ten_fwd | [Counselor's Offices]: Round Two Counseling Sessions

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[Counselor's Offices]: Round Two Counseling Sessions

You'll find the Counseling Offices, and it's Counseling Staff run by Counselor Troi, located on Deck 8. A message which has been passed along to the new arrivals and those who've been here for longer several times. From their first appointments in sickbay after arrival up to the newest happenstances since then, which continue to lead to a greater need.

For those entering for the first time, you find these offices are of subdued, calming green walls with equally unobtrusive light purple furniture, and gentle ambient light. Each of the rooms has an assortment of chairs, tables, and even a snaking reclining couch, which may be used for sitting or laying down on as you feel called.

Nothing to worry about and no pressure from the moment you walk in.

They're here to help as best they can.

[ooc: Counseling Sessions are, as will be always, OTA and open for backtagging! Like the Sickbay posts, you can expect one of these every month, so no stressing if you can't make one, we'll be back next month.

For new characters/players: tagging and counseling is NOT mandatory. Deanna Troi is acting as head of the Counseling Staff, but all staff are available to you. If you have prearranged to be meeting with a specific counselor, tag in specifying which counselor are requesting in the subject line, otherwise one will leap at you as they are available. All your information and questions about the Counseling Staff can be found here.

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Annie has spent a lot of effort trying to work out this counselling thing. For Finnick's sake first and foremost, yes, but she hadn't been lying when she told him that she was tired of being like this. Being mad. Being this miserable. Being unable to consistently think, focus, function. Withstand stress. And for all the conversation with Deanna had confused her, at least she got this much: an appointment, with someone she at least had met before.

The dancing had helped. A little. But possibly more to the point, Hugh Cambridge had been careful in his way. Created a partner for her, and then changed it to a ridiculous, animated stick-figure when the holographic man had seemed too real. All without treating her wariness as something to mock. Something that was wrong, yes, but then, she knows it's wrong.

(Or at least, that she takes it too far. Her normal, as in normal from her world, seems to be set on a higher wariness setting that the Federation citizens have.)

On the day of her appointment, Annie takes care to make sure her clothes are neat. Buttons on her peach waistcoat done up, her jacket straight, belt fitting around her waist, trousers not tangled with the laces of her boots), her hair is in a tidy braid instead of a messy one, the necklace Finnick had made her is straight (although the true love's knot shifts as she walks.)

And she makes sure she's on time. A little early, even.

She's nervous. Early helps. It gives her time to think, which is never a good thing when she's nervous, but at least no one is waiting on her. That can be worse.

Edited 2015-08-28 05:56 (UTC)

With his last patient, he wanted to see if she would stay. Tested her, waited a little late, to make sure that counseling was something she was actually committed to, that it was really what she wanted. With Annie, his thoughts are different. She is already tentative, afraid, but he has confidence that if she's decided to do this, then she's decided to do this. No need to make sure. No need to torture her with nervousness.

So she hardly has to wait a moment before he steps to the door, such that it slides open.

"Good morning," he says, "relatively speaking. Come in."

He has no space claimed in the counseling office. It's for her to pick first.

Her smile, small as it is, is relieved. A little startled, because she is early, and what if- (No, stop that.) But relieved.

"Morning," Annie echoes. Thinks about agreeing with him on the relativeness of the good (could be worse, probably could be better, but 'good' works), but distracts herself by scanning the room as she walks in. She'd been a mess the first time she'd come in, her analysis of the room more in pieces than a coherent whole. Now, she can take it in better. It's designed so much to be peaceful, she's not sure if she likes it, but at least she has a better idea of the room itself.

She glances at him, but as he seems to be waiting to see where she sits first, she makes her way over to the couch. Specifically, the narrowest curve of the couch. She'd prefer an armchair, with the security of arms around her, but given there's just the one, she thinks it'd make her feel as if there's too much attention on her. Too much focus. The curve has some security, and she could move. If she needed.

"I'm, uh, still not quite sure how this all works," she admits, sitting down. Back straight, hands in her lap (but nervous, restless), dark green eyes watching him a bit more than she watches the rest of the room. "Or. How it all starts."

He takes the armchair, then, because he thinks it's more important to put space between them than establish that they're On The Same Side. His posture is casual, and comfortable, but not obnoxiously so. (He can definitely be obnoxious with that.)

