Fists and Lipsticks 2: The Silver Crescent

CHAPTER 35: Sessions (Part 7)

CHAPTER 35: SESSIONS (Part 7)

Anger is a crisis of sadness.

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0230 HR

Case Report: Y.A. (Case# PSY-194)

Psychiatrist: Okamoto Shizuki, M.D.

The patient is a 25-year-old female hotelier, Y.A., exhausted and vaguely cooperative during the session. She was pale and unusually disheveled upon seeking self-admission. Eye contact was good but occasionally downcast. Mood and affect were sullen and tense. She was interviewed in a private first-class room by the psychiatric bay of the emergency room, lying on her back on a gurney in four-point restraints and wearing a pink hospital gown. She was administered with 5% intravenous sodium amobarbital at rate no faster than 1 mL/min before the interview.

As I walked in, Yoshida Ayane lifted her head and looked at me with an apathetic gaze. "You didn't have to tie my hands. I'm not going to point a gun at you like I did before."

"So you remember that day?" I pulled a chair and positioned myself beside her bed. I plopped down on the seat and pulled out my voice recorder from my pocket. "Are you saying that you can control your anger better now?"

She heaved a sigh, "Using your psychiatry stuff to squeeze information out of me, of course."

"But that's why you came here, right? Because you wanted my help… I wanted to help you too, so let's make this work, will that be okay?"

She only replied with a subtle nod.

"Can you tell me what day and month it is today? And what time?" I started to interrogate her.

"January 3rd," her eyes rolled towards the wall clock. "2:40 a.m."

"Do you remember how you came here in the hospital?"

"Yes," she replied. "I rode a cab."

"Why didn't you bring your own car?"

"Because it has sensors. I didn’t want to be followed," she did not meet my eyes, her voice starting to sound quite disdainful.

"You sound angry, but at the same time apprehensive and sad," I noted.

"Maybe…" she wrung her hands. "I don't really know. I don't really know what to think right now."

"What do you do when you get angry?" I directed the conversation upon noticing that she has become a bit hesitant to expound. "Do you hold it inside or let loose with it so that everybody knows how you're feeling?"

"Things just… bottle up… and burst as it reaches the rim," she replied metaphorically.

"Have you been feeling the same anger over the past few days?"

She did not answer, staring at her restrained hands blankly.

I rephrased my question, "Whatever it is you're feeling right now, can you give that 'feeling' a name?"

It took her a few seconds before she finally muttered, "Sadness."

"Do you feel that your sadness is somehow related to your anger?"

"Anger is a crisis of sadness," she said with a melancholic smile.

"Tell me about this 'crisis'," I commanded. "Earlier you said that you came here by cab because you didn't want them to follow you. Did 'they' cause your rage?"