Chapter 17

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

“Are you still determined to have your memories restored, Marsha,” Jan asked.

“Yes, there’s no question. This is what I want.”

“Even though you may find that you can’t live with them?”

“I have to know.”

“Even though it may make you susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and other psychological problems?”

“Please, I have to know.”

Jake read resignation in Mrs. Schaff. She didn’t like Marsha taking the chance but knew that there was no talking her out of it.

“What happens if Marsha decides later that she can’t live with the memories?”

“We can return her to her present condition,” Jan said.

“Except she will know that for a while she could remember and that the memories were bad,” Jake said. “She may find that disconcerting.”

“If we restore her memories,” Jan said, “even if she finds them painful, the next step would be to help Marsha incorporate them. It may prove to be arduous.”

“Are you really sure, Marsha?” Mrs. Schaff asked. “It sounds so risky and you’ve been doing so much better since your first treatment.”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Marsha said.

“Very well,” Jan said. “We’ll take you into hypnosis again. Mrs. Schaff, can we get about half an hour alone with Marsha?”

“I’ll go back to my bedroom. Will that be okay?”

“That’s fine. Please close the drapes before you go. When we’re done you need to be prepared for the possibility that Marsha will be upset.”

Jan induced Marsha into a hypnotic state.

She’s ready, Jake, she sent.

Watch what I do here. I’m going to identify the memory recall indexes that bring back the memories. I’m going to follow the nerves that lead from them to the cerebral cortex. Whenever I come on one of Harris’s rings, I’ll destroy it. We’ll start with the most specific index — time.

“Marsha, think back almost a month now,” Jake said. “Think about the missing weekend. You worked at the coffee bar until quitting time. And then you left. Do you remember?”

“I can remember work, but I don’t remember getting off.”

Five different indexes are going off and on, Jan sent. Which one is for the time frame?

I’m going to change my question. See which one remains on.

“Think about the next thing you do remember. What is that, Marsha?”

“It was me walking up the street toward home on Sunday night.”

Jake saw the index become energized.

Good. Just like that, love. Now follow that nerve bundle into the cerebral cortex. I’ll send a little energy into the nerve as I follow it, so you can see where I’m looking.

Jake traced along the nerve until he came to a ring.

That’s so strange, Jan said, seeing something so obviously artificial in this poor girl’s brain.

Go ahead and destroy it. I imagine I’m breaking it open with a finger but you can use pretty much any metaphor of breaking or cutting or destroying.

Jake watched the ring disappear.

Now think another ring replacing the one you just destroyed.

A new ring appeared.

Good. Look at the activity on the nerve.

Jake energized the index again, sending a stream of impulses down the channel.

I want you to stop these impulses. Imagine a force that neutralizes the negative charge running down these axons. Physically speaking, a positive charge on the ring does it, but you don’t have to be that specific. Just project a quality into the ring that causes the nerve to lose the signal.

Jake watched Jan struggle with the change for a few seconds until the ring finally deadened the electrical activity. Jake ripped the ring open.

Again, Jan. Put another signal-dampening ring on that nerve.

An appropriate ring appeared and the signals went dead. Jake ripped it out.

Just like that, love. You’re a natural. Now let’s go back to the indexes and find the rings on the index for kidnapping. This is harder because the index will branch off to memories that won’t apply. We have to trace them all.

Jake had Jan clear the rings from the nerves that led from the kidnapping index and then do the same for all the other indexes involved with the attack.

How do we find the concept for Harris himself? She doesn’t know him by that name.

We can find a memory of him by using the time index.

“Marsha, think again about walking home after the attack.”

Jan, follow the nerves from the time index to the cerebral cortex. Memories of Harris will be among the connected memories. Sort through them until you find one. Tell me when you have located one.

Just a minute. I’m looking ... There! I’ve got one.

Trace the nerve that leads back toward the recall index.

They did until they found a ring. Jan destroyed it.

Keep tracing all the way to the recall index.

Okay, I’m there.

Now we follow that nerve bundle back toward the cerebral cortex, exploring each branching, finding any other rings that have been installed.

Soon that job was done. They repeated the process with the other indexes that applied to the missing weekend.

Finally, Jake sat up in his chair and rolled his head around to work the kinks out of his neck.

How do we prepare her for these memories? Jake asked.