"Well, actually," he says, "unlike conventional medical treatment - something you have experienced - there isn't a set way to go about it. I know that's unhelpful, for someone who's having difficulty navigating it, but I'd express, up front, that there isn't a wrong way unless it isn't working for you. And if it isn't, we can change tactics. You've only to express your discomfort to me, or let me spot it, and I'll do my best to ease the way. I'm very good at this, but I'm not psychic, unlike the head counselor."

And actually he wonders, a little, at her choosing him. Because it must have been a request - or, probably was a request, especially as an appointment made in advance.

But, he's given a fairly good demonstration of his personality as somewhat brisk and blunt but at least vaguely helpful. It appealed to her on some level, or she wouldn't be here.

"Generally, it starts a bit awkwardly," he admits. "It's not easy to get used to a format like this. Not to a person who's, for example, generally had friendships that are equal in give-and-take, or to a person who's never or only rarely had someone listen. The few things I would like to emphasize are these: first, that you can walk out of here any time you want to. Second, that nothing you say will leave my mind unless I feel it's necessary to stop some impending harm, and yes, I do have training in blocking psychic invasions. And that's with a reassurance that Starfleet has tried to force me to turn over patient notes before when I did not agree, at which time I destroyed them and nearly got myself court-martialed."

It was a whole thing.

"Finally," he says, "other counselors would emphasize to you here that you are in control of this process. I would say the opposite. You are not in control of this process. This process will be steered by us both, and I will never fail to listen to your input, but you are not the one here with expertise. You do not know how to proceed on your own. Otherwise, you wouldn't be coming to me. Understand that I don't intend this as threat, but as reassurance - being in control of all aspects of your life, and feeling it spiral out of control, is terrifying. I know it is. I can help you pull it back, but only if you trust me."

He holds up a hand. "And, hang on. I know you have no reason to trust me yet. You don't know me from Adam; there's no reason to trust me. I would say not to worry about that. There's plenty of time, and you can whenever you like decide that I can't help you, at which time you can take your pick of the other individuals ostensibly qualified."

A brief pause. "Is any of that unclear? And do you have other immediate questions before we begin?"

The tilting of her mouth at the mention of Deanna Troi might be a first clue; psychics are not among Annie's favourite people. Troi's the only one she's actually met, but Annie's wariness isn't based off ignorance. It's nothing that can really be remedied by knowing more psychics. It's based on two very simple facts: the only privacy she's ever had has been inside her own head, and if the Capitol had any psychics, she'd be very, very dead.

So his explanation of the security of his mind is reassuring.

Mostly reassuring.

Too convenient, comes a quiet whisper. A whisper she doesn't try and argue against while he's still talking. She needs to concentrate. Later. Later she will logic it all out.

But it is reassuring. That straight-forward care. He'd shown that, earlier. In his way. She trusts it more easily than niceness, than kindness.

(She doesn't quite know what 'court-martialed' is, but she'll looked it up.

Later.)

The more he talks, she doesn't so much as settle as settle a bit. A bit more. A tiny amount, because what he says makes sense.

She doesn't know. She's been trying, for years. That's why she's here.

"It's clear," Annie says, then hesitates. "Not, not a question. But. Thank you for not expecting me to just, um. Blindly trust things. Folks here tend to."

A tendency which is frustrating, annoying, and makes her suspicious of motives.

"They're frustrated," he says, dryly. "After all, it's an awful inconvenience to cope with an influx of strange refugees." Especially when some of them are clear threats, and all of them are unknowns to a degree unprecedented in Cambridge's experience. Unknown worlds, as well as races and powers.

"But," he says, "their reaction is perhaps more borne out of growing up and living in a reasonable world. With a reasonable government. And the idea that if reasonable people take reasonable actions, that should be acknowledged and honored. Your experience is rather different, I think. Am I wrong?"

Another hesitation, this time longer. A little more fraught.

A reasonable government, she presumes, does not bomb its citizens into submission. A reasonable government does not starve them into the same. A reasonable government does not shoot those who try to move. A reasonable government does not offer children a choice between starvation and increased chance at dying in a televised arena. A reasonable government doesn't treat the victors of that arena the way hers has (bugging their houses, tearing them apart in chat shows, holding them hostage, killing their family, selling them).

A reasonable government would not be like the Capitol at all.

Except even she would be beaten for saying it.

Except she's not in Panem. She's very, very much not in Panem, and if she wants to try and regain something more of herself, she has to at least try to be honest.

