stars shine brightest in room 93 (halren/halsren/lausey?)

iv

tune: learning to fly-pink floyd

I stare at Nicole for a while, soaking in what she had just written down for me. A Sandman delivers bad dreams right? It's like an old horror myth. I wonder if she actually thinks it's physical being is real, or if this is some type of metaphor.

She could be saying that 'The Sandman' is just a sort of representation for her bad dreams. Or she may actually think that if she doesn't close her eyes 'The Sandman' won't have the guts to come and corrupt her dreams.

I feel as it may be the second one—the way she's treating it.

I can sense the childlike fear exuding off of her. She's kind of immersed in this state of mind I can tell. I don't know what she's been taught—or anything about her actual past really —but I do know something has failed along the process of her mental maturing.

I guess I'll just take it easy for now.

"Sandman?" I finally speak up. Her jaw clenches at the name and I can tell it's a sensitive subject. The whole idea of it is dramatized, and for good reason. She thinks all of this stuff is real. It's my job to convince her otherwise.

I wonder if her juvenile anxiety comes with the impressionability. But then again, impressions can change. If...when she is able overcome this trauma; who's to say she won't take her new found maturity and decide everything I had told her was based on me taking advantage of her vulnerability?

And it'll be true if I treat it that way. It doesn't matter if what I say is actually fact or not. I have to base my information on logic and not just taking her impressionability to prove to her what I say is true.

"You don't have to go into it," I reassure her. "I'm just trying to become...enlightened on what you're thinking."

Nicole nods and casts her gaze downward. I watch as she brings her hands up to her eyes and wrings them of unshed tears with the balls of her palms.

She sits still for a while and lets her tears stream down her face with no effort to wipe them away again.

"No one's judging you, Nicole," I inform her quietly, crossing my legs in my chair. I've noticed a lot of my patients cry not because they're in any kind of physical or emotional stress, but because they feel as if everybody in the room is judging them because that's what they're doing to themselves. People are a lot more critical of themselves than anybody else.

Her tears continue to freefall and I don't say anything else, I just let her cry. Over the duration of a couple of moments of silent sobbing, she gets evidently frustrated with herself and starts clawing at her eyes.

"Hey, don't do that you're hurting yourself! I scold, trying to take her hands away from her eyes and into mine. But she flinches backward and away from me, hitting her head on the wall behind her.

"Nicole, you're bleeding! Please, stop!" I exclaim, my begging alert and desperate and to my relief, she stops. But, not without doing a bit of damage.

Watered down blood drips down her face as tears collect and cascade from her eyes. She starts to wipe frantically at them, frustrated whines and grunts falling from her lips.

I cringe at the sight of her and start to look frantically around for a first aid kit. But, oddly enough I can't find one.

This is a fucking hospital, for gods sake.

"Nicole," I sigh, trying to come across as calm as I can. My eyes scan over hers, cuts bright red and puffy. "Is there a button you can push or something to call for your nurse?"

She continues to cry, and I can tell it's much to her dismay. She's still rubbing at her eyes and tear streaked cheeks.

"Well, is there?" I ask softly. Calm is key, Lauren. Calm is key.