✅ Potty Genius [NaNoWriMo 2022]

Thirty-Three

¿Did she find a way to free you from the app?

"We can work on that," Theo said with a smile. "It's a very different environment to work in, once you are able to draw a line between things you don't want and things you feel obligated to deny yourself. I suspect that if you can get a better understanding on which parts of the regression you actually enjoy, we could adapt the suggestions in your mind to fit more closely with that."

"I can do that," I said. "So does that mean the reason I didn't get over it last time was because there's a part of me that didn't want to lose the excuse to act childish? I mean, like Baby Adrica is an actual inner child struggling to get out, or something?"

"There could be some part of that. It's often hard to understand how your subconscious desires will affect the progress of a trance, especially when you don't understand those desires yourself. In any case, I suspect that if you'll agree to a new treatment plan, we should find a way to fine-tune your hypnotic suggestions a little more. So that we can focus on just the parts that are causing you a problem."

"Do you think I should stick with the teddy badge?" I asked. "For now, I mean? I was thinking that it might be a good idea to change it occasionally, just so I'm analysing the things I've done with a clear head. But I'm not sure if having a trance every time I change it might make the suggestions harder to resist. I don't know how much this stuff works, really."

"I think that if you can learn to be comfortable with the teddy's effects, that would be a good choice. Especially if you have any predisposition to do some of those things in any case. However, I do think it could be beneficial to change to one of the others briefly. In fact..." She bit her lip gently, and I could tell before she said anything else that she didn't know if I was going to get mad at the next suggestion. It probably wasn't anything that her professors would have approved of. "If the app hypnotises you when you change badges, could I watch you do that? It's possible that once it has you in trance, I could hijack your focus, so that you're effectively starting a session with the app and finishing it with me."

"Does that help?" I asked, but I was sure she had a reason to suggest it.

"If you trust the app to give you these suggestions, which a part of your subconscious mind clearly does, it could be that I'll encounter some instinctual resistance, as an external influence trying to change those same suggestions. But if I watch you go through the app's induction, understand what methods it is using, and then talk over the text you are reading to guide you deeper into trance, it's possible that you would perceive my words as an extension of what the app is saying. The same hypnotist, in a way."

¿Did that really work?

It worked about as well as I could have expected, I guess. We still had a lot of talking before I tried it, but I was easily convinced that this was my best chance of getting over the app's influence. So I was going to select a different badge, and let the usual parade of terms and conditions hypnotise me. But this time, Theo would be watching the screen over my shoulder, and analysing how the induction actually worked. At some point close to the end of the script, she would start reading the words out to me, and then continue to read while taking the tablet away, so that my focus would shift from the app to her voice. Then, she would be able to give me the same suggestions but with a slight twist.

Primarily, she was trying to break my dependence on the app for using the bathroom; so that I could choose to use it if I wanted to, but I didn't have to. Then I could choose when I wanted to have the effects of the teddy, and there would be no chance of accidents at a time when it could cause a problem. It seemed weird, but in a way it almost made sense: If Theo could condition me to only follow the app's instructions when it wouldn't be a problem, then I could go through the programme and 'graduate', convincing it that I had been potty trained. And then, if I was understanding it correctly, I would be free. Able to put the teddy badge on if I wanted to, but without any compulsion. I thought it made a lot of sense: completely overriding the hypnotic suggestions would be difficult, both because of my unwillingness to give up on a challenge and possibly a repressed desire to be a little more childish. But if I could keep on playing the game and win it, that should certainly make me free. I would be depending on all the same impulses that had made me so suggestible to free me again.