"No," Annie says, eyes not leaving his face. Watching for reactions. "You're not wrong."

He holds her gaze, firm and steady.

He can see what that statement costs her. He doesn't flinch away from it; he doesn't minimize it. He sees it, and shows her that he sees it.

"What you feel makes sense to me," he tells her. Each word is firm. "You are reacting to trauma and terror. And the sheer disorientation of a place so different from home." A beat, so he can emphasize: "You are not insane."

Cambridge means every word, and he says it like he means it. It feels to him, instinctively, that acknowledging her pain and her emotions is an important first step, and perhaps an essential first step to Annie being willing to bring them to the table. Being willing to speak. After all, who speaks when they don't believe anyone will listen?

Annie doesn't tend to meet people's gazes for long, or else she looks at them for far too long. She gets distracted, forgets to look away because she's concentrating on other things.

Here, she's concentrating on his words. How he says them. What the words mean, with context and history and motivation and knowledge and-

She blinks, glances away, her jaw working a little as she thinks.

"My, uh. Fiancé would agree with you. That I am not crazy. 'Coz it's not bein' here, but, things that happened. In our world, years ago. It's...I.

I feel insane, a lot of the time. I act it. Sometimes. The others, the other victors. They can hold it together. Or, least more than me, in public."

Annie pauses and then her mouth tilts again, but this time, more wry than anything else.

"Probably should explain about that, right?"

"Seems like a good enough place to begin."

Context is key, after all; knowing where a person came from and what their world is like is necessary before ever understanding them.

He settles back, and lets his silence invite her to speak.

Annie hates having to explain. Hates waiting to see how folks react. But here, at least, she has to. She offered. She needs him to understand, and she needs to see how he reacts.

If she makes him cry, like she did Beverly, she's going to laugh and laugh because that won't be helpful at all.

(Her mouth curls, a little, in amusement at the thought. Not happy amusement.)

"Okay," Annie says, taking a deep breath. "I mentioned before, I'm from District Four, which used to be Mexico? There's twelve districts altogether in North America. Used to be thirteen, plus the Capitol, which is kinda like its own district. The Capitol rules, we provide. 'Cept there was a rebellion against the Capitol. District Thirteen was destroyed. Rest of us, as punishment, have to send two kids each year as tribute for the Hunger Games. Um.

The Hunger Games is. Okay. Um. Okay. The tributes are aged between twelve and eighteen, either selected by ballot or you can volunteer. They're put in an outdoor arena, and the last one standing wins. Is the victor. It's televised, of course. And as a symbol of the Capitol's generosity and mercy, the victor gets lots of money, and their district gets extra food for a year. This year was the seventy-fifth."

Mostly, her voice is even. Generosity and mercy gets a faint inflection of sarcasm, but otherwise, her tone is neutral. Hesitant, but then it often is.

In her lap, though, her hands are clenched around each other, and her shoulders are tense. Her gaze is back to being a flickering, uneasy thing, but she looks back at him for a long moment before she asks,

"Any, any questions, or what me to keep going?"

"A government that broadcasts and glorifies the murder of children."

He says it flatly, to be confirmed or denied. Last one standing could mean a lot of things, but the way she hesitates, the way her eyes move around, he thinks it means the worst.

If there is an emotional reaction here, it's a subtle one - like a chill in the air around Cambridge, a sharpening and tensing of some quiet quality in him. He doesn't move, and he watches her carefully, but without staring.

"Yes."

She says it simply, very precisely.

Yes.

"Not much point of a punishment if no one can see it, right? Least, that's where it started. Now, it's. The Capitol sees it as entertainment. There's a parade, we're all glossed up, public interviews, then there's the, the commentary during it."

Her eyes drop, back to her twisting, white-knuckled hands.

"And everyone has to watch. The games. Then the victor goes on a tour later, 'round all the districts. Gotta watch that, too."

She's bitter, grieving (all her friends, all her friends except Finnick who won and Yoko who failed to volunteer for her, she's outlived all of them, watched every single one die-), and it's starting to show.

"I...am the victor of the seventieth games. Didn't kill anyone. It's not common, but you can survive without killin'. Just gotta let everyone else die. In my case, drown. The arena broke, it was flooded. I just had to swim."

Then she laughs, so soft it's more an exhalation than an actual laugh.

"Which was a bit awkward for everyone. I, um. When my district partner was beheaded, I. Snapped. Ran off, couldn't stop laughing. Commentators thought it was funny. And creepy. But the mad ones aren't supposed to win."

