The Grimscribe's Puppets (38 page)

But being rich counts for a lot, no matter how crazy you may be otherwise. And after Aunt Isa died, the portion of the Hendricks fortune that fell to me—administered, in trust, through my family’s firm—served to buy me into Shumate and pay for the almost-undivided attentions of Dr Corbray. Which brings us here.

This therapy blog is predicated on the assumption—not completely inaccurate—that because my phobia means I can’t physically leave Apartment Five but my privacy-linked anxiety issues argue against around-the-clock live-in care, I should be required to provide my assigned worker (Yelena) with a between-sessions look at my thought-processes, so she can make sure my psychological baseline isn’t fluctuating wildly: No toxic thought-patterns, no repetition or obsessional looping.

Of course, it’s a model of exchange which presumes quite a lot, right from the get-go; that I’m not simply lying in session, for example, let alone out of session. That I really
will
write down a representative sample of whatever comes into my head between this time-signal and the next, if asked to, as opposed to simply...making stuff up out of whole cloth, because it amuses me, or because it gives me just the tiniest shred of control over what happens in a life otherwise dictated by other people. That I understand how directly I’m threatening my own welfare, if I do. That I can be trusted to recognize what is and isn’t appropriate behavior, even for myself.

This last part isn’t completely up to me, though, thankfully. Since that’s supposedly what Yelena is for.

So: Today’s entry. Set the timer. Mark.

Saw Yelena yesterday, at 12:22 PM. She claimed to be late (was late, no reason to distrust her words by labeling them claims) because of traffic and construction. We took the usual roster of tests, blood, spit and urine, then talked about self-harm triggers for roughly the rest of the hour: how to qualify and quantify, make sure things didn’t progress beyond a certain level. Yelena says up to twenty-five per cent is allowable, but once you catch yourself imprinting, you need to move on. Sounds legit.

Talked about Internet access, settled on a protocol. The plan is still to use a family-friendly timer app to restrict potential surfing, allowing just enough time in a row to compose and post. The app in question adds up all your seconds, concurrent or not, and cuts out after a set limit is reached. I still can’t believe I agreed to this, but have the distinct feeling I must have been fairly high when I signed those papers. Impossible to tell, one way or the other.

So no looking things up randomly, or not randomly. No visiting the same sites over and over. No time-sinks. Team-mindedness is key. Just RL, baby, moment after dragging-ass moment of it. We already turned off the cable, and there’s nothing in my DVD queue but nature films. The books are all self-help. It’s daily meditation and morning pages and yoga from here on out, if and when the side-effects of the latest cocktail let me do a Downwards-Facing Dog without feeling like I’m going to puke. Hell, I can’t even sleep in too long, or the concierge comes knocking.

It’s a great system, really, and I’m honored to have had so much “input” into its design. At the end of the day, though, I guess I’m just still not sure why there has to be so much care taken that my life, mine, my particular life, isn’t destroyed. I’m not sure why I should matter so much, to anyone, aside from basic monetary considerations. And I don’t know if any of this qualifies as allowable thought or not—if it’s sick, or simply logical. Something anybody else might wonder, given the circumstances.

Okay, that’s time. See you tomorr

Entry posted automatically. See attached IM exchange:

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What’s this stuff about “team-mindedness”?

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what stuff

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In Tuesday’s last entry. “Team-mindedness is key.”

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dont understand what youre saying. im tired

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No, I understand that, I just need you to look at it again. It might be important.

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cant, tired, im done. took my pills. Bed.

Initial MonitorU Intake Report on Thordis Charlotte Hendricks, June 15, 2012

Prepared by Dr Maurice L. Corbray, consulting psychiatrist

CC’d to Yelena Rostov, attending worker

Registered diagnosis of severe agoraphobia, mid-range obsessive-compulsive disorder and clinical depression with suicidal ideation. Subject is twenty-seven years old. Currently recovering from two suicide attempts, one by intentional overdose of prescription meds, one by radial/ulnar arterial self-exsanguination. Highest education a Master’s Degree in Comparative Religious Studies (incomplete). Formerly a T.A. at University of Toronto, now unemployed.

