I Am a Therapist for Paranormal Survivors Pt. 1: Teddy

Dorthea shares the story of Teddy, the only survivor of a home besieged by a demon.

I'm a Therapist for Paranormal Survivors

Pt. 1: Teddy

I am a therapist for survivors.

Not people who've survived train accidents or plane crashes.  Not for war vets or people who survived an accident that should have killed them - although, it might be argued that most of my patients should have been killed.

No, no.

I'm talking about survivors of paranormal events.

Maybe some of you and your friends went on vacation, poked around in some things you shouldn't have, and you're the only one left after a night of survival instinct and terror.  You come talk to me.

You used an Ouija board (which I cannot emphasize, is an idiotic idea) and got way more than you bargained for?  Had a possessed house for a while there, didn't you?  You come see me.

The only family member alive after your own father starts shooting everyone else up because "they" told him to?  

Well… that one talked to my father.

It's a family business, you see.  One as old as time. Family lore will tell you that members of our family treated a Mrs. Sarah Winchester.  But hey, if you ask most of America, they'll let you know they're ¼ random Native American because their grandfather's grandfather said blah blah blah.

So, maybe we did, maybe we didn't.

Either way, what records do show is the same profession listed over and over.

"Survivor Therapist"

The thing about this job is that's it's all on the hush-hush.  Can't cut a person traumatized by supernatural phenomenon loose - they need help.  On the other hand, God forbid proof of such things gets out into the public eye.  God forbid we give society some simple do's and don'ts for living your life without pissing something off.

Can you tell I'm bitter?

So, something terrible has happened with a supernatural spin, and you're interviewed by some weird branch of the FBI you've never heard of before.  Once they show up and save you from being charged with a remarkably heinous crime, they send you to me.

We have our own ward in a hospital on the east coast, we've been doing business in the general area for at least two hundred years.  Grandfather is the head of the ward, the big boss.  My father is the other practicing doctor and has a few groups of orderlies to help him with the grunt work.  And then there's me, the youngest practicing doctor of the group.  Together we form a trifecta of healing and therapy, all mixed with a general sense of unease and cravings for coffee. 

You might wonder why they're sent to us?  Why not just let them go about their lives while attending daily or weekly therapy sessions?  The answer is simple.

Sometimes, they bring things back.

You can only be in an area that's steeped in evil so long before a little bit sticks to you, like gum on the bottom of your shoe.  You'll do your best to get it off, put some ice on it and try to chip it off, try to melt it off, or just scrub the sole of your shoe on the pavement in the vain hope that it will simply slip right off, but a little bit always remains.

The supernatural is like that.

So, for the greater good, we keep the survivors here with us.  We provide any comfort we can safely give them and try to release them back to the general public if we can.  It's rare, but it has happened.  There's a woman living up in Michigan right now who only survived a demonic infestation because that particular demon had a thing against killing innocent kindergartners. She was with us for almost 20 years before she would be released.

She's doing well, or so I've heard.

Usually, it doesn't work like that.  They come here, we try to give them comfort and succor, all while trying to help their broken minds and broken souls heal.  A healthy split of modern psychology and religious protection.  

Yep, as in exorcisms.  

Sometimes they work after the patient is more stable, sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes you think it works until one of the orderlies starts throwing tables and screaming while his eyes go black and his nose bleeds.

S**t happens here.  And because of s**t happened here, not as much s**t happens out there.

My grandfather has reluctantly agreed to let me write out some of our stories.  Figured that there are enough asylums and lineage doctors in the same hospital that they couldn't tack it down to us.

Obviously, we don't go by last names, three people with the last name would be too confusing for each other, our employees, and our patients.  However, just in case we need to use our last name, we'll say "Dix" after Dorthea Dix.  I was named after her, so I think we'll go with that as my first name - there's gotta be more than one Dr. Dorthea, right?  My father, we'll call Dr. David, and my Grandfather, Dr. Edward.

I'll start off with a relatively short one for now, about one of our wards. We'll call him Teddy.

Teddy was seven years old when his sisters played with an ouija board.  Trying to summon dear old grandpa, but let something else in.  It played along for a while, until it got bored and started possessing each family member one by one.  Before the end of the night, the mother was hanging from a bedsheet in the basement, and the father had his head in the oven.  And I don't mean 1950's head-in-the-oven where they wouldn't light it up and just… stick their head in and breathe in the gas until they died.  When I say he stuck his head in an oven, I mean he stuck his head in a modern-day oven with it turned onto the broil setting.

He didn't even try to get out.

