[ closed ] I think something dark's living down in my heart.

[gramarye]

Who: Wolfgang, Benji, later Benny
What: Wolfgang goes off his meds, has a major psychotic break, and then tries to pretend nothing happened.
Where: Nawiedzonydom, Badside; later, Madrasati
When: Some nebulous point after the Spatters raid/riots?
Warnings: Drug use, body horror, self-injury, mental illness, psychiatric abuse of children.

Wolfgang's behaviour has always been a little erratic, but for the most part he is predictable. He likes to have a routine, as difficult as that is to work around how much he sleeps - sometimes half his day or more - so when he's suddenly awake all the time, it's pretty noticeable. He has these moodswings of manic energy, waking up at 3 in the morning and cleaning or taking things apart, putting them back together, pacing on the roof. He has long conversations with birds and the moon. He addresses people who aren't in the room and flinches every time he passes a mirror; in fact, he's covered up every mirror in his room. He won't look through windows in the dark. Sometimes he says things that make no sense and he'll either give up and withdraw or continue trying, obviously pained with the effort of it. But these are little things and they occur very far apart; in between, he's fine. Normal. He goes to work every day. He certainly looks a lot less sick than he normally does and he even mentions that he feels better than he has in months.

At one point he goes to a party and about midnight frantically calls Benji six times over the period of about a half an hour, begging her to come pick him up, becoming more and more incoherent until he is literally speaking nonsense. The train ride home is a miserable affair for him; he flinches at things out of the corner of his eye, hands over his face like he can block them out that way. He's panicked, pupils dilated, sweating, jaw clenched - obviously on something but he won't (or can't) answer what. What comes out of his mouth is word salad. Disorganised nonsense. It barely sounds like English. The exception is when he starts scratching at his skin, growing increasingly more distressed, get them out, get it out! like there's something under there and he doesn't stop digging into his skin until he's bleeding, crying, seeing something under his skin that just isn't there. He clamps his hands over his ears and whines like he's trying to block something out, but there's nothing there. At one point he mutters something about they won't stop talking, stop talking, shut up, shut up, shut up shut up shut up, over and over. He thinks "they" put "them" inside of him and he keeps trying to get "them" out. A few times, she can see what he sees - fleshy movement under his skin, like there are bugs crawling under there. All the lights in the house keep flickering on and off, phantoms appearing in dark corners and vanishing if looked at too closely, and outside it keeps varying between thunder and snow. It's dark all morning.

He finally passes out around noon and sleeps for half a day. The sun rises.

He vanishes into his room after that for three days - the door is gone, too, just a solid wall where it was, like it was never there - and when he finally emerges he behaves conspicuously normally, aggressively pretending that nothing happened, but slinking around with the air of someone who knows they're guilty of something and are hoping everyone else will just ignore it. Deciding to put some of that guilt to practical use, he's been cleaning the kitchen all day, in jeans and a tank top, scrubbing the floor on his hands and knees with a vigor that borders on manic the longer he's at it.

Comments

[gramarye]

Imposing is a good word for it; intimidating is better. Institutions frighten him, another gift from his Awakening he would rather do without. He hesitates, wavering, pale and sweating and his hand tightening around hers until it threatens to cut off the circulation.

"My name is Uri," he says, voice low and thick. It's the first thing he's said all morning, despite having stalled as long as he could before coming here, worried people would stare at him or, more accurately, notice him, if he left the house. He tried to get dressed but he's not up to his usual standards and it's worsening his anxiety. "I thought you should know."

It is with tremendous effort that he manages to make it through the door without digging his heels in or turning and fleeing. And it makes him feel like an idiot that the urge is even there, because he knows it's irrational and he can't make it just stop by willing it away the way he can transform space, time and matter through willpower alone. He says nothing else when they walk through the halls towards the clinic here.

His head is very quiet. When it gets like this, it enables him to dismiss it as not being a problem. Obviously he's fine, he's clearly functioning because he left the house, or maybe this time it will just go away on its own like a cold, and he should have just stayed home, he doesn't need help, it's fine.

[asklepios]

Although Madrasati is first and foremost intended as a school, it offers a broader range of social services and the clinic is more than equipped for everything up to relatively major surgery-- but those rooms aren't, mercifully, the first thing anyone coming in for an appointment has to see. There's a quiet reception and waiting area, and then there's Dr Bernát, professionally nonthreatening in sweater and pencil skirt, smiling.

“Wolfgang,” she says, by way of greeting, her voice pitched so as not to startle. “I'm Dr Bernát - you can call me Vanessza, if you'd like, and if you would like to have Benji come through with you into my office, she can. You can follow me?”

[cestrumnocturnum]

Name revelations are met with silence, but not non-response -- she looks up at him with some surprise. Pleased. Her hand squeezes his back in an understated positivity that Wolfgang, or Uri, can take as he will, and they enter the building together, Benji leading them for the clinic.

And she doesn't let go of his hand once they meet Vanessza, the doctor offered a wan smile. This is where she stops leading, but remains easily led -- she can wait out here but imagines she might not be, and keeps fingers for now tangled with Wolfgang's.