Subject presents as polite and reasonable, though with little emotional affect and micro-periods of disassociation. Prescribed regimen of Cymbalta (side-effects may include drowsiness, blurred vision, lightheadedness, strange dreams, constipation, fever/chills, headache, increased or decreased appetite, tremor, dry mouth, nausea, increased sweating and blood pressure, fatigue and reduced energy). Has agreed to daily yoga practice of roughly sixty to ninety minutes, plus guided meditation, both administered through Skype. Has agreed to participate in phobia-management exercises, and keep a recovery blog. Fees pre-paid in full.

Personal notes:
With sufficient effort on her part, I see no reason why subject should not both make a full physical recovery and stabilize her phobia, eventually helping to develop a participatory management protocol which will allow her to graduate from Shumate House by next year at the latest. Nevertheless, given her history, I recommend a tight check routine—three days on, two days off, repeat—in order to ascertain whether or not Cymbalta is the best drug strategy, as well as an equally strict policy of nondisclosure about what happened to the last three subjects who occupied Apartment Five.

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Just checking to see you received the Hendricks IR. Any questions?

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Yes, thanks. So what did happen?

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When?

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To the previous tenants.

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I don’t think that’s relevant.

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Then why did you mention it?

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Feel free to do your own research, Yelena; I look forward to your report. All best.

~*~

From the official Shumate House introductory booklet,
Shumate—Where Respite Makes Recovery:

What sets Shumate’s therapeutic facility apart from every other is our specific brand of total support-system immersion. By offering a well-rounded team of live-in, on-site care workers who follow the “Shumate Method” (first developed by Dr Jerrold Shumate in 1979, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder amongst relatives of the Canadian members of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple cult), we guarantee our occupants a safe haven where privacy and anonymity are equally sacrosanct—a place of retreat and reconciliation where no one, no matter their range of symptoms, is ever considered unable to participate in planning their own recovery...

Therapy Blog of Thordis Hendricks, July 25, 2012 (11:45 AM):

Timer on. Start.

It takes about a month to settle in anywhere, let alone get used to a new drug—if that’s not a truism, then it should be. So now we’re three weeks in, two days into the next seven, nothing but yoga and chores and blogging, pre-packaged food that comes by the close-wrapped tray, long baths with lavender for relaxation, changing my dressings, taking my pills. Each day ticks away in increments, slow-seeping, like that inescapable metallic taste at the back of my tongue, still there no matter how often I spit.

No anxiety, no worry: That’s good, right? No OCD twitches. Last night I noticed an actual ring inside the bathtub—a smeared grey scum of skin-cells, something I’d have to scrub at to get off. And I didn’t. Didn’t think about how I was stewing in my own dirt, like some horrible soup; just sat there and let the water lap up over it, out of sight, out of mind.

No pleasure, though. Anhedonia, just without the usual feeling bad about not feeling good. And my sex drive completely gone, too, but I expected that. Not like it matters much, in here.

I’m amused to note that the guided meditation portion of my sessions takes place while in
shavasana
, the pose most instructors usually strain not to call “corpse posture” (and Yelena’s no different, in this respect). I remember hearing about an existentialist yoga class they offered in Germany, pretty much corpse posture from beginning to end, which focused on accepting death rather than trying to distract yourself from it: “Your body will die. Your body will be a corpse. You can discard your body yet still exist. The signal cannot be stopped...” Sort of soothing, especially if you repeat it so often it devolves into a mushy whirr of consonant-click and vowel-sounds, with no single part more significant than the whole:
Ommmmm, just let it all gooooo
.

