Cherry Tree Day, to mark a special day for Siggy. I’d never taken Jodie there before, and it’s a secret place, inaccessible, overgrown and wooded. But I – or Siggy – had taken her there that night. It was days until Mum admitted to me what she’d found.
The missing belt—
I can’t breathe.
The missing belt from my—
Shit. I can’t breathe!
The police were still in the hall, just a couple of inches of plasterboard separating us. I tried to force myself to think about something else, because this couldn’t happen, not with them there – the police! – right outside the bedroom door with my mother lying to them.
Breathe. Breathe. Please just breathe.
Everything rotated. A slow, dark tornado, twisting around me, and the vacuum in my chest got harder, tighter. My vision darkened at the edges and my skin started to burn, and the insides of my lungs started to curl up from the heat and this was it but right at the last second, the pressure broke, and I was breathing but
Calm. Calm down.
Too fast now. I couldn’t stop.
Deep breaths. Slow. You are having a panic attack. Slow down – breathe slowly – but I couldn’t stop. In and out and in and out and too shallow, not enough, not enough air, and all the time the only thing I could think was all the things Mum had eventually told me—
The missing belt from my coat, sodden and caked and wrapped twice around Jodie’s neck and
her fingernails broken and her hair bloodied and studded with broken leaves and
not enough air!
the skin of her throat pressed white and her mouth slack and her eyes wide and glazed and
the rain falling against their bulging, panicked, unblinking surfaces
Because of me.
Movement in the hallway. I felt myself lighten, losing consciousness. Were they, were they coming in? They were coming in.
They know what you did.
The last thing I heard was the front door opening, and then everything went black.
| Charles Cox Psychotherapy Ltd. | |
|---|---|
| Clinical audio recording transcript | |
| Patient name: | Eleanor Power |
| Session date: | 21 August 2006 |
CC: So let’s start by checking in. How are you feeling today?
EP: I’m OK.
[pause: 32 sec]
CC: I’m sensing some anxiety.
EP: No. I’m fine.
[pause: 22 sec]
EP: Can you – why do you leave these huge long gaps all the time?
CC: OK. I’m glad you asked. Sometimes we find that when we’re not rushed, when we’re given the time to go into greater depth, we discover things that really help our journeys.
[pause: 23 sec]
EP: I haven’t got anything to say.
CC: Sure.
[pause: 35 sec]
EP: OK, look, fine. She came. Last night.
CC: Siggy came?
EP: Yeah.
[pause: 19 sec]
CC: Would you like to talk about the episode you had?
EP: Well I don’t know, do I? That’s the whole fucking – sorry
CC: That’s fine
EP: That’s the whole problem. I don’t know anything about it. It’s like I go to bed every night and I’m me but then this other person I don’t know or like or want there, this other me climbs in. She moves me about, says things like she’s me, like I’m, I’m, I’m just this, this puppet. I don’t think you can possibly know what that’s like. It’s terrifying. I’m terrified, and I can’t even think about it without ending up – look, like this – ending up shaking. Do you see that, my hands?
CC: I do.
EP: It’s like, and I know that I shouldn’t say this and that it’s not the same thing but having someone else in your body, someone you, you hate, who is there without permission, it’s like waking up and finding you’ve been … I can’t say it.
CC: You feel … let’s say, you feel violated?
EP: Yes. Yes. Even if she’s just got me up and walked around the flat. I can’t remember any of it. [crying] Anything, at all. And just – my mum, the way she describes it – I just-I just [crying] I want to just
[pause: 1 min 6 sec]
EP: Sorry. I’m sorry.
CC: OK. Ellie, can you look at me? I know it’s hard, but just look at me just a moment. Thank you. There is no judgement here. None at all. Anything you say will be heard and believed.
[pause: 56 sec]
CC: OK. Do you need some water before we go on?
EP: I’m OK.
CC: It’s extremely difficult for you to talk about; I can see that these episodes affect you very deeply.
EP: Yeah. Yeah, they do. I’m scared. I never know when it’s going to happen. Like, I had this fight with my mum last night, because I wanted to try school. I mean, like sixth form. I haven’t had a fugue for, I don’t know, a couple of weeks? She just kept saying I wasn’t strong enough and about how last time we tried, my panic attacks got worse and everything, and we fell out big time because I just want to do normal stuff. Go out and live my actual life, you know?
CC: I do.
EP: And then I went to bed and I wake up and this has happened. She said – my mum said – Siggy was really angry last night. Like, she was scary, Mum couldn’t get near her to talk to her without her lashing out. Then she went out—
CC: Siggy went outside?
EP: Yeah went out and Mum had to follow me … follow her round the block until she’d agree to go back in again. Here, look this is where she fell over at one point when she was running. Look can you see on my elbow—
CC: That’s quite a scrape—
EP: Yeah. Yeah it-it really hurts.
[pause: 20 sec]
CC: What I’m hearing is a lot of conflict between you and Siggy. It’s a battle.
EP: Yeah. That’s exactly what it is.
[pause: 22 sec]
EP: The days after the fugues, I can feel Siggy kind of … there,