I can calm her down with a hypnotic suggestion. You should be ready to tamp down her emotions if she gets too upset.

Go ahead.

“Marsha, you can now remember what happened the weekend you were kidnapped, but don’t think back to that time yet. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Before you go back to then, keep in mind that you are safe and secure here. You will never run into your attacker again. I can promise you that. You won’t remember my assurance after the hypnosis, but it is still so. Your attacker has been imprisoned, and he will never trouble you again. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Think of the attacks as something that happened to someone else. It was horrible and you feel bad for the victim but you don’t identify with her. You are content to know what happened. You’ll think about what it means, but you won’t be horrified by it. It has no power over you. You are safe now and on your way to recovering from your ordeal.”

Jake, go get Mrs. Schaff. I’ll wait until she gets here before I bring Marsha out of her trance.

Jake sensed Mrs. Schaff back in the house and knocked on her door.

“Mrs. Schaff, Marsha is still hypnotized. Please come with me. We’d like for you to be present when she comes out of it.”

She followed Jake back to the living room and sat.

“She’s received a hypnotic suggestion designed to ease the effect remembering will have on her,” Jan said. “But we are dealing with emotionally-powerful phenomena. She may still be upset. If the hypnosis fails, we will have to try to comfort her. She will be experiencing the events for the first time in her mind. Please be as supportive and non-judgmental as you can. She really is blameless for what happened to her.”

Mrs. Schaff nodded. Jan turned back to Marsha.

“Marsha, in a minute I’m going to bring you out of your trance. You won’t remember anything you heard while you were under. You’ll wake up relaxed and rested. You’ll be curious about your new memories, but they will have no power over you, like they happened to someone else. I’m going to count from five down to one. When I reach one, you will come fully awake. Five ... four ... three ... two ... one.

“Can you remember what happened the weekend of the kidnapping, Marsha?” Jan asked.

Marsha sat up straight and looked around. Tears were filling her eyes.

“Yes, I can. It was horrible.”

“Start at the beginning. Tell me everything that happened. Remember that it is over and you don’t have to worry about something like this happening to you again.”

Marsha recounted the weekend. Jan asked her for more detail when she was tempted to gloss over specifics. Jake suppressed her fear, shame, and anger when they became strong enough to interfere with her narrative.

Mrs. Schaff was shocked and mystified by the story. She didn’t know what to make of the way the attacker had been able to manipulate Marsha’s emotions. Jake finally installed a control in her to make her overlook the fantastical aspects of Marsha’s account.

After half an hour, Marsha finished her story. Jake removed the controls that were keeping her emotions under control. She began to sob. Her mother rushed over to comfort her. Marsha grabbed her tightly and let loose her grief.

Do you think that she’s going to hate all men because of this? Jake sent.

Could be. I don’t know how to tell in advance. But being able to tell her story to others will have a therapeutic effect.

I kept her negative feelings in check enough for her to get through it. What if they come back and overwhelm her?

She’s got to grieve. It’s appropriate for her to feel the pain. PTSD perpetuates itself by keeping sufferers from dealing directly with the source of their anguish. They keep shying away from thinking about the incident and the issues involved. I’m cautiously optimistic for this girl.

“Marsha, I know it hurts to remember what happened,” Jan said when she had calmed down. “But tackling it head-on is key to your recovery. You’ve got to face it directly. You have to confront it so that it has no power over you. We’ll come back next week and talk again. I have a task for you to do before then. I want you to write down what happened that weekend from the moment you left work with Harris until you showed up here Sunday evening.

“I want you to remember every detail you can. Colors, sensations, emotions, sounds, everything. Write it all down. Then write a second draft. Polish the language. Make it as good as you can, as though you were going to have it published. Use blunt, graphic language. No one else will see it but me. Don’t spare anybody’s sensibilities.

“Make the story yours. Become so familiar with it that you can read it without crying. Live with it. Look at it objectively. In a week you’ll print the story and give it to me. When you do, your life will belong to you again, not to this horrible experience. Any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Don’t procrastinate. This is a hard thing I’m asking of you, both difficult and time-consuming. Get started on it and work at it at least eight hours a day until it’s publication-worthy. I think you are going to be okay, but there may still be times when the emotions overwhelm you. Call me if you need help.”

