Chapter 34

Chapter 34

D r. India Lee, Psychotherapist, is written in dark green letters on the antique sign next to the door. She's the only psychologist within a hundred miles and I'm lucky her office is four blocks from me. I knock the snow off my winter boots and ring the bell.

Not a second later, the door swings open. "I saw you coming." The woman in front of me is no taller than my belly button. For her to have seen me coming, she must have been standing on a chair by the window. Calmly, she stretches out her hand to me, very far up. "I'm Dr. Lee."

I awkwardly grab her fingers and shake them. "Brendan Connor." She has a firm handshake, which I didn't expect given her size.

She smiles as she invites me in, and with a sinking feeling, I follow her into a lime-green-painted room. By the window is a desk with a chaotic hodgepodge of documents with several chairs spread out in front of it and there is a flowered couch in the corner. On the table in front of the sofa are two glasses and a carafe of water, and an incense stick on the windowsill exudes an earthy smell. Cedar.

"Sit wherever you feel comfortable."

I eye India Lee with a mixture of suspicion and nervousness. She is different from Dr. Watts. Dr. Watts looked like a typical doctor, Dr. Lee, in her wide orange trousers, lambskin slippers, colorful felt jacket, and feather necklace, looks like an aging flower child. Her brown hair curls around round cheeks, and in a weird way, I like her.

I sit in the back corner of the room on the sofa. Without comment, Dr. Lee sinks into her desk chair and turns to me.

"Did you leave your wolf at home?"

I must seem puzzled because she's laughing.

"It's a small town, Mr. Connor. Strangers attract attention."

I bet India Lee also stands out in Faro. That makes her even more likable to me. "I barely left the house."

She is silent for a moment, studying me carefully. "Is that why you're here?"

"No. Perhaps…I don't know." I slump my shoulders, discouraged. I didn't say much to her on the phone. Suddenly, it all seems wrong to me. How do I dare tell a total stranger my story? Have I gone insane? "I should leave…"

"Back to your house, to your wolf?"

Back to solitude? She doesn't say that, but she suspects it, I can tell by the penetrating look she gives me. I was shocked when I peered into the mirror this morning. My cheeks are sunken, eyes dull, skin sallow, almost gray—like Delsin. If I leave now, nothing will change. However, Lou would have liked it, that's the only reason I'm sitting here.

"Call me Brendan," I reply, licking dry lips.

"Okay, Brendan. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"You're bound by confidentiality," I state.

She nods without changing her expression.

"You don't go to the police if your patients tell you things that…made them criminals."

Relaxed, India Lee folds her hands on her lap. I immediately notice how tense I am sitting on the corner sofa and breathe deeply into my stomach. Like in a fight. I don't even know why confidentiality is so important to me. A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have given a damn, but now I want to be free. I have to take care of Grey.

"I'll lose my license if I make public what my patients tell me," Dr. Lee explains kindly. "Unless you tell me you plan to murder your neighbor, I would have to report that to the police. Imminent danger."

I breathe a sigh of relief. "I don't mind old Mrs. Campbell," I try to joke.

India Lee smiles. "What do you want to start with, Brendan?"

I'm glad she's letting me decide.

"I've had… I have flashbacks… But I'm not sure if they're actually flashbacks." I've since googled the phenomenon. "They last longer than a few seconds. Sometimes even hours, and they don't start abruptly either, instead, I feel myself drifting off."

"So, you've come to see me because you're suffering from something you cannot explain."

I nod. I clarified the issue of payment with her on the phone. I pay for the sessions privately. I don't have health insurance anyway.

"Can you describe the drifting off?" Dr. Lee inquires.

I deliberate briefly. "I fall into a dark room. It's like a trapdoor opening in the ground. Before that, I see everything in black and white and everything seems distorted."

Dr. Lee jots something down, then looks at me invitingly.

"I have no recollection of what I'm doing during that time. I was told"— Lou told me —"I was talking about a lot of what I experienced. There were…bad things happened during my childhood." I'm not ready to reveal more just yet. "I also behave aggressively during these phases. I break things, injure people, but afterward, I don't remember any of it." I have to take a deep breath. I wish I could hastily leave the room.

"So, you don't remember what you do during these episodes. Do you remember anything else?"

"I always see a boy. The boy…well…I see him like he was in a movie…"

"Aha." Dr. Lee's eyes flash for a moment. "Tell me about the boy," she prompts. "Anything you can or want to tell me."

I tell her how I've approached the boy over the past few months, how I've talked to him and how I finally took him by the hand and led him into the light. I mention Lou, but not the kidnapping. Nor do I mention the coffin or my stepfather. But I tell India Lee about my recovered memories.

When I finish, she tilts her head. She seems to be waiting for something.

"I'm the boy," I say like a student who owes the teacher an answer.

"Yes, certainly," she replies calmly as if what I'm telling her is the most normal thing in the world. "Why do you think this boy is here?"

"He shields me from memories. Painful memories. But also beautiful ones. And sad ones."

"So, he protected you." Lee gets up, walks to a waist-high bookshelf, and pulls out a red tome. She sets it on the table, leaving it closed.

"Without knowing your childhood, Brendan…you said bad things happened. How old were you?"

"Young. I don't know exactly." For a millisecond, the image of the three candles flashes through my mind. "Maybe four."

"That would fit."

I don't understand anything anymore.

She leafs through the thick book on her desk and finally finds what she was looking for. She taps a heading with her ringed index finger.

"Have you ever heard of dissociative disorders?" India Lee looks at me with interest. Her honey-colored eyes catch my eye for the first time. Unlike Dr. Watts, she has a kind expression. Still uncomfortable, I shake my head. I never expected to get an explanation for this strange phenomenon so quickly.

"I'm not saying you suffer from it, but you should know what these disorders can do."

I nod uneasily.

Dr. Lee sits down in her chair. "Dissociative disorders can occur in the context of trauma, similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. Do you know what PTSD is?"

"Yes." Dr. Watts explained it in the first and last session. Post-traumatic stress disorders are long-term effects of trauma. "Flashbacks are part of it," is all I say.

"Among other things." India Lee gives me a brief explanation of how the brain reacts to a traumatic event. However, I can only remember that some things are stored unfiltered during this time and often fail to reach consciousness. Thus, traumatic memories would often be bizarre and details would be augmented in the memory.

"After a trauma, the psyche ensures that you can survive. Sometimes, this requires disassociating feelings, but also memories. A traumatized child living in a family situation they cannot escape from, where the trauma may be repeated over and over again, must sever a large part of themselves in order to remain viable. Push away. Deny. Disassociate. All these things are available to a child."

"So, what happened to me?" I ask, staring at the long ash stem of the incense stick.

India Lee rolls her chair over to the table and pours me a glass of water. "I don't even know you yet, Brendan. When you say bad things happened in your childhood, the first thing to think about is a reaction to those things. The seizures you describe to me, especially the amnesia and flashback-like episodes, can indicate a dissociative disorder. It often develops in young children who are traumatized because they are not yet familiar with other coping strategies."

The ash from the incense stick falls into the cobalt-blue drip tray. "What exactly are these disturbances?"

"I'll make you a copy of that chapter in my book later. In the worst case, a person splits their consciousness into several parts. It used to be called multiple personality disorder."

I think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. My heart beats faster. "So, I'm schizophrenic?"

"No, that's something else entirely, Brendan. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is not caused by trauma. I also do not believe you suffer from classic DID. Then you would have to have lapses and amnesia in everyday life without these attacks."

I do not understand anything. "What exactly is DID?"

"DID is dissociative identity disorder. Such patients jump back and forth between their personalities in everyday life without realizing it. It goes so far that one personality buys things that the other doesn't know anything about afterward, for example. Do you recognize something like that about yourself?"

"No."

