fandomtownies | Therapist Office Hours, 11/2

Therapist Office Hours, 11/2

Brenda is exhausted today. Meeting two witches, one of whom was technically dead, and a hit man was not what she had expected for her first day in a small town. Just as she finally lulled herself to sleep, Ruth (whose grasp on time zones was more than limited) had called asking her to read a bedtime story to Maya.

But she's in her office anyhow, attempting to do some research for her dissertation as she waits for clients.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Maia walks in and looks around. "Hi." She said not sure if she really wanted to be there or not.

Brenda blinks a few times at the blonde girl, switching from study mode to work mode. "Hi, I'm Brenda. Can I help you?"

Maia looked shy. "My mom suggested that I come here. She thinks it would help me deal with some things that I- well somethings that have been going on." Maia chewed her lip for a moment. "I had a therapist back in Seattle but I haven't gone to one since I have come to school."

"It's good that you -- and your mom -- recognize you might need help," brenda says reassuringly. She passes an intake form on a clipbaoard across her desk.

"Fill this out and I'll be right with you."

NAME:
AGE:
INSURANCE:
HISTORY OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE:
FAMILY HISTORY:
CURRENT COMPLAINT:

Maia takes the clip board and starts to fill it out.

Name: Maia Rutledge
Age: 18
Insurance: NTAC Family Coverage
History of Mental Health Care: NTAC Dr. Wilson since the age of 8
Family History: N/A Both parents deceased but were fine mentally. Adopted age 8.
Current Complaint: Pre-cognitive abilities increasing in strength since coma.

Brenda reads the form slowly and carefully. Two witches,a hit man, and a psychic. Is anybody normal here?

Ah, well.

"I have a daughter named Maya," she says. "Spelled differently, though."

She taps the form with her forefinger. "I'm not familiar with NTAC -- could you tell me a little about it?"

Maia smiled. "Yeah my parents wanted it to be a little different. Um NTAC is the National Threat Assesment Command, its a government agency. My mom works for them." Maia said unassumingly. "I- well I have been seeing Dr. Wilson since I was eight and he is one of their doctors."

"It's a pretty name, either way," Brenda says.

She listens thoughtfully to Maia's explanation of NTAC. "So it's like Homeland Security or something? Interesting."

"I guess my first questions have to be about your coma and what type of pre-cognitive abilities you have, but I'd also like to hear about what you were working on with Dr. Wilson."

Maia smiled at her remark about her name.

"Yeah its like that. Homeland Security is one of their divisions." Maia sat back in the chair.

"My coma was, I am not sure what it was. A few days before it happened I was working on some meditations and then I started to get bruises all over my arms and legs and then" Maia shrugged "I woke up in the dark and could hear people talking to me but couldn't open my eyes you know." Maia looks up at Brenda before she continues. "I see the future. I see everything really. Dr. Wilson and I would talk about what I saw, sometimes what I see is, well its the things nightmares are made of you know. People dying, being murdered, tortured. He wanted to know what I saw all the time." Maia chewed her lip for a moment. "Its get to be to much sometimes, what I see."

"It sounds like too much," Brenda says. "And you've been having these visions since age eight?"

Maia nodded.

"What do you normally do to cope with them?"

Maia twisted her hands in her lap. "I write things down, um I keep lists. I try and think about other things, I detach myself from what I see, accept that I can't change it sometimes. I tried to do some meditations to filter it but that didn't work really at all."

Brenda writes this down thoughtfully. "It sounds like you have a healthy array of coping mechanisms. Did they completely stop working, or do some things work better than others now, or ... I haven't really talked to psychics before, so I'm a little bit at a loss."

Maia smiled "Its ok, I wasn't always a psychic, just since I've come back."

Maia thinks about her coping mechanisms for a moment or two and then answers "I think detachment works the best for me, since the coma though it feels like it is harder to detach from them. I mean a friend of mine said to me yesterday something like 'going to release you innerchild' or something and just that sentence sent me back into that room and I was eight years old and people where screaming around me."

Brenda's lips are tight. "Tell me about that room. Who was screaming?"

Maia squirmed. "Its dark, after a while you can see though, there were a lot of beds, hospital beds almost but not really, if you glance at them you think they are hospital beds but really they are just metal tables with a white sheet on them. Its cold in there, you can see your breath. I couldn't get warm, I-I had a sweater but it was just one of those little ones that you wear over your dress when your little you know." Maia was closely watching Brenda to see her reaction.

"Shawn was there, he was the person who was screaming the most. Lily and Richard were there as well. Lily just cried a lot. Richard would scream but after a while he just sat and stared. There were others, lots of people were in the room I don't know all of them. Shawn was the one closest to my bed, when they held me down, he was- he was the one I looked at. I couldn't scream." Maia looked down "They're hands were over my mouth, Shawn saw it, he screamed for me because I couldn't."

Brenda listens attentively, thinking that it sounds like either an especially vivid dream or some kind of ritual abuse. "That sounds awful," she says. "Is this a dream, or something that really happened?"

Maia looked up her eyes were haunted. "It's what happened." She said, she did not look away.

"I'm so sorry," Brenda says. "Do you know why it happened, or who was holding you there? I understand if you aren't ready to talk about it yet."

"Yes, it was to make me this way. I wasn't born this way Dr. It was forced on me." Maia sat back her eyes taking on an aged look. "They took me from my home, my parents, my life. They did this then they brought me back only everything changed. My parents were dead and sixty years had gone by but I was still just eight years old."

Brenda is almost tempted to hug the girl, but holds still.

"So -- if I'm following you -- someone kidnapped you, tortured you to make you a psychic, then dumped you back on earth 60 years later? I can see why you've been in therapy all your life."

"What are your goals in working with me? I'm not a doctor, by the way -- I have a master's in social work and I'm trying to get a Ph.D. I can refer you to someone else if you need a medical doctor."

Maia was still watching her closely not answering for a moment as Brenda recapped Maia's life back to her. Finally she looked away.

"Yeah that about wraps it up." Maia's attempt at humor falls short and then she does not smile. "My goal, Ms. Brenda is to have someone to be an anchor for me when it gets to be to much. I need someone who is not immediatly involved or intimatly connected to me." Maia was looked even more serious now. "Can you be that? I don't need doctors Ms. Brenda, I have literally 20 specialists I have to see once a month back in Washington, twice a week when I am home on vacations." Maia sighed heavily. "Can you do that though, if things get to be to much on me? Things I see, sometimes feel now since the coma are not pleasant things."

"I can do that," Brenda says. "Or try, anyhow. And you can call me Brenda or Ms. Chenowith, whichever you're more comfortable with."

"Thanks for coming to see me, Maia."

Maia smiled. "thank you. I will see you next week." Maia said with total certainty. "Have a nice day."

"I hope I will. You too, Maia."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Therapist Office Hours, 11/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject