“What does the figure look like … in your mind?”

  “I don’t know.” Pete struggled. “I try not to really think about it. I usually just shake my head and push it away. I mean, it’s crazy right?”

  “Crazy is a useless word.” Dr. Flanagan replied. “If you were crazy, you wouldn’t know it, which means you wouldn’t say it out loud.”

  Pete cracked his fingers, and cleared his throat. “Okay.” He allowed. “I guess…red? Big and red and sort of evil-wizard looking.” He took a second to reflect. “Oh!” He added. “And it’s carrying something, like a sword or a … hammer. Like it wants to hit me with whatever it is.” Then Pete nodded satisfied. “Yep. That’s it. When I get the feeling that I’m being watched, I picture Evil Gandalf.”

  Dr. Flanagan chuckled and wrote it all down, speaking as she did so. “Gothika.” She said, finishing.

  “What?” Pete asked, confused.

  The doctor put down her notebook and folded her hands. “It’s a movie. Pretty scary. Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr. There’s a scene where the ghost girl grabs Halle Berry and starts screaming. When I used to commute from my first job, late at night, for some reason I couldn’t stop imagining something like that ghost screaming in my rearview mirror. Scared the shit out of me. Never happened obviously, but it sure felt like it could.”

  “So, what are you getting at?” Pete asked, waiting for the point.

  “Well.” Dr. Flanagan started, “You try to push the image from your mind, not because you’re afraid of being watched by ‘Evil Gandalf’, but because you’re afraid of being crazy.”

  Pete shrugged. “Who wouldn’t be afraid of that?”

  “A crazy person.” Flanagan shot back.

  Pete laughed and shook his head. It was his second appointment. Friday night at 5 p.m. He and the doctor had developed a strong rapport fairly quickly. He liked her, and he liked meeting at the end of the week. The “buffer zone” of Saturday and Sunday gave him time to reflect without having to run right into another workday.

  “Let’s change topics.” Dr. Flanagan shifted. “Tell me, where are you at when you feel the most anxiety? What kind of situations?”

  “Restaurants, for sure,” Pete answered rubbing his hands on his knees. “I can’t handle restaurants at all. I can’t eat. I get hot. I feel sick the whole time I'm there.”

  “Restaurants and family get-togethers. Those are the two hardest for me right now,” He leaned out over the coffee table and started to make designs in a miniature rock garden that Dr. Flanagan had recently added to the office.

  “Ok”, she began, “But, what if you, say…went through the drive-thru alone at McDonald’s? Could you eat then?” She was wearing her signature rock band t-shirt and jeans combo.

  “Yeah. No problem with that at all,” Pete replied. “I’m much better when I’m alone.”

  Doctor Flanagan went back to her notes. “Why do you suppose that is?”

  “Well,” Pete said, “I think that maybe it’s got something to do with letting down Natalie.”

  “That’s interesting,” She probed. “In what way?”

  Pete took a breath, to think. He could smell the candle burning across the room.

  Lilac.

  “So, when I’m alone, I don’t really care if I get sick or pass out because it’s just me, and who cares if I look stupid, right? But if I’m with Natalie, and maybe we’re at her parents’ or I’ve taken her out to dinner, and I get sick or have to leave because I’m having an anxiety attack, then it’s like I’m messing up her life. Like I’m letting her down. You know?”

  “I do.” Dr. Flanagan affirmed, taking a sip of her water. “Go on,”

  “Okay. So, a lot of the time, I kind of fantasize about being alone, a million miles away from anyone. Like, if I could just be totally alone for a long enough time, I could face all this mental stuff without being afraid. Without worrying that I’m going to let somebody down or get somebody hurt.”

  Pete stopped speaking. He looked into the designs he’d made in the mini rock garden, while Dr. Flanagan gave him a moment to process.

  “I think you’re right, Pete,” she began. “And I think that in some ways it probably would be easier to just be alone. That’s not a strange thought to have. It’s not a ‘wrong’ thought to have. But the thing is, so many of your worst moments revolve around the idea of letting down the people you care about, and that puts too much pressure on you. Pressure to hide your symptoms. Pressure to pretend to feel normal. Pressure to keep family and friends away from things that you think might cause them pain. And what I think you need to realize is that it’s okay to be honest and vulnerable with them too. Just like you’ve been with me. Just like you’ve been with Natalie.

  She paused, smirking. “Even if that means you don’t go to Applebee’s for a while.”

  Pete smiled at the joke.

  The doctor looked at the clock, and changed topics again. “So, what did you think of Descartes?”

  Pete leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. “Well, I didn’t read everything, but what I did gather was basically that the guy had this sort of obsessive need to … I don’t know … go back to basics. Like, he got into this philosophical spiral where he decided he couldn’t trust anything, or that maybe he couldn’t trust that anything was even real at all. Does that sound right?”

  Pete waited for a reaction, hoping he hadn’t just embarrassed himself.

  “Yes! You hit the nail on the head!” Dr. Flanagan answered him. “Descartes pursued truth. And he believed that the best place to start that pursuit was at the very foundation of perception. In other words, he started systematically going through all the things that he knew to be solid and true in this universe, searching for assumptions that couldn’t be subject to rational doubt in any way.

  “And,” she continued, “he actually planned it all out long before, believing that in order to do so, he was going to need to have a lot of time to himself.”

  She stood and walked over to the small refrigerator, getting another bottle of water. “Pete,” she said, handing it to him, “Doesn’t that sound familiar? A man questioning his reality? Wanting to be alone to do it?” She sat back down and waited.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Ok, but he did this on purpose!” Pete’s voice was agitated. “He was some rich French guy from four hundred years ago that could afford to go be alone and figure this shit out! I can’t do that! I’ve got a wife, and a job, and bills to pay, and . . . oh, by the way! I didn’t ask for any of this!”

  Pete looked around the room, exasperated. “And listen, I know what you want from me. Okay, I get it. ‘I think therefore I am.’ But even if I could start from that point, it doesn’t change the fact that things just don’t feel right to me.”

  He rose and wandered over to a painting on the wall, sighing. “It used to be that my most intense dreams could never feel even remotely like the real world, but now I have moments where my waking life doesn’t seem any more ‘concrete’ to me than a nightmare. So, you tell me, Doc. How do I make that stop?”

  Dr. Flanagan watched him stare at the painting. “He does look broken, she observed, Something in the eyes. Exhausted. Confused. But he’s got so much potential, you just can’t help but want to fix –“

  …

  But suddenly she was reminded of a very odd conversation she’d had at the Hocking County Fair only weeks before, and a certain bespectacled ‘friend’ who happened to own a… ‘hardware store’.

  “Free tools for the woman who fixes things!”

  She could almost make out the sound of the honeybee, still buzzing.

  …

  “You know what?” she admitted. “You’re right. What you’ve gone through, you didn’t ask for, and it's not fair to simply say that somebody else figured it out, so you should too. I’m sorry about that. But I want you to consider that what you’re experiencing has been thought about, talked about, and written about before. And most importantly, that there is a precedent for these kinds of feelings... being temporary. Remember Lady Julian? ‘All shall be well...”

  “All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well,” Pete finished.

  The doctor spoke on, calmly. “We can’t say quite yet, why this has happened to you, but I do know that it’s not your fault. And as long as we remind ourselves that there are others who have survived this before, then at the very least, we can take comfort knowing that there’s a real strategy for getting through this. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah,” Pete said, sitting back down. “It does.”

  “And what about violent thoughts? Thoughts of self-harm? Where are we on that?”

  Pete looked down, embarrassed. “Well, it's not great.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “I don’t really trust myself. You know? Like, I don’t want to stand next to a ledge because all I see in my mind is me jumping off. I don’t want to stand next to anyone else on a ledge because all I see is me pushing them off. It’s that way with everything. I walked by a kid on crutches the other day, and suddenly, I had an image of me kicking his crutches out from under him.”

  He stopped talking, visibly uncomfortable rehashing these moments.

  “Pete, I'm going to tell you something that might seem strange,” Dr. Flanagan began. “Those thoughts are textbook symptoms of obsessive thought disorders like OCD. They are incredibly common. What you’re experiencing is not actually a desire to hurt yourself or anyone else. In fact, it's just the opposite. You have a strong desire not to hurt anybody at all. But even though you don't want to do, or think about, any of these things, your mind searches for disturbing thoughts because you’re filled up with so much anxiety."

  Pete looked confused. "So, you're telling me that even though I'm already freaking out, my brain wants me to freak out... more? How does that work?"

  "Well, think of it like this.” Dr. Flanagan responded. “You can’t think about ‘nice’ and ‘happy’ when your body is constantly pumping you full of adrenaline. So, your mind matches your anxious state and shows you ‘scary’ and ‘violent.’ Do you understand?”

  Pete was stunned into silence. Like an audience member at a magic show. “Huh,” he finally managed. “That actually does seem... kinda logical.”

