3A.M Confession

Anna

.This time around I will not disclose his name, let’s call him Alex. 

Well, Alex is a longtime friend of my father. When I was little, I had a chance to have a couple of sessions with him. At that time he was finishing a medical school and was planning to start his residency. He brought me back to my senses after my parents put my old dog to sleep, a very cute red haired poodle by the name of Alf. In that time I was aggressive towards my parents, because I didn’t understand that the dog was suffering and that it had to be done. But things got better.

We're still friends, and from time to time I call him and ask for some advice. 

And just two weeks ago, we met up and chatted about our lives. I started talking about this website: that I read a bunch of mystical stories, so in turn he decided to tell me a story of his ... 

Here is his story as told by Alex. 

I was then 29 years old and was still working at the Scientific and Practical Center, working with children and adolescents, and, believe me, I thought that I’ve seen it all. 

Andrew called me, a family friend who had a little daughter, a 4-year old, and said that the parents were extremely frightened by an invisible friend of their child. 

I didn’t think much of the problem, because having an "invisible friend" for children is a very common phenomenon. So I made an appointment with the parents of the girl. 

I decided to go to their house, because I did not want the parents to bring the girl to the research center, because being in any medical institution closes a child up. The first impression from my visit - a look of despair on her parents; they told me so many things that I was thinking that they might also need a psychiatrist.

From her mother's words: "We bought this apartment two years ago; the building is new and no one has lived here before us. The first year was wonderful - new friends, neighbors. Nancy used to be a sociable smiling child, but recently she has been talking to some imaginary person and she calls her Anna. At first I did not attach too much importance to this, until Nancy started behaving strangely: she stopped socializing with other kids in the kindergarten, garden. The teacher told us that she plays by herself, always muttering something quietly. A couple of times at night we caught her screaming while standing on the back of the sofa, and she said that Anna was angry. And once, when we were cuddling with her and reading "Donno on the Moon", Nancy sharply raised her head and said that Anna was standing in the corner and was getting angry because she wants to play. Of course there was no one there, but I was horrified. Sometimes I suddenly wake up, it is late at night, and I hear Nancy giggling in her room. I go to her, and she is asleep.” 

I was sitting at the table, trying to digest the words of Nancy’s mother – because her stories were reminiscent of some horror movie. In my head I went through some psychiatrists for the parents, too, but decided to let it go. 

Interrupting the mother, I said that I got the gist and wanted meet with Nancy personally. 

Nancy was a blond girl that looked like a doll, she was very cautious with me, but started smiling as soon as I said how beautiful she was.

She sat on a playing mat and was playing with tiny clothes for dolls. 

During our first meeting I just decided to talk to her about everything: about her lifestyle, about what she likes or dislikes, etc.

She turned out to be a very intelligent child and enthusiastically answered all my questions until I asked if she had a lot of friends. She looked at me sullenly and silently crumpled all doll clothes that she spent so much time folding, casually threw it in the trunk for toys, and went into the kitchen.