When a Man Enters the Shrinks Office...

1) Start Session

Date: 2 december 2020
Location: Shrinks Office.

"Good afternoon. My name is Flora."
A blond lady enters the white room and sits in a chair next to a desk.
You can see that people have been trying to make the room a bit cozy. There is a nice painting on the wall with some sort of scenery, a plant on the desk to hide the monitor. Soft colored blinds in front of the window, blocking the hard reality of the outside world out of vision. It is not that bad for the function it has, for this is basically a treatment room in the hospital and not a living room like it presumes it to be.

A little bit to the right from her is a young man waiting for her. He slumps a bit in his chair. His hair hangs limp around his head. His left hand on his right wrist, legs slightly spread for stability. His Asian eyes hidden behind strong minus glasses. They can't hide the fact that the eyes even look smaller than they usually should be, his eyelids being so low and swollen at this moment. His expression is somewhat dejected, but you can't really tell how he feels inside of the looks of his face. 'A deadpan face' they've called it numerous times. It's a face very convenient for not showing real emotions. A face that has saved him so many times before.
But now he's here. It's not going to safe him today.

"Hey. I'm Brett Yang." Brett answers in a low voice, not looking up at the lady in front of him still.

"So Brett, how are you today?" the shrink asks, relaxing a bit in her chair trying to make her patient a bit more comfortable so he might do the same.

Well. How am I? Totally f*ckt of course. Otherwise I wouldn't be here, Brett thinks, but doesn't say. He looks up tired.
"Well... What can I say... "
His voice sounds still scrubby. No wonder for he hasn't spoken out loud in days. He shrouds himself in further silence. Not because he doesn't want to answer, but simply because he can't. He doesn't know how to start.

"Then let's start by introducing yourself. I know your name now, but there is more to you than just your name, right?" she asks him nicely.
Of course she has some documentation on him, sent from the doctors who have been treating him. But she wants to hear it from him. He's not here for nothing, now is he. She'll have to make him spill his beans.

"Alright then. I'll play along." Brett scrapes his throat before he cautiously continues. "Well, I'm 27, Australian, with Taiwanese/Chinese parents, one brother. I'm a musician. I play the violin. Professionally. And I'm one of two. One of TwosetViolin to be precise. Eddy is the other half. Edward Chen. We have a YouTube channel and upload stories and music and stuff. Classical, but with comedy. We want to make classical music more relevant and fun to a greater audience and get young people enjoy the masters of old and new."
*Sigh* It takes a lot of effort to talk, but his voice is getting a bit better the more he speaks.
He clears his throat once more before he proceeds.
"We are doing this since 2014 and have been doing it non-stop ever since. Eddy and I have been sharing an apartment for a while now here in Singapore as well so we can discuss new ideas and film everything as fast as possible. It has been all extremely fun and rewarding. We even have been touring the world with our shows. We haven't taken a real break until about.. 4 weeks ago? After filming a bigger item I became unwell, collapsed and had to be hospitalized for 3 weeks until they found out what I had. I had been checked also a few weeks before that. I think it was somewhere in the beginning of October? But after taking some rest it was so much better, so they didn't understand what could be wrong. They thought I had a vitamin deficiency, so was I treated for that."
He sums it up quite clinically, as if he is giving a report on someone else's health. Not showing how much strain his body has had to endure and how much weight he has lost the last couple of months.
Or how scary it has been not knowing what caused the illness.
"But 4 weeks ago it came back in a very much more severe stage. Dropping eyelids, double vision, queasy, absent minded and pain everywhere. I even couldn't move for 3 weeks or so, so they had me hospitalized during that time. Luckily they found out that I appear to have some mild form of Myasthenia Gravis, and now I have meds for that since a week or two. They help tremendously. I can move better every day and i can walk again instead of just laying in bed looking at the ceiling. I rest and sleep a lot. But the dizziness, lethargic tendencies and so forth persist. I'm not making the progress the doctors thought I would make. They can't really find anything else and think it might be psychologically based. So that's why I'm here. They have opted I'm maybe burned out or quite depressed or something. And they say you can investigate how deep the rabbit hole goes and maybe help me?"
He looks up at Flora to see her reaction to this statement.

"I hope so. I will do my best."
She smiles confidently.
"Do you think you have a burn-out?"

"... Actually I don't think so. I've had small depressions before, but I don't think I have a burn-out. But I've had a very stressful time."
Brett hears himself say it and hears the question underneath. Hmm. That sounded a bit too unsure... And of course Flora needs to ask.

"About what? Do you know what causes you so much stress? Is it that you can't make content for your channel now? Or something else?" she looks closely at his reactions.

Brett mind's in turmoil.
Should I trust this lady now?
Should I tell her what's been bothering me for ages?

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Authors-note: A bit of a long introduction, but now the story really takes off.