[gramarye]

Wolfgang does not let go of Benji's hand, which answers that, and follows Dr Bernát into her office. Out of habit, his eyes immediately go towards the doors, the windows, vents -- assessing possible quick escape routes, potential dangers. This is not unusual in Baedal, at least not in this cohort, but it is pretty telling. He sits where he's indicated to sit and then says nothing even though he thinks he ought to. For a moment, he's not sure if he can.

This is a bad idea. He's fine. He can handle it on his own. He should have gone to Kahnde, quietly, given him a list of new drugs like he's been doing before, he's been paying for all the others since his family can afford to pay off the stelanmancers. ("What the hell is olanzapine?" "It's like an antidepressant..." "So what, you're like, depressed?" "Well, not on olanzapine.") No one would have to know. It's not like it's going to matter in a year or so anyway.

"I'm fine," he ends up blurting out. Then, "I mean, I'm not sick."

He hears voices outside the door, but he's not sure what they're saying. It doesn't strike him as unusual, this is a public institution, it's just distracting. It doesn't occur to him that they might not be real.

[asklepios]

Benevenuta considers that as she sits down, taking her notepad in one hand and finding the pen she was using earlier with the other. She lets it sit a moment, thoughtful - she's not a psychiatrist or psychologist, this isn't her particular area of expertise, but she's got experience as a general practitioner making referrals and medication decisions with patients in similar need, she knows more or less what she's doing. There's always the concern that she'll be the wrong fit, more of a concern in a limited-resource city like Baedal...

“All right. I'm going to take notes during this appointment,” she says, displaying the notepad to him - there's nothing written there yet besides the name she was given for him and the date. “If you want to see what I am writing at any point, or if you would like a copy for yourself afterwards, I'll share that with you. Why don't we start from why you came in today?”

[cestrumnocturnum]

Proclamations of I'm fine get a glance -- a very subtle one, out the corner of her eye, but Benji isn't sure she ought to talk immediately. She has already spoken to Benevenuta, and so sits quietly, at least for the time being, hands folding between her knees and taking on the same quiet and vaguely ignorable quality of furniture, if furniture were capable of listening and interjecting given reason.

A hand travels up, fidgeting with the thin silver chain at her neck.

[gramarye]

Wolfgang doesn't really know where to start. Gears are whirring, something's going on in his head, but for a long time he doesn't speak, trying to sort through what he wants to say versus what he is able to say.

"I stop taking my meds." He runs his hand through his hair, touches his face. "I took them to... to make the shit stop. But they made me sick, sleeping all the time, so I stop, and..." He frowns. "I don't know. I took something. Something happened. I don't really remember. That's never happened before," he's quick to add. "With... I thought it was just weed."

He winces and won't look at Benji. He knows it's irresponsible but he's never had this reaction before, it's only helped him in the past -- soothed his anxiety, gotten his appetite back, relieved the nausea and headaches that came with his pills.

"I..." This is extremely difficult to say; he's been avoiding saying it for years, hasn't spoken to anyone about it because he is afraid that giving voice to it is what makes it real. When he swallows, it looks painful. "I hear things other people don't hear. I see things other people don't see."

He won't say that aren't real, because how can you tell? How can anyone tell?

[asklepios]

If she were sitting in her office in Paris- her response would be different, she's privately aware. In Baedal, she has to allow for the possibility that they are real - or at least that they might indicate something other than what her medical training conventionally suggests. It doesn't warrant not treating someone who plainly needs help, but it does necessitate a slightly more extensive testing procedure than she's accustomed to prescribing.

Which is going to have to be delicately handled, she can tell.

“It must be a very scary, very difficult thing to do, to come here today,” she says, resting her pen against the notepad. “I hope that you're going to be glad you did come. I am going to do everything that I can to help you find out why that is, and what we can do for you. Can you tell me more about what you do remember happening? Maybe tell me about before and after. Were you at home? Was Benji with you?”

[cestrumnocturnum]

There's no searching glance dealt Wolfgang's way at confession to drug use -- it's filed away as something important to factor into the future, but emotional or intellectual reaction is more or less put on hold.

Honesty in place of I'm fine has this affect. But Benji listens just as keen to Vanessza's words, even if this exchange is not intended for her. She wants to know that Wolfgang will be okay, maybe, that the doctor she recommended will try.

And tell him so. She tips a look to Wolfgang, knowing the gaps in memory, the uncertainty he has, but giving him a chance to answer before she can supply anything.

[gramarye]

"I went out... everything was fine, then I -- I kept seeing this mist, it looked like the Fog, but no one else saw it, they didn't believe me. I thought, because I'm... different... that maybe they just don't see it. It scared me.

"Benji came and got me. They followed me on the train, they had -- they put something in me. I mean, I thought they did. I felt it moving. When I look later, it's gone.

"Someone was talking to me. I heard them before, but I... they never yelled at me before, but they were. They sounded scared, they said I -- that I did something wrong. I couldn't think. They were saying bad things about my friends. They wouldn't stop talking, I couldn't hear anything, just... shouting." He scrubs his hands over his face. "I fell asleep, I guess. When I woke up, it all stops."

[asklepios]

Her notes continue a few moments after Wolfgang's stopped talking, but she's careful not to seem to be ignoring him in favour of them - her focus is on him, more.

“How long have you been off your last medication?” she asks, quietly.