Surviving - Rewritten

Chapter Twenty Four - Monster

Cassandra Blake

Cassie woke up the next day screaming again.

Blaise was sat next to her, gently trying to shake her awake. "Cassie, wake up!" She shouted, almost desperately.

Cassie sat up, looking around the room in confusion. Just a few seconds before she had been at home and her father had been hitting her. Except he hadn't. It was just a dream, just a memory.

Cassie started crying and Blaise stared at Cassie with wide eyes.

"It's okay, just breathe, it's okay Cassie" she reassured.

Eventually Cassie calmed down and felt embarrassed as she realised Blaise had just witnessed her crying and having a panic attack. "Why did you help me?" she asked; they had avoided each other like the plague since Cassie hit her the previous afternoon. Cassie felt her eyes water again at the thought of being the reason someone else was in pain. She was no better than her dad.

Blaise sighed "look, I'm sorry for yesterday, everything I said was uncalled for and clearly you had a lot going on. At the end of the day, we are stuck together in this room for now and I want to be friends with you. And I don't want you to be alone in whatever it is you're dealing with"

"Thank you. I don't think I'm ever going to be ready to face it though. I don't think I'll ever get better" Cassie began crying again.

"D-do you want me to go get Carly for you?"

Cassie nodded in response, feeling far too vulnerable and stupid as Blaise stared at her with pity. She wished that, for once she could just be normal. Blaise went to go get Carly whilst Cassie tried to regain composure.

A few minutes later Carly appeared and sighed at the state of Cassie. "I'm getting you an appointment at the doctors"

"W-what do you mean? I don't want to"

"Cassie dear, you need to face your demons, or they will never go away. I'm not saying that getting help is going to be easy. You don't get better over night, but you will get better if you get help. If you don't even try then you might never stop having nightmares"

"What if I try and I don't get better though? What if there I stay like this forever?"

"You will get better Cassie. You need to change your mindset though and accept that its okay to ask for help. Start taking baby steps and one day you will be okay"

Cassie nodded in defeat. She didn't want to give up, but she was also scared. However, she knew that she needed help. Anyway, she had survived for that long – she owed it to herself to keep going.

-

An hour later, Cassie sat nervously in the waiting room. When her name was finally called, she stood up and walked slowly towards the room she had been told to go into. She hoped that the doctor didn't notice how much her hands where shaking.

As she sat down on the chair, she mumbled a small hi to the doctor, who was thankfully a woman.

"I'm Doctor Lee. So, Cassandra, let's start with you telling me why you are here today"

Cassie frowned, knowing that she already knew why she was there. Why make her say it? "Because I was told to come"

The doctor rolled her eyes. "Well, what do you want out of this?"

"I don't know" Cassie snapped. How would she know what she needed?

"Look, Cassandra, I can't help you if you don't talk to me. Now, why don't you tell me how this appointment is making you feel"

"Nervous" Cassie admitted, playing with her shaking hands.

"Okay, good. Now tell me what else has caused you to be nervous recently?"

"N-nightmares and when I'm around too many people, I get really scared. I have been feeling really upset all the time lately too. Like I'm just kind of broken"

"What are these nightmares about exactly?"

Cassie scowled, knowing that the doctor had already seen her medical records where it was stated that she had been in hospital due to abuse. "I don't want to talk about it"

"Okay then. Well, what are you scared of when you're around people?"

"That they will hurt me, or that I will upset them"

The doctor nodded, making a note of something. "Okay then Cassie, well it sounds to me like you're just struggling with some anxiety, depression and maybe PTSD. This is quite common for people who have gone through what you have. There are a few options you can take such as, medication, therapy, counselling. I recommend starting Sertraline medication and I will put you on the waiting list for therapy if you would like?"

Cassie nodded, unsure of it all but trusting the doctor's opinion.

"Great. Well, the waiting list should only be a few weeks at the moment for therapy and they will be in contact with you soon. As for the medication, you can pick it up from the chemist. Just know though, with the medication it does get worse before it gets better so I am going to give you a list of helplines for if you need to talk to anyone" the doctor rambled, giving Cassie a list of numbers and a sheet of information.

Cassie thanked her before leaving and going to pick up her medication. Maybe, things really could start to get better now. That hadn't been quite as scary as she thought it would be. Grinning, Cassie made her way back to the house feeling accomplished.