Just be entertaining until they die.

(But Careers aren't supposed to break like that.)

Cambridge isn't shocked into crying, isn't reacting in a very visible way. His brows are furrowed, because he's putting this together in terms of a whole society. Methods of oppression are rarely so blatant, so obviously distracting. He wonders how well it really works. How aware the oppressed peoples are of their situation.

"Creepy," he echoes. His tone is flat and disdainful. That amount of ignorance and idiocy, though, is stunning. And appalling.

"Well," Annie says, softly, curling in on herself a bit more, "isn't it? Giggling at nothing. Or things that only I could see. She could see, from their perspective. Crying's normal. Laughter's strange."

She played it up, she could say. Same with her Victory Tour. Played it up, wound herself up and let herself go so she'd live, so they'd leave her alone, but then she just wanted the Capitol to leave her alone. Not her district.

They look at her, and it's that look, as if crazy is catching. As if she's wrong, broken, unpredictable, dangerous. Not real. Not Annie any more, and her vision's getting blurry with tears just trying to think about it all and put it into words to someone not from her circle.

But the words are getting stuck, twisted and jumbled. All she can get out is a repetition.

"Isn't it? Creepy?"

It is, it is, I just laughed because it's kinda funny, Tide was beheaded in the 68th (head stuck on a spike, or was it a spear?) and it's always heads and I saw all of it happen in different combinations but then it actually happened-

Annie presses her hand to her mouth, but if it's to hide a reaction or to keep herself from saying anything further if it's incoherent, possibly even she's not sure.

"No," he says. His voice is firm. "Your body and your mind were pushed over a brink. The result was, to use something of an outdated term, hysteria. It means that there were too many emotions for you to process at once, so your body expressed the emotion the only way it could. It means you were wounded so deeply that you couldn't say it. You couldn't comprehend it, in the moment. It's not creepy. And it's not your fault. It was done to you."

Ordinarily, in a first meeting, he would be spending much more time coaxing someone to tell their story, not telling them his... diagnosis, his opinion. Not sharing his knowledge. But she's been kept in the dark for so bloody long, and he doesn't like the hints of her judging herself.

"But it wasn't even that bad!" It's a snap, sharp enough to cut herself.

(And it does.)

"It was just. No torture. No lingerin' for ages. No screa-" but no, that's a lie, and she stops herself. Reego had begged. Begged them all. Begged her. Romula had screamed, but in anger. Then Romula'd looped off Reego's head.

"No poison, no one was eaten. It was just a. Decapitation. I didn't."

Annie presses her hands to her eyes, which is stupid, stupid, stupid, leaving herself open and vulnerable, but she has to stop the tears. Somehow.

"I didn't even know him that well," she finishes, her tone more confused than anything else.

He tilts his head, considering. There's no immediate denial. He listens, but he thinks, too.

"Whose voice are you speaking with?" he asks. "Who said that to you?"

The other victors, maybe. Her very co-traumatized peer group could be in the way.

There's a pause, filled only by her slightly ragged breathing, and then she lowers her hands to look at him. Her brows are furrowed, her expression a little blank. But not with too much emotion, not with any mental distance.

Just confusion.

"No one," Annie says, brushing her eyes impatiently. "I've seen all the others. The other games. At the, the time, seen most of 'em. That's one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-five deaths as of last year."

Forty seven dead in the Second Quarter Quell, two victors from the 74th.

She decides explaining would be too much of a tangent.

"And, and outside the games. Floggings take longer, are far more painful. I can watch them fine, now. You get used to it. So I should have been used to it. The other victors don't snap like that in the games, and a lot of them haven't even been-" trained.

She swallows, ducks her head. Brushes at her eyes again.

"No one said anything because they didn't have to," she says, very precisely. "It's a logical conclusion based on the evidence."

"No," he says. "It's not. You're feeding yourself a story. One where you are crazy. When, in reality, the story is that all pain hurts. And that a blow of the same force, given in a slightly different way, can mean nothing, can incapacitate, or can kill. The mind is no different."

He tilts his head. "It's not your voice," he says. "It's the voice of someone who told you that pain doesn't matter. Maybe the voice of a whole world that told you pain doesn't matter."

She's silent, for a moment. For a long, long moment. It's a silence made up not of not knowing what to say, but wanting to say far, far too much so that it all cancels each other out.