  “Obsessive thinking,” the doctor continued, “is not just about washing your hands a hundred times a day or constantly worrying that your relatives are going to die. It’s a symptom of underlying issues that, when treated appropriately, can lead to the obsessive and disturbing thoughts fading away. Everyone has imagined terrible things in their life, but the difference between the people who don’t obsess about it and you is that your mind will not allow you to let go and compartmentalize those images.”

  She scooted in her chair leaning out toward Pete. “I might stand on a balcony and think, ‘Whoa, that's a long way down. I wonder what would happen if I jumped off,’... and then I forget it and move on, without letting the thought bother me. You, on the other hand, stand on the same balcony, having the same thought, but then it gets followed by ‘Oh no, I think I might actually jump,’ or ‘Oh no, what if I push somebody off?’ You can’t just put the image away, and that’s because you're in this constantly anxious state.”

  Pete started to grin. “How do you do that?” He laughed. “I don’t get how you know exactly what to say when I don’t. Not to brag, but I’m a pretty smart guy. It's not like I haven’t been researching OCD and anxiety and depression and schizoaffective and everything else under the sun. How have I not found these answers?”

  “I spent a lot of money and went to school for a very long time,” Dr. Flanagan answered, also laughing.

  “Have you been taking the Zoloft?” She moved on to the next topic.

  “Yes,” Pete answered, “and now that it's been a few days, I do notice that it helps. It sort of makes it so that I forget to obsess. I mean, I actually forget to be upset, which is kind of cool.”

  “Good!” Dr. Flanagan emphasized. “That’s very good. And the Xanax?”

  “The Xanax is amazing!” Pete’s eyes widened, and he laughed again. “That stuff has gotten me through some moments I know I would have been otherwise stuck in the bathroom. I also finally get to sleep at night, which is nice.”

  But then his expression changed, looking puzzled.

  “Although, I do feel that I don’t have emotions like normal. Like the volume on everything is turned way down. Kind of like I’ve become the Lite Beer version of myself, you know?”

  Dr. Flanagan responded, unphased. “Yes, that’s very common, and it's a sign that things are working. Ideally, you won’t need the medication forever. What we want is for the prescriptions to help lower your anxiety and cut down on the frequency of your obsessive thoughts while you put yourself back together. And then, once we’ve processed these issues, we won’t need the prescriptions anymore. Think of the pills like training wheels on a bike. They’re beneficial for allowing you the time you need to learn how to pedal on your own.”

  “Well, it really does help.” Pete said. “Thank you, Dr. Flanagan.” He started to gather his things.

  “Call me Julie,” she said walking over to her desk. “And there's something else before you go.”

  “Okay?” Pete watched and waited.

  Julie reached into a drawer and pulled out something that looked like a black necklace. “You said last week that part of what bothered you was that you’ve always considered yourself a religious guy, right? And that the idea of reality not making sense was kind of the opposite of believing in God.”

  “Yeah,” Pete said, studying her.

  For a brief instant, Julie Flanagan appeared to daze off, staring down at the necklace. She smiled and whispered something to herself that Pete couldn’t quite make out. He thought she might have said “Belief stuff.” But then she was walking toward him.

  “I want you to take this.” She handed him the jewelry. It had beads up and down, and at the bottom was a Crucifix. It took Pete a second to realize it was a Rosary.

  “I’m not Catholic,” he said chuckling.

  “I’m not a Christian!” Julie stated. “And maybe religion isn’t even the point. Existential crisis or existential depression calls into question everything about the world around us, and oftentimes people in these situations feel like they are simply adrift at sea, at the mercy of the waves and the storms, right?”

  “I guess so,” Pete agreed.

  “So, in situations like that, it’s helpful to find an ‘anchor,’” she continued. “For some people, that anchor could be found in meditation, or exercise, or philosophy like Descartes. But don’t think of it so much as a ‘religious artifact’. Just think of it as a ‘tool for belief’.”

  Pete held up the Rosary obviously confused, clearly doubting this new strategy.

  “Listen,” Julie began, noticing his puzzled look. “Do you do yoga?”

  “No,” Pete replied.

  “Are you going to go run three miles every day?” she continued.

  “No,” he smirked.

  “Then think of it as a way to exercise your mind. And if we’re lucky, it might help you to find that ‘anchor’ we’re looking for.” She held out her hand. “Next week?”

  Pete shook it, grinning. “Okay, Doc. I’ll give it a try. Wait... sorry, Julie.”

  He turned toward the door, leaving Julie in the middle of the room. She said one last thing to him before he walked out. “And remember, ‘I think, therefore...”

  Pete looked back, and answered the call, “I am.”