Slender Man

In all honesty, I was glad to see her this morning because I was in a shitty mood by the time I left our apartment. I told my mom over breakfast that I wanted to stop seeing Dr. Casemiro, that it was making me feel awkward and that I clearly wasn’t getting anything out of it because I’d had a nightmare two nights before, but she wasn’t having any of it. She loves to really lean into that parental hypocrisy of telling me I’m an adult when she wants me to take more responsibility or stop doing something she doesn’t like but refuses to actually let me make anything resembling an important decision for myself. She said the same stuff she always says: that when I’m eighteen – a legal, court-authorized adult, which is an unbelievably stupid concept if you take even a second to think about it – I can do whatever I want, including refusing to see Dr. Casemiro anymore.

Until then, I basically have to eat shit and smile about it. My words, not hers.

I told her thanks very much, but I don’t think I managed to fill it with as much sarcasm as I intended, because she just nodded her head and told me to have a good day.

In fairness, it actually was a pretty good day, but there was no way I was going to tell her that when I got home. She got the noncommittal grunt she deserved before I came in here to my room and slammed the door. Because two can play at being unreasonable, if that’s the game she wants.

No problem at all.

AP Math was painfully boring, but English was OK. We’re studying Tender Is the Night and today we were talking about the treatment of Nicole’s mental illness, about how Fitzgerald lets the reader know via flashback what’s actually happening although Dick Diver keeps it a secret from the other characters for as long as he can. It carries a lot more weight when you know that Nicole is really Zelda Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald is basically telling the real story of their life together in the novel. It’s clever, in a sort of meta way. I hated The Great Gatsby, but I’m quite enjoying this one.

We had a free period after lunch, and I got a little bit of work done on the story I’ve been writing. It’s still not working quite how I want it to, and I’m still not totally sure how to fix it, but I wrote a few paragraphs that I’m pretty pleased with, and I think I can make them better tomorrow if I get time. I would work on them tonight, but I’m about an hour’s grind from levelling up my new Warlock and I think that’s about all I’ve got the energy for right now.

I’m really tired. Not the kind of tired where you’re going to feel great if you give yourself an extra hour’s sleep: that kind of deep tiredness that makes it feel like your bones are made of lead, like someone has turned all your dials down to zero and locked them.

This is what Dr. Casemiro is supposed to be helping me with. She’s clearly doing an awesome job, although I’ll admit that actually going to sleep before one in the morning would probably not be the worst idea in the world.

But fuck it.

I know I’m my own worst enemy :)

— — — —

From the desk of

DR. JENNIFER CASEMIRO, M.D.

596 WEST 72

STREET, NY 10021

March 15, 2018

Dear Paul and Kimberley,

Further to our call yesterday, please find below my assessment of my first month working with Matthew. Please be assured that I understand your concerns about what you perceive to be a lack of visible progress – I can only attempt to reassure you that such progress rarely occurs at the speed you are (understandably) hoping for and, in my experience, its absence does not signify anything more significant than the issues of trust-building and boundary-testing that are common to the early stages of a professional relationship of this type.

Matthew possesses high levels of intelligence and awareness, and has made it clear that he is unwilling to work with me on the issues for which he was referred. Despite that, I believe significant progress has in fact been made.

His initial statements were that he did not want to talk to me, and that he considered my attempts to induce him to do so to be a violation of his human rights. This grand language is not unusual, especially in teenagers of Matthew’s intelligence. It is a common form of diversion, in which he avoids the issue of why he doesn’t want to talk to me by expanding our conversation to a point of general absurdity, in this case the issue of human rights.

In the last week or so, Matthew’s objections to working with me have changed. He no longer states that he does not want to – he has now repeatedly stated that he does not see any point in doing so. This marks a significant shift, in my experience. He has moved past a dogmatic refusal to talk to me, and has moved onto a more personal objection, i.e. that he does not believe I can help him with what he perceives to be a medical issue. This, although it may not seem so to you, is progress. It suggests a willingness to engage with our process, provided that I can convince him of its potential usefulness. This is what I have focused on during our last two sessions.

As you know, I have asked him to keep a diary. He has apparently done so – he has shown me the pages he has written, although I (obviously) cannot guarantee that he is taking it seriously – although it is clear that he resents it. We have discussed it, however, and those conversations have been illuminating.

Persistent refusal to engage requires a level of self-control that few teenagers possess, and even Matthew, who is both intelligent and unquestionably composed, is not able to neuter his speech entirely. Our conversations have revealed the frustrations and doubts that are entirely common to this period of late adolescence, the period in which most teenagers find themselves caught between the desire to be in charge of themselves and the unavoidable reality of the rules and restrictions that come with living at home.

He makes several references to his belief that you will be disappointed in him if he chooses any career other than the law, so much so that he believes you would actually prevent it by refusing to pay for college tuition in any other field. I do not know whether this is something that you have ever made explicitly clear to him, but it has become a deeply-held belief. I suggest that you discuss this with each other, and then with him.

I am also convinced that his frustration and worry are at least partly responsible for the issue for which you referred him to my practice, i.e. recurrent nightmares and sleeplessness. This is the central issue that I will continue to focus our sessions on.

I hope this sets your mind at rest. There are no reliable timetables for the work that I do, and while I know from long experience that this can be frustrating, I would ask you to allow the process to continue. I can assure you that we are making progress, even if you are currently struggling to see it.

Yours sincerely,

Jennifer Casemiro, M.D.

TRANSCRIPTS OF AUDIO RECORDED ON MATTHEW BARKER’S CELLPHONE

Recording begins: March 16, 03:24

Jesus

That was

Hold on

Let me just

OK

OK

It’s 3.24 in the morning, and I know that exactly because I’ve been staring at my phone screen for the last ten minutes waiting for my heart to slow down. It was on the pillow when I woke up. I must have fallen asleep still with it and right now I’m really grateful for that because if it was on the bedside table where it usually is I would have been fucked. I tried to turn on my lamp a few minutes ago and I reached out and my hand disappeared and I couldn’t see it anymore and I started wondering what I would do, what I would really actually really do, if fingers closed around my wrist and I pulled my hand back and put it under the covers and I could feel my whole body shaking like I was freezing.

So

Jesus

I need to

Recording ends: March 16, 03:26

Recording begins: March 16, 03:30

OK.

It’s 3.30 now and it feels like my head is sort of starting to clear. I just … Jesus. Seriously. I don’t know if that was the worst nightmare I’ve had since they started but if it wasn’t then I’m just really glad I can’t remember the ones that were worse.

I can still feel it. Does that make sense? Like it was an actual thing, like a physical thing that attached itself to my skin and it feels like I can’t scrape it off. Like if I close my eyes I’ll be back inside it.

I managed to turn the lamp on. It took literally every ounce of bravery I’ve got, but I feel a little bit better now.

I never used to be able to remember dreams, not the good ones or the bad ones. I sometimes had that vague feeling when I woke up that I had been dreaming, because it felt like I wasn’t really as rested as I should have been for the amount of time I’d been asleep, and sometimes there were images I didn’t recognize in my head, like photographs I know I didn’t take, but the dreams themselves, the details, were always gone by the time my eyes opened.

For the last couple of months it hasn’t been like that. At all. And this one was no different. I can remember every single bit of it.

I already know it’s going to sound stupid but right now I don’t give a shit. Like, at all. Because dreams always sound stupid. They don’t translate properly to other people, because they come out of some place deep inside yourself and what’s absolutely fucking terrifying to me probably means absolutely nothing to you, or to anyone else. But I have to get this out. I think it will be less, afterwards. Like it’s diminished or something. I don’t know.