Our Destiny Was An Accident

Chapter 14: Amy meets her psychiatrist

Amy walks out boldly, but as she saw the car, her heart rate suddenly surged up. She tries to hold her fear. She suddenly turns back to save herself from respiratory arrest. She thinks for a while to calm herself down, while Han comes out of the car to look after her. Before Han could say anything, Amy show her hand as a sign for him to remain silent and not to disturb her. She in a snap turns around and swiftly sits in the car. She has been so unpredictable that Han gets a bit (lot) anxious about her health. Amy calls him to be quick or they may get late. Han keeps looking at her while driving because of her weird nature. She has clenched her fist, sounds of her headphone is too loud, her eyes are closed and legs are restless. On reaching academy, Han pulls off her headphone to inform that they arrived and she quickly gets off running to her class without looking back.
In school, during lunch break, she bravely tries to look at pictures of cars and realised that it is not affecting her as she thought. She then attempts to look outside where cars are parked. From distance and in daylight, it is not that scary. But she couldn't dare to remember her last night incidence. It still has some lingering unexplainable effect on her. She figures out that it is not the car but the flashlight she got scared of, since she is used to the car but not to the flashlight. But deep down she thinks that it doesn't make sense that she is scared of mere lights. She looks at tubelights and it wasn't scary. Maybe it is the darkness she is scared of, she feels. But then she realised that she never attempted to see the sun directly. What if she does that. She prepares herself for worse and tries to look up. Before she directly look at the sun she decides to imagine the sun not as the flashlight but some sunflower. She thought by transforming the reality from a scary picture to something beautiful she might be able to overcome her fear. But once she looked up, she collapsed, unconscious on the floor.
One of the staff member informed Han about the incident and he rushed in panic. He enters the room where Amy was resting and tightly hugs her while sighing deeply in relief.
"How are you? What happened?" Han asks worriedly.
"What are you doing here? " Amy counter-questions him back.
The doctor there interrupts and answers that it's her who informed him as per the rule.
Amy seems quite upset to see Han but as a good student she remained quiet.
The doctor and Han had a serious conversation, as Amy could observe from distance. Amy meanwhile feels that probably Han is now making another deal with this doctor who could spy me in his absence.
Once the talk is over, Han orders Amy to come home with him, but Amy refuses in anger saying that she has class to attend and she won't skip it at any cost. Han is already aware how adamant her behaviour turns out, if she is forced, so he patiently decides to wait for her. Han waits outside her classroom for whole two hours, taking a peep from time to time, which is noticed by the whole class but teacher let it slide since he was aware of the situation. But Amy got agitated by his overconcerning habit.
As soon as class gets over, he grabs her hand, help her get inside the car and drives off to an unknown place. Amy is baffled but one part of her guessed correctly where he could have brought her and she is disappointed to find herself right. Since she refused to go to the hospital, he arranged an appointment with a private psychiatrist, Dr Kim Jong, a renowned psychiatrist who practiced for 25 years in London and recently came to South Korea to sign a contract with Dr Han on team collaboration for research purpose. Han has high hopes from him for Amy's problems. Dr Kim went through all her medical records and asked all necessary questions from Han regarding Amy's behaviour, her mental health and social relationship. Once he thoroughly studied the case, he calls her in. Amy sit down waiting for his questions to come, more like waiting for an action so that she could react. The moment he asks her name, she gets irritated. She replies in agitation, shouting at him that she could see her case file in his hand.
Amy: You have my file. You already dig into my past and had already asked hundred of questions from Han. I know this. It's not my first time. I just don't understand, don't you have better thing to ask in order to start a conversation, like" I already heard about your problems. How are you feeling right now?"
Can't you just come to the point instead of running around the bush, huh...

Dr Kim smiles at her, keenly observing her reaction. He could tell with a glance that she has a high IQ level and she is more practical rather being emotional so she finds it hard to deal with her emotions.
He apologises and says "Then may I ask you the things that happened recently? I heard that you collapsed."
Amy explains how she tried to face her fear using her imagination and everything went well untill she looked up to face the sun. Afterwards, all she could recall is darkness, a complete blank phase. When she woke up she saw Han at her bedside and that's it.

Dr Kim:  Is there anything else to the story? I could see the dilemma in your mind.
Amy: I don't know. There is a feeling that I know something. I saw something, but I can't recall it. I want to but I can't. I tried but it gives me headache. I don't know. It happened a lot with my previous therapy sessions and my health deteriorated, so Han decided to stop it. I felt better afterwards. I don't want to get sick again so I don't want this therapy sessions.

Han gets emotional on hearing Amy from observation room via headphones. He understood why she was throwing tantrums at him. She is just scared. He wanted to hug her at the moment and protect her but all he was capable of doing is, looking at her from afar. No wonder tears just fell off his eyes.
On contrary, Dr Kim is surprised. It's normal for people to have concerns about bad past experiences, but the way she tried to tackle her problems alone was the sign of a fighter. He is confident now that she can help him to get her better. A patient's strong will is their best weapon and she has it. She is already halfway to her solution, he thinks in his mind.
He asks her what she feels about her symptoms. Amy answers in an obvious manner that "It's fear of the headlights which is a bit embarrassing and the thought that I'm scared of mere headlights and I can't look at the Sun directly, it irritates me."
Dr Kim could see the itch on her face while answering the question.
Dr Kim: Do you know why?(you are scared of headlights)
Amy: Probably because in dark it looks scary.
Dr Kim: Yeah. But do you know what makes it scary in dark.
Amy: No. That's the distressing part. I don't know why. But don't worry. I will figure it out.( She insists because she don't want to come here again.) I thought that I won't be able to look at the car again, but I did. With practice I will be able to overcome this fear too.
Dr Kim: But you never had fear of cars. You just got stressed looking at the car because it triggered your fear of flashlight. Isn't it? (Interrupts Dr Kim and made Amy realise the fact)

Amy still insists that she can overcome her fear her own way and she can prove it. Dr Kim challenges her to prove it. He tells her that he is going to create an artificial environment of similar situation that she faced that night and she has to prove it that she can withstand it.
Dr Kim proceeds with the plan but Dr Han advises him to stop this dangerous play. He has seen her struggling throughout the night and he do not want her to go through all that again. She just passed out. She is too weak for this procedure. But Dr Kim takes him in his trust telling him that he need to know the extent of her disorder in order to execute her treatment plan. As far her safety is concerned, he is psychiatrist for a reason.