But yeah, I can see how that probably seems just a tad morbid to concentrate on, as a mantra, especially when you’re dealing with a person who still has trouble picking stuff up with her left hand, because dominant hand automatically cuts deeper. So instead, Yelena just talks about breathing and tells me to keep my eyes closed, which I mostly don’t, because part of being a reasonable adult is making your own damn decisions and sticking to them. Lie there staring up at the ceiling (white stucco, each tiny plaster stalactite’s shadow a grey-black dot) ‘til my eyes unfocus enough that it becomes some sort of infinite, negative-flipped space-scape, a white void pocked with black hole stars...

(And think, sometimes:
If only I had the right sort of charts, the right kind of database to work with, I might be able to figure out where that is, up there. If I only knew the math
.

(But that’s monkey-mind, right, Yelena? Chatter. Better to shut it out, be in the moment. This dying moment, dying from one second into the next, never the same, always the same. This moment that only goes, forever, no matter what you do or don’t, and never comes again.)

I don’t dream, but last night I had a doozy...so clear, so detailed. Except those details were utterly foreign to me, as though they’d been broadcast straight into my subconscious from somebody else’s, detached but specific, a litany of intent. Should’ve taken notes, because all it is now is a general impression, but I remember thinking:
Yelena will love this
. Finally, something worth writing about.

So do you? Enjoy these entries, I mean. One of us should.

And...done, in time. Timer off.

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Interesting stuff. You really should try to close your eyes when you meditate, though.

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guess so, just

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when i do i get vertigo

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That’s not good. Do you want me to send a doctor?

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maybe. dont know. maybe its not real vertigo, just

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dont know going to sleep now ok

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Okay, that’s probably best. Write down your dreams for me next time, all right, Thordis?

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Thordis?

Yelena Rostov, Notes:

Last three occupants of Shumate House Apt. #5 (in chron. order) = Marie Bissionette, Charles H. Siemanczski, Lloyd Lin Kuan-tai.

All 3 deceased.

Bissionette judged suicide, Siemanczski accidental overdose, Lin suicide. Siemanczski’s personal physician disagreed with coroner’s verdict—said there was no way his patient could take that much without noticing side effects/stopping before death, but no conclusive evidence either way.

Verdict might also have to do with fact that other 2 were found with plastic bags over heads but Siemanczski wasn’t. Possibly removed by accident during death-throes and just not found during investigation, mislabeled as trash.

Other possibility deliberate misdirection. But what would be the point of—

Understandable why Corbray doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t say much for Shumate Method.

Why/how would he think Thordis would ask about it, though?

Does it make sense 2 (poss. 3) people would all choose same strategy? They didn’t know each other. Timing alone makes that impossible.

Overdose/bag method pushed by Final Exit euthanasia rights activists amongst others—cult suicides, as per Heaven’s Gate.

But people do those in teams.

(“Team-mindedness”?)

~*~

Therapy Blog of Thordis Hendricks, July 29, 2012 (2:32 PM):

It took a while to figure out what the revealed shape of my life reminded me most of, but I stumbled on it, eventually; Google is our friend, even in the tiniest of possible doses. It was an
oubliette
.

An
oubliette’s
a kind of dungeon accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling, basically impossible to exit without outside help. The word comes from the same root as the French
oublier
, “to forget,” because it was used for prisoners their captors simply wanted to disappear. Some
oubliettes
added the twist of being built on a shelf, a steeply sloping tunnel leading down to the moat or the sea—so you had the choice of letting yourself either slowly starve, or just to slip further down and drown.

The term’s also used to refer to ice formations over lakes, or other large bodies of water. As ice crystals form and air is introduced by the movement of the tides, secret tunnels hollow themselves out under the ice, rendering it treacherous. Prone to give way all of a sudden, a grim surprise, and plunge you over your head into water so cold it burns.

Oubliette
, jaunty
oubliette
. And this place, Apartment Five, Shumate House—just a more comfortable version of the same? A place to be parked out of sight, out of mind, ‘til I’m all safely re-calibrated and refurbished...ready to take my place in the world as it is, rather than the world as I thought it was? Ready for public consumption?