The kids couldn't leave the house.  Doors were jammed and windows were unbreakable.  So they got to be stuck there with their dead parents for a week.  It started on a Friday night, and by Tuesday, Sister#1 had bashed her head against the wall until her skull cracked and her brain gushed.  Sister #2 lasted until Wednesday.  They think she had tried to rescue herself and her brother by appeasing the demon with gifts.  A small shrine had been erected in their bathtub with candles and food offerings and cheap incense that seem to follow teenage girls.  She was found bowing at the altar, covered in some sticky black goo - thick as tar.  She was filled with it too, and it had all hardened to a rubbery, tire-like texture, inside and out.  

It was the next day that Teddy emerged, with only a single puncture on the back of his neck to show from the violence that had happened in his home.  Just knocked on a neighbors door and told them he needed help, showed them the house and everything.  He seemed concerned as one would if their pet turtle was no longer in the room they left them in.  A little worried something might happen, but overall unconcerned. 

When the FBI interviewed the kid, they were more freaked out than he was, which made the whole situation more unsettling.  They threw him at us as soon as they could.  

Teddy will never be rehabilitated.

Teddy will never recover.

Teddy will never be released.

When Teddy smiles, black goo leaks from the corner of his lips.    

Sometimes, it leaks from his nose and ears. 

When Teddy turned eight, he hadn't grown an inch.

When Teddy turned 13, still no growth.

Teddy is 32. He still has not changed.

I'm going to transcribe a few of our interviews.  As of now, we only hold them to monitor him, to try to keep him under control.  I'll be redacting information that might lead to my family or Teddy's remaining grandparents.  

Teddy (Redacted)

Session #1638

Tuesday, January 14, 2020.

9:00 AM

This is Teddy's prime time.  He's best behaved in the morning, so we try to have our weekly sessions early.  Not that we don't see him at any other time, but formal sessions are planned with each patient as needed.  Teddy is somewhat tame, so weekly sessions and constant monitoring seem to fit him fine.

Teddy is wearing a too-big hoodie his grandfather sent him a decade ago.  His grandfather hadn't realized the boy hadn't been growing, and this was the last thing he sent when someone finally told him that Teddy hasn't been growing.  Nondescript white tennis shoes and blue cotton pants provided by the hospital.  As usual, he had a closed-mouth smile and reached up to wipe the goo from the corners of his mouth with a stained sleeve.  

"Sit,"  I said, showing him to the chair.  He didn't have to lay on the stereotypical sofa, but he liked to.  So he plopped down on the couch and stretched out.  He pointed to my desk, where a head-sized koosh ball sat.  

"Of course,"  I laughed and tossed it to him.

A closed-mouth squeal of delight as he began tossing it up and down.

"You've been behaving really well, Teddy."  I said, "David said you didn't fight the feeding tube today, that was such a good decision!" 

Still holding the koosh ball in one arm, he made a grabbing gesture towards me.  

"You want to use the notebook today?"  I took a notebook from my desk - you could tell it was his from the dinosaur stickers on it.  I couldn't help but grab some if I saw them - he loved dinosaurs so much.  The herbivores were his favorite.

He put the koosh ball into the hood of his shirt and wrote. "Why do you call him 'David'?"

"Well," I said, "Because that's his name."

He scribbled, "But he's your dad.  You don't call your dad by his first name."

"I do when I'm here."  I said, "What if someone didn't know David was my father, and I just told some new orderly 'Go get dad!'.  He wouldn't know who I was talking about."

Teddy was back to playing with the koosh, now balancing it on his forehead.

"Now, you've made some good decisions lately, Teddy."  I went on, "You didn't fight over the feeding tube, you've worked really hard to keep your room clean, and you've been careful to wipe up after yourself.  But we have to talk about Jason."

The koosh ball dropped to the floor as he tilted his head back to look at me.  A few dark droplets had started to form at the corners of his eyes.

"Teddy… you… you spat on him.  And you kept doing it.  They found it in his lungs.  He's in the hospital you know - "

He pointed to himself aggressively.

"It's different, Teddy.  He might die."

He pointed to himself again, then to her.

"We're not doing that.  We're talking about it.  Get your notebook."

He did and started doodling an approximation of a stegosaurus.  

"Teddy, why did you do that?"

Along the stegosaurus' spines, he wrote: "I wanted to go outside."

"You know we can't right now, not until everything is repaired."

He drew a fence around the stegosaurus, then put a frown on its face.

"We have to keep the gates up, you know that Teddy.  Until the gates are repaired, none of us get outside time.  I live here too, Teddy. When the gates are closed to you guys, they're closed to me, too.  I'm not going to go outside if you guys aren't allowed, it's not fair."  I tried to be reassuring and kneel beside him on the couch.  "I want to go outside too, Teddy.  But there are so many other ways you could have shown your anger, you could have stomped your feet or shouted, you could have knocked a chair over.  You could have gone to your room and punched the walls, but instead you… spat on him.  And you kept doing it, Teddy, you kept… spitting… Teddy?"