Of course I'm crazy, doesn't matter what Finnick says or thinks, I didn't make up a damn thing on my tour just exaggeratedprovokedmyselfsent myself insane

it's my voice it's my voice
mine
mine
i can put things together
(tooconsisentlogicformymadness)

'course pain doesn't matter everything you hurts you just
get
up
and keep going

(except me)

(and it's not the whole world, Finnick would never say that
or-)

that actually makes sense. of course blows can land differently, have different reactions, thank you, finally, someone makes some damn sense

"I," Annie starts. Stops again. But this time when she opens her mouth, the words come tumbling out, like water from an unsteady jug.

"I see things that aren't there. Sometimes. Mostly it's...not hallucinations, but kinda like imagined things. 'Cept I can't stop them. Or control them. And they're," violent, violent, graphic and implausible and horrible, "awful. Like. Stairs. I'll be convinced I can't go down them, because if I do, I'll...

Die. Or get... mangled."

She hates it. She hates it so much. And she's terrified of it, so she doesn't even dare close her eyes, no matter that she just wants to cry.

"I have. I have to ask Finnick what's real. What actually happened with things, because I'll look back and everything will be tainted. You said, before, that I couldn't turn the fear off? Or the paranoia? I can't. You're right, I can't, and it goes back and changes things. I can't, I don't. It.

I feel crazy."

Edited 2015-09-14 11:38 (UTC)

He listens, and he lets her speak. Only looks away to take a tissue and press it into her hands. She can cry. She's safe here.

"Do you want me to explain what's happening to your brain?" he asks, gentle, very much allowing for the possibility that she won't want to know.

Her fingers curl around the tissues, but it takes a few hiccuping breathes for her to gather herself to actually use one. Mostly, she watches him with dark sea-green eyes which are far too bright with tears and very, very intense.

Does she want him to explain?

Yes.

Yes.

A thousand times, yes, because she doesn't understand, and she's tried for years. Before her games, when everything started to go wrong and screwed up. Hours and hours thinking and turning things over, asking sometimes but mostly listening because to ask would be to admit, and to admit was terrifying and she doesn't know.

One of the reasons she would up screaming at Finnick over his revolutionary plans was that she hadn't known.

If she doesn't know, she can't plan.

But all Annie says is, "Yes. Please."

It can't be worse then not knowing.

"The way that the brain processes emotion is complicated," he begins. Not a great beginning. There's a lot about this that he wouldn't be able to begin to cover, but understanding doesn't require all the facts. It requires an anchor. "Emotion is at the heart of how we remember everything. Of course memories aren't chronological; they're not alphabetical, they're not orderly. They're lumped together. The way they lump has to do with what you were feeling at the time. They're - sticky. If you're afraid and helpless once, and you never fully process how it feels, then the next time you're afraid, it makes that part of your mind grow. The next time, again. And that's why, when you think about one feeling of fear, sometimes it brings up all the other ones, from little insecurities to life-threatening terror. It's all stuck together. It's the same. And you start to feel it all the time.

"And this begins to change the internal structure of your brain."

He wishes he had a sort of diagram, right now.

"A few structures, in particular. As the emotion grows stronger, the barrier between past and present becomes thinner. The area of the brain that stores and accesses memories starts shrinking, because your mind can't understand that those memories aren't still happening. It all feels as though it's now.

"An area of the brain responsible for pushing emotions to the back of your mind also starts shrinking. Because you can't mentally manage that. The emotion is in the forefront. It can't be forgotten.

"And, finally, the area of the brain to do with fear, with reflexive and emotional responses, grows. It's hyperactive because that's what the dominant emotional state is."

He pauses.

"It doesn't mean that you're broken," he says. "Even if the brain is exposed to this kind of danger once, it can react this way. And, I think you've been exposed rather more than that. How else are you supposed to react? When fear keeps you alive, when it's your life raft through the most awful experiences of your life, how are you supposed to let it go? Even when it starts to hurt you, it seems like the only option."

"There's reasons, to be afraid," she offers. Softly. "Always."

It's not a protest, or a defensive statement. It's something of an explanation, an agreement.

"So, um. It's kinda like, muscle memory, then? But in my brain?"

It's something Annie can understand. All her life, she's been physical. Careers, deckhand, work and play and all things in-between.

As long as either she can steadily do something, or she isn't prepped with fear, she reacts.

(Prepped with fear, and she freezes.)

"Thank you. For explaining."

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