"There are a number of mixed and sub-types, including mixed forms with other post-traumatic stress disorders. I suspect that you disconnected your consciousness during a stressful situation. You created a boy who was older than you at the time. Your subconscious thought your older self, an older Brendan, could handle it better. This is how you survived the situation. The boy shouldered most of your grief, but you also gave him fond memories that weighed on you."

"Why should happy memories bother me?"

"They increase sadness."

The incense stick burns up. The scent of cedar hangs in the air. I rub my pants with damp hands. I'm completely confused.

Dr. Lee rolls her desk chair a bit toward me. "That was a lot. Do you need a break?"

I hastily shake my head. "No, I just don't understand."

"If you had actually developed your own sub-personality, you would not have been able to access it. It often takes years before people with DID succeed in integrating or dissolving the different parts. Many never even succeed. It requires a lot of patience and self-acceptance."

My head is spinning. So, I'm not completely crazy, just half crazy?

"The walls to the boy were thin, you knew about him. Although he was separate or suppressed, he did not become independent."

I stare at her and don't know what to think of all this anymore.

"You've already taken the first step and brought him back."

I drink the whole glass of water in one gulp because I feel like it might clear my mind.

India Lee leans forward. "Why are you here, Brendan?"

"I want to know what I have. It would be…helpful…" I hesitate and look at her questioningly. "Less scary."

"A shot in the dark, without guarantee. Would that be okay with you?"

I nod.

"You are triggered, you get a flashback that doesn't necessarily paralyze your entire thinking, maybe only lasting a few seconds. Possibly several in a row with clear intervals in between, hence the feeling of slowly slipping away. But during these flashbacks, your body, or rather your subconscious, mobilizes the best possible protection for you. This is where the dissociative disorder sets in, with which you beam yourself away from reality completely because during the flashback, you do not realize the difference between past and present. Your subconscious thinks you are back in the old situation. I can't tell you yet what exactly happens in this phase. Maybe you're going through some kind of dissociative trance." She gives me a piercing look. "What are you hoping to get out of therapy, Brendan?"

"I want these fits to stop," I answer truthfully. "Or stay in control during them."

India Lee nods. "Okay, that's a good goal. However, you will need a lot of patience."

I wake up from a scream. Darkness hangs like a shroud in the air, in which the cry for help still reverberates. Sweat runs down my back.

"Grey?" I grope around disoriented, but only find the soft sleeping mat and the cool floor. Usually, Grey lies next to me, huddling against me when, once again, I am startled awake by my own scream of terror. But now he's gone. Stiffly, I stand. I still can't see anything but darkness.

I force myself to take a few steps forward, arms outstretched like a blind man. Something is not right.

"Grey?"

The south window should be over there, but there is nothing. No cutout in the walls, no glass, no stars. Nothing at all. Only blackness. My heart is beating wildly against my ribs. I had a nightmare, now what? I blink hard, but it stays dark like in the realm of the dead. I dare not breathe. The strange fear that someone might hear me sends an icy shiver down my spine. But who could hear me other than Grey?

I grope around again. My fingertips touch rough, cold wood. Very close in front of me. To my sides, left and right. They're walls. No, impossible!

"Grey?"

A rough scraping whispers through the air, metal clicks. One, two, three, four, five, six.

My blood freezes to a lump of ice. Top and bottom blur. He found me. The monster found me. It killed Grey and put me in a coffin. Nobody will ever find me. Nobody knows where I am. My throat constricts. The suffocating air makes my eyes water. I wildly push against the wood, but it won't budge. The narrowness crushes me like a hand crushes ripe fruit. I can't breathe anymore. Again, I press against the lid. Suddenly, it breaks and I lie in a fresh grave. There is earth everywhere, heavy and damp, full of worms and bugs. They go into my mouth, into my lungs…

I wake with a start and hear myself screaming.

Grey is with me immediately, lying by my side as if guarding me. Drenched in sweat, I bury my fingers in his fur and, gasping, stare at the south window. The full moon is silver and large in the sky, casting a brilliant ray of light on the old parquet floor.

