Chapter 15: Cognitive Therapy

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"Where are we going now?" I asked Alynne as we walked down the twisting and confusing halls of the hospital facility. Almost every hospital was confusing in one aspect or another, this aspect most commonly being the halls, but I've usually never had any trouble with navigating my way through them with the aid of directories and workers at help desks scattered along the way, but this hospital was an exception. I only knew my way from my room to the meeting room, where the whole of the medical team meets up to discuss what happened in the day, progress that Alynne may or may not have made, what should happen tomorrow, among other things, and to the cafeteria.

"Cognitive therapy, the worst thing that I'm put through here," Alynne muttered in response to my question. "We're almost there."

As we both made our way down one more hall before reaching the room where Alynne's cognitive therapy sessions took place, we walked hand in hand, something we hadn't done for awhile because of the strict rules over our social interaction, but now that I've gotten those rulings lifted we were free to hold hands whenever we pleased. It may seem like a very small thing that could easily be sacrificed, but after not being able to for a couple months on end between one simply avoiding any social interaction and it being forbidden, it's a bigger thing than one may think at first.

"Something tells me that it's not just the cognitive therapy you strongly dislike," I commented to her statement. "I have a feeling that this whole thing is that you don't like."

"I have my reasons for not liking being here," She replied.

"And what would those be?" I questioned, curious to find out the specific reasons why Alynne hates it here.

"It's not really even many. I hate being here because they're forcing me to do all these treatments for an illness I'm pretty certain I don't even have,' Alynne confessed, her theory not having a bit of truth to it. No matter how much I wanted to tell Alynne that she did indeed have anorexia, even though she wasn't able to recognize it herself, I decided not to bother with interjecting.

"And turn here," She instructed as we passed the doorway to a lone room in the hall, this being the room where her cognitive therapy would be taking place today. I think it was more commonly held in a room on the other end of the facility or something like that but there were some renovations taking place so relocations occurred.

Stepping foot inside of the temporary therapy office, you wouldn't think that it was temporary at all. The only thing that suggested that this was a newly adopted room would be the bare floor that had no actual flooring upon it, it really just being plain old concrete you were stepping on. There were many different furnishings with the purpose of seating in the room that was a little smaller than you'd like a psych office would be, but as I said, this was just temporary. Everything in the room had one common theme in mind, a velvet like appearance to it. First walking in here you would think that it was some kind of stripper club or something, when it's actually something nothing like that.

The plush seating was softer than it appeared, I found out when I plunked myself down on the sofa that was nearest to the chair that the therapist would be sitting in. whenever he or she decided to show up, me unsure of the cognitive therapist's gender. Soon enough, Alynne decided to put an end to her mindless wandering and lingering around the doorframe and actually come into the room. She took a seat beside me and curled up by my side. She appeared to be afraid of something, but whatever it was that was causing her to fright I was oblivious to.

With a clash and a clatter, the cognitive therapist finally made an appearance, almost half an hour after our scheduled time to show up. Looks like Alynne's therapy today would be shortened by a whole thirty minutes, which is quite a hunk of time considering her appointments are only a time span of fifty minutes. More than half of the appointment had already gone away, them being spent by Alynne and I really just lounging around. There was either some kind of emergency that happened or the therapist, who I now know is of the female gender, was just slagging of and paid no attention to the clock.

"Sorry I'm late," The woman apologized as the silently and slowly shut the door and almost tiptoed her way over to the chair that she should have been sitting in about half an hour ago. "I was caught in a meeting that ran much longer than originally intended. So Alynne, do you have any clue as to how this disorder could have been triggered?" Alynne shook her head slightly.

"I think I might know," I muttered under my breath in response to the questioned, little did I know that I would actually be called upon.

"What's your theory?" The therapist asked me, having heard my external thought.

"I remember that when Alynne was newly transferred to another modeling agency, her new boss kept insisting that she lose weight in a time span of two weeks, the pounds increasing by increments of five, the first week being five pounds which was manageable, then it was ten pounds, then fifteen, and so on until she resulted to outright starving herself to complete her boss' ludicrous requests. Her family history of anorexia nervosa just made her more prone to it," I spoke, repeating word for word what I was thinking.

"Is this true, Alynne?" She asked, wanting to make sure that what I was saying was true. Alynne nodded her head again very slightly. "Looks like we know how this came about then."

The therapy session quickly came to an end, it actually having started much later than originally intended.

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