Teddy was gone.  No more stegosaurus, no more koosh ball, no more Teddy.  He had been pushed deep, deep down into his own body, and I had a sinking feeling we would have to put him through another exorcism to bring him back. 

This time with teeth, the thing wearing Teddy smiled.  Black oozed between his teeth and out of his mouth, spattering my face as he laughed. 

Thank God it didn't get into my mouth.  

He kept laughing, vile black spittle clinging to everything it touched.  The laughter ended as soon as it had come, and he laid back down on the couch, turning to look at me with a wide, oozy grin.  

"Be careful, pretty lady. Teddy is very tired today."  And with that, his mouth and eyes snapped closed.

My grandfather calls these events "episodes." 

So, what do you do when one of our patients has an episode?  The answer lies in what their exact condition is.  Teddy is possessed, there's no way about it. So the worst thing we could do is weaken the poor boy with tranquilizers - that'll be laying out the doormat for whatever lives in him.  Stimulates are what Teddy needs, stimulates and a good old-fashioned exorcism.

We need another word for that.  "Exorcism" gives the idea that we actually get rid of something.  No, when the level of possession that Teddy lives with, we can weaken it and force it into a far corner of his mind, but there's no truly exercising Teddy. Whatever demon or entity possesses him, it's a powerful, high-ranking one. If it doesn't want to leave, it's not going anywhere.  I think that's why his sister died cocooned in solidified ooze.  It left her and went straight for her brother.  

So, we try to keep it at bay and protect our little Teddy. And don't lecture me with "You said he was 32 years old!" 

He's never aged.  So he's still seven. Seven forever.

I'm including the session after a successful - Jesus Christ, I hate calling them this - "Exorcisms." 

Teddy (Redacted)

Session #1639

Friday, January 17

11:00 AM

"I'm sorry for not waking you earlier, Teddy."  I started, "I figured you could use the sleep."

A tight-lipped frown. 

"I know.  But you have to sleep." 

He put out a hand for his notebook and I passed it to him.

"Awake =" He had finished the equation with scribbles resembling brontosaurus pencils, and a lady.  He gave a weak smile and pointed to the lady, and then to me.

"Is that me, Teddy?"

Teddy drew a smiley face above the equation.

"I'm glad I make you happy, Teddy.  You make me happy, too."

His frown returned and he wrote: "Sleep = " the drawings were dark and heavy-handed.  Eyes and teeth and writing masses.  He drew a boy's face screaming.

"Tell me about this,"  I said with forced calm.

"IT," he wrote in all caps, "IN MY HEAD."

"That must be scary to see that." I affirmed, "But Teddy, you have to sleep.  If you don't sleep, you'll get weak, and when you get weak… you make bad decisions."

He shook his head, taking to his notebook again.  It was another equation.  Two boys of similar height and build, but one had his face blacked out and had tried to draw drips coming off the second boy's face.  He made a huge "not equal" sign between them.

I sighed, "I know Teddy.  But if you don't sleep then you - he... well, bad things happen.  You have to sleep, you know we can't give you anything to help you because that will make you so much weaker.  I don't want you to be forced to do something bad again."

Teddy looked down at his notebook and nodded.  He wiped at his face, staining his hoodie more.  

"Do you want a tissue, honey?"

He nodded.  

Teddy began pulling out tissue after tissue, moping his face just in time for more to ooze out.  Eventually, he gave up and stared at the black gunk on his lap and on the couch.

"It's okay."  I assured, "It's not your fault."

With stained fingers, he took up his pencil and wrote: "I'm sorry."

"That's okay.  I would probably cry too."

He looked at the koosh ball at the floor, his eyes moving over it in rapt attention.

"Nothing got on it."  I said, "And if it did, it'll wash off." 

He looked at the couch.

"We can get it cleaned.  If not, you've allowed me to buy a new couch I've had my eye on."

Tears oozed up as he looked at his hoodie.

"We'll wash it.  We've washed it hundreds of times, and it always comes off - here." I grabbed the koosh ball and offered it to him.  

He shook his head.

"It's okay.  I can wash it." 

He swiped it from me and hugged it to his chest, chest heaving.

I put my arm around him and rubbed his tiny back, shaking with sobs. 

"That's right, little buddy."  I urged, "Let it all out, let those mean feelings out."

When his tears had dried to greyish smears on his face, I got up and took him to the bathroom to clean his face and hands.  Maybe he needed a good cry.  After I had finished cleaning my office and went to check on Teddy, he was fast asleep, two little dabs of black at the corners of his eyes.  I stroked his hair and his eyes fluttered open.  He smiled, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep. 

Teddy was found a week later in a puddle of sticky black tar.