Only a dream. It was only a dream, Brendan .

I focus on my breath like Dr. India Lee advised me. Slowly in through the nose, evenly out through the mouth. Just a few breaths per minute to slow the heartbeat. She prepared me for the nightmares.

The more memories we look at together, the more they'll accompany you in your dreams , she said.

Restless, I get up and run water over my face in the kitchen. Now the dark dreams haunt me every night. I go to India Lee twice a week, but we don't always work to integrate the bad memories. They have to be gradually sorted and evaluated in my life story, and eventually, I should be able to consciously control these memories so that they don't flood me upon a trigger. India Lee warned me about new seizures. They're re-traumatizing you, Brendan. You relive your childhood trauma over and over again and that keeps throwing you back .

But it's difficult to find words for things that left me speechless from the horror. How do you remember without those memories ruining you? Many of my impressions are patchy even now, but examining them is essential for healing. I told Dr. India Lee about some of the beatings, the chains, and the loneliness, but there is still a lot she doesn't know.

And I am realizing more and more how much of what happened on Thorson Ave. has been emotionally repressed by me. In the dreams, I often get close to my true feelings, undergoing the moments in the coffin with full intensity. The boy once said I only knew the echo of the pain, and he was right.

Despite the slow progress or maybe because of it, I can't stop thinking about Lou. I often find myself picking up my phone to look at her pictures. Then, one day, I mindlessly erase them from my cell phone and laptop so as not to be tempted any longer. After that, I smash the smartphone against the wall because I'm so angry with myself.

In mid-November, I begin drawing again. I paint Lou as I remember her and use it to paper the living room. Lou under the pines, afraid and shy. Lou in the RV, staring straight ahead without really seeing anything. Lou and her first smile in the Yukon while feeding Grey. Lou at the lake washing clothes, Lou under the willow tree, wringing her hands and looking stunned. Do you know now? Lou naked in the sand, half-covered by another body.

I take these pictures with me to the therapy session along with my dark drawings, the rose tendrils on ebony. I need these pictures to be able to tell India Lee what happened. Back on Thorson Ave. and this year at Lodgepole. My voice breaks a few times and I keep repeating things, but India Lee listens patiently without interrupting. Every now and then, she sips her tea as if the story she's hearing is one of many. Only when I mention the coffin and later the chloroform, does she take a deep breath, a sign of her dismay.

Finally, I'm finished and stare at a bright area on the lime-green wall where a picture may have once hung.

"So you let the girl you kidnapped go," India Lee sums up the last part of my story.

I only nod and cautiously look at her. If she's shocked, she doesn't show it, she shows nothing at all.

"I'm not here to judge you, Brendan," she says, folding her hands back on her lap. Her eyes are clear and open. "Trauma can lead to bad deeds. You came to me so I could help you."

"Am I like my stepfather?" The question comes out of my mouth so unexpectedly that I'm surprised myself.

"You already answered that earlier, didn't you? You had to flee to gain your freedom, but you let the girl go."

I ponder her words for a moment. "Why did he do it? I mean, holding me captive and locked in a coffin?" Sometimes I think I could take it better if I knew the why .

India Lee shrugs. "One can only speculate. In the end, most likely he wouldn't have been able to explain it, either." She rolls the chair closer to me again. "Believe me, Brendan, too many people often don't understand their own actions. And even if their lives were on the line, they might not be able to explain in a comprehensible way why they did this or that. During the process of humanization, from being purely human to humanity, an awful lot of things went wrong for such people. Not all people behave humanely. You, Brendan, are lucky to have been with your mother for at least the first three years, regardless of why you were separated from her. The first three years shape us significantly. You learned what love means from your mother. Others may have just forgotten it over the years like a language they haven't spoken in a while. The girl helped you speak it fluently again. And that's the difference between this winter and last winter." I still see no judgment in her eyes. "You have something now that you didn't have then."

I look at her expectantly.

"You don't know?" She smiles. "Hope."