nightmares. A husband and wife who accused each other of abuse, and only one of them was telling the truth. A woman who kept her ex locked up as a sex slave. A pedo-ring conspiracy theorist who was actually onto something.
Have you ever had someone frantically obsessed with you? Someone who keeps contacting you, despite your repeated attempts to end that contact? Someone angry and unpredictable, someone who refuses to back down? You fear for your life every second of the day. You don’t sleep anymore. You have nightmares constantly, as your body tries to keep you alert. The primal fear instincts kick in, and they don’t easily shut down.
I did my best to conceal a harumph. Yeah, I don’t believe in that stuff. To me, those are code-words for “overactive amygdala”, which was – unsurprisingly – another aspect of OCD. I like to think every mystery has a practical explanation, set here on planet Earth.
I watched the footage – four panels at once. In the master bedroom, Phil and Anne made their way into their bed. In the guest room, Anne’s sister read a book in bed before shutting off the lights. In Eleanor’s room, a young teen girl typed away on her laptop before finally drifting off to sleep. The front entrance to the house showed no signs of life.
I shook my head angrily. He probably heard Father Michael recite verses like that every day. Who needs an abuser when you have a big book telling kids that an omniscient deity thinks they’re defective.
But most likely, you want to know how Zach reacted. Well, he was straight, so I got to experience my first heartbreak. But that’s better than feeling nothing at all. Zach remains one of my closest friends to this day, and we go out for tea each month.
“The problem with PTSD is that the body and mind work on overdrive to prevent the same fear or pain from happening again. It’s like repeatedly touching a hot stove to remind yourself that it hurts. It’s stuck in a feedback loop.”
I find it very obnoxious when people present problems with obvious solutions, dismiss the solution, and continue complaining about the problem.
Self-injury…. That was certainly interesting. That implied he felt some sort of remorse, which meant that he wasn’t completely hopeless. Maybe he only attacked in some sort of dissociative state, and then felt horrified once he regained awareness?
“The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.”
For the rest of the session, I listened to them make more accusations – and more denials. To be completely honest, I still had no idea what was going on with them. If either of them was really in the Cluster-B spectrum (narcissist, sociopath, borderline, histrionic), it would take far more time to unravel the truth among all the manipulation and gas-lighting.
When it comes to abusive relationships, I try not to convince the victim that their partner is bad. Often times, that causes them to stop seeking help – especially early on, when they’re dealing with cognitive dissonance about their abuser. Instead, I try to help the victim see their own value. Once we rebuild the self-respect and self-worth, everything else tends to fall into place.
“The most common partner of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder isn’t the Narcissist,” I said. “It’s Codependency. Caretaking. People pleasing. Rescuing. People who feel responsible for the emotions of others, burdened by constant guilt and worry when conflicts arise.”
“It doesn’t have to be abuse,” I said. “Just someone who took up a lot of space. Emotional outbursts, constant fights, rigid rules, drinking issues, unpredictable moods… Anything like that?”
“You’re all of them,” I said. “When we carry these wounds, we continue entering relationships and repeating the same story. Maybe we start as the rescuer, but our victimized partner inevitably comes to see us as the perpetrator. So we become the bad guy in their eyes. Then we’re so exhausted and drained that we start to feel like the victim ourselves.”
“A false version of love. Love is not heavy and sad. It is not pitiful and tragic. Love is light – infinite and open. It flows freely from within.”
What if Kierra didn’t have Borderline Personality Disorder at all? Partners of narcissists and sociopaths often develop Complex PTSD, which can look a lot like BPD. That’s what happens when one person manufactures jealousy and insecurity in a partner. Sociopaths love to play innocent while their victims self-destruct and question their own sanity.
I looked into his eyes – eyes that were so eager, and so kind. Suddenly, I felt an extremely warm, soft vulnerability in my heart – an unexpected sensation I hadn’t known since childhood. So in that moment, I decided I would need to shut him out of my heart forever.
It could be Dissociative Identity Disorder. I know I keep guessing that, and I keep being wrong. Probably because 99% of the time, their alters aren’t violent. Sure, there are barriers between alters, but that doesn’t mean they blackout and forget a murderous rampage. Blackouts are actually extremely uncommon with DID.
The other possibility was Cotard’s Delusion. But that was almost too perfect. A condition where the patient literally believes they are the walking dead. And typically that manifests as anxiety and depression, not cannibalism.
Which brings me to cannibalism. It’s not a psychological disorder, although there are obviously mental issues that drive the compulsion and desire to eat another human being. Most often, a euphoric sexual high...
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I stomped on his phone to destroy any signal. My home was like a digital Fort Knox. But digital security has a major flaw. It can be hacked from the outside. That’s why I designed mine on an intra-net, not the internet. Meaning, you have to physically be inside my home to access the network. So, definitely no electronics allowed for my guests.
I felt a sudden burst of adrenaline and bolted up from the bed. I tried to hit Rose in the face, but I stumbled from the drugs and accidentally punched her in the boob. She screamed in a strangely erotic way.
I had a chance at real happiness tonight, and I sabotaged it with my own reckless decisions. I don’t believe in karma, but I do believe in logic. And logically speaking, if you do enough bad things, one of them is bound to catch up with you in the end. So because of logic, I had no one to blame but myself for whatever was about to happen next.
If we’re going to escape, we need to gain the trust of several key guards and inmates. I will explain more soon, but only if you’re interested in helping. Please RSVP at your earliest convenience, and leave your response in the head of the broken shower.