Don’t forget to make her unable to talk about us.

There was a pause and then Jan said, “Marsha, tell your mother my name.”

Marsha turned to Mrs. Schaff but froze before she could speak.

“Try again, Marsha.”

“She’s Jan Harrison.”

Her mother, too.

Jan installed the control in Mrs. Schaff and then stood up.

“This has been a productive session,” she said. “We may not be totally out of the woods but we’re getting close. Jake and I will see you this time next week.”

“I think you are one impressive psychologist,” Jake said as Jan drove them back.

“Thank you, Jake. I think we make a good team. I did the talking but you provided the technique and the support that made it bearable for her.”

“Please, don’t tell Ellen about what we did with Marsha’s memories yet. I want to see how Marsha responds before I talk to Ellen about doing it for her.”

“Okay. Let’s give it a week or two, but I don’t think that it will be as hard on Ellen. She’s had a lot of time since then plus she’s had a similar experience that she does remember. She’s not as likely to be overwhelmed by it. Her submissiveness also buffers her. And we’ll both be there to help her through it.”

“Has she told you about her range?”

“No, what do you mean?”

“She came home from work last night complaining about being overwhelmed by all the mind noise at her office. I gave her a range test like I did with you. Her range is a hundred feet.”

“Holy cow,” Jan said, and then began to laugh. After a few seconds, she pulled the car into a parking lot, put it in park, and began to laugh hard.

Jake let her get it out of her system. He tried to figure out the cause, but all he could read was mirth. She began to calm down.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she finally said and began to laugh hard again.

Jake began to get irritated. Jan tried to sober up.

“Jake, my true love, I think I can guess what you were doing with the world’s sexiest woman while you were stimulating her nerves.”

“We were in bed. She was...” Then Jake froze. Panic followed a moment later. “What have I done to her?”

“Relax, Jake. I’m sure you didn’t hurt her any more than you hurt Carol when you were nurturing her affection during sex.” Jan began to giggle again. “But what do you want to bet that Ellen has superhumanly efficient nerves?” She began to laugh hard again.

“So what about her problem with the mind noise?” Jan said when she had finally run down.

“We went to talk to my father. He says that it’s all under conscious control. We can filter out the mind noise at will. I’m anxious to see Ellen tonight and see how she managed at work.”

“That’s good to know. It’s too bad that you have to kill him. He could have been a valuable source of information.”

“I never said that I had to kill him.”

“But you can’t let him go and every day that goes by increases the chance that he’ll escape or be discovered.”

“I know. Maybe there’s another option. I despise him for what he’s done to Ellen and hundreds of innocent women, but he’s still my father.”

“Don’t ruin your life and everybody else’s by trying to show mercy to a rabid dog.”

“Let’s talk about your temper,” Jan said to Kate. “Tell me about the things that got you angry this last week.

Kate told her about the incidents with Brian and Jake. There had been another run-in with Brian that Jake didn’t know about. She mentioned Chris, the boy who had delivered the boat.

“Did Leanne or Kara or any of the women do anything to irritate you?”

“No.”

“The common factor is obvious,” Jan said. “They all involve men. You didn’t lose your temper with any of the women. Why were you angry with the men.”

“Because they were coming on to me.”

“What do you mean by coming on to you?”

“You know, they were trying to force themselves on me.”

“Did any of them touch you?”

“Well, no.”

“Did they threaten to use physical force against you?”

“No.”

“So it was all in how they looked at you?”

“Yes.”

“How did they look at you?”

“They, you know, stared at me.”

“Did they glance at you, or was it more like they locked their eyes on you?”

“They looked at me directly.”

“For more than ten seconds at a time?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Five seconds?”

“Sometimes.”

“Thinking back, did you stare at anyone else for five seconds at a time this week?”

Kate looked down. “Yes, I guess I did.”

“I’m not picking on you, Kate, darling, and I’m not minimizing your anger. But I do want to be clear about its causes. Emotions like love and fear and anger can be very strong and they feel very real to us. They are very persuasive, and we tend to trust them. The problem is that not all emotions are trustworthy.

“The more primitive parts of our brains manufacture them to motivate us to act a certain way. The next time you step up to a cliff, feel how your brain makes you afraid. Very useful to keep you from being careless. A mother’s love and concern for her children is another useful, appropriate emotion.