I saw him one time before he died.  He had knocked on my office door and let himself in, a closed mouth smile on his lips.  He reached for his notebook, but when I gave it to him, he hugged it to his chest and set it aside. He did the same with the koosh ball and - after wiping his mouth - to me.  He held the hug tight and long as I cradled his head and tried to ask him what was wrong.  He pulled away with a smile - a real smile.  A smile that showed in his eyes and in an opened mouth.  Ooze drooled from his mouth, and some shimmered under his eyes.  He wiped his face, and grabbed the notebook, scribbling something in it before grinning as I had never seen him grin. But it was him, it was Teddy.  He tossed the notebook, shaking with laughter as he snapped his mouth back shut and took off down the hall.

It wasn't until after they had removed Teddy's body that I even thought about the notebook.  I had been crying over his beloved koosh ball and notebook, sitting in his room, holding seemingly random items and sobbing.  I started flipping through his notebook, detailing all of our sessions and random doodles of a little boy, some that made me laugh, some that made me cry harder.  I remembered him writing something and flipped through the pages in the back. Nestled between two blank pages were four words in his simplistic and childish handwriting.

"Thank you. I love you."

_________________________________________________________________________

Author's Note

All critiques are welcome, please be civil.

Feel free to look up what a koosh ball is if you don't know what it is.

Reviews

[JayG]

You need to add having your computer read your work aloud to your editing routine. Do that and you'll hear why we cannot transcribe ourselves speaking to an audience with any hope of the reader getting what we intend them to "hear."

It's something you'll never notice as you edit because as you read your own words you do so exactly as you would before an audience. You'll PERFORM it, so the voice you hear as you read will be filled with emotion. It will pause meaningfully for breath, vary in intensity and cadence, and be exactly what you want it to be. But the reader can't know your performance, because what they have is a storyteller's script, without the necessary performance notes, plus time to practice and perfect the delivery.

On the page, because of the differences the medium imposes, a very different methodology is necessary. And all those reports and essays you were assigned in school taught you none of it, because there, we're given skills our future employers require, and they need us to write reports and essays, not stories. Reports inform, but stories entertain. And of course, a different objective requires different methodology—which is why universities offer majors in commercial fiction writing. Fiction is character, not author-centric. It's emotion, not fact-based. And somehow, while we all recognize that we aren't ready to work as a journalist or script-writer when we leave our school years, we assume we have what we need to write fiction with no more training. We forget that professions are acquired IN ADDITION to the general skill set we call, "The three R's."

So...you have the desire, the enthusiasm, and perhaps the talent. But till that talent is trained it's unrealized, and misdirected, potential—a problem you need to address. Since you learned to read, you, and everyone you know, have been choosing fiction created with the skills of the profession. And the result of the use of those skills is what you expect to see in what you read, just as others expect to see it in your work. So, given that, it makes a lot of sense to invest some of time, and perhaps a few coins, in your writer's education. Right?

How different are the tricks of writing fiction from those you were given in school? A few of the overview articles in my writing blog might give an idea of the number of issues involved. And a read of a good book or two on the way to create scenes that sing to the reader, like Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, will really help.

So...is this what you were hoping to see in response to your posting this? Of course not. Who would? But you're working hard, and that missing knowledge is getting in the way, so I thought you'd want to know.

But one way or the other, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Spider Rose]

Sorry, I'm a little confused about what exactly you're telling me. Can you boil it down to the nitty gritty? I want to follow good critique but I couldn't quite follow.

[JayG]

Okay... The simple version: In our schooldays we are taught ONLY nonfiction writing skills to help us prepare for employment. That's done via having us write reports and essays, whose goal is to inform.

But fiction readers seek to be entertained by being made to feel as if THEY are living the story in real time, and we learn literally none of the skills necessary to accomplish that in our public education years.

In this piece, you're transcribing yourself talking to an audience. But because the reader can't see your performance or hear the emotion in your voice, it doesn't and can't work for a reader. They have only what your words suggest to them, based on their background. Have your computer read the story aloud and you'll hear that what a reader gets is nothing like what you hear when you read your own words.

It's not a matter of talent, or how well you write. It's that without learning the techniques of the profession, what the reader gets isn't what you hear, or intend them to. It's not a matter of using first or third person pronouns, it's viewpoint, something your teachers never mentioned.

For why it matters so much, this article might help clarify:
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-grumpy-writing-coach-8/

It's a problem you share with pretty much everyone who turns to writing their stories, so you have lots of company. But it's also a problem you need to address because, as Mark Twain observed: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

At the moment you're focused on telling the reader a story—an informational goal. But to quote E. L. Doctorow, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Without a bit of study of the techniques of writing fiction you're giving the weather report.

I truly wish my news was better, because I know how such news hurts after all the time spent on the story, and the emotional investment. I've been there. And I wish there was an easier way to break such news. But I've not found it. And you did ask.

Hope this clarifies.