Over & Over

"It’s been six days.” Camille rubs at her eyes, brings attention to the dark circles beneath them. There’s a short pause as Camille looks off and Dr. Witz pretends to blink. Then she shrugs, slowly clasping her hands together on the dining table. “I don’t know. He’s normally not this bad. Six days, I think, is the longest he’s gone up in there.”

“Has he been taking his medication?”

Camille drags her eyes over to address him with a dull look. “His medication?” she parrots.

“Yes. Has he been taking his medication?”

A scoff. “If he was, do you think he’d locked himself in there?” Camille watches as Dr. Witz visibly retracts from his previous question, gives his notebook a glance instead and shifts in his seat at the table. Her hypothetical fangs return to their hiding place. “It happens in phases, Witz. Phases. It’s like, if he can’t even trust his own mother, who can he trust?” She gives another rigid shrug with her lips rolled inside her mouth, holding back threatening tears. But the crack in her voice can’t hide it any longer: she’s losing it.

“I,” softly starts Dr. Witz. “I think you have to give him more time. You know you can’t force him out, and you can’t make him eat. Give him time. He’ll come out.” He leans forwards in his seat again and attempts at direct eye contact. “It’s like a petulant child.”

“Does a petulant child run away every other month because he can’t trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Does a petulant child threaten to kill himself if I ever get near him?”

Hesitance. “Well —”

“Does a petulant child scratch himself up? Does a petulant child literally starve himself for several days because he can no longer trust his own mother’s cooking? Does a petulant child only eat when he’s provided with money to purchase and cook his own food? Does a petulant ch —”

Dr. Witz raises his hands in silent defeat. “Mrs. Harris. I understand. But he always comes back, doesn’t he? He’ll come out, and he’ll eat.”

Camille shakes her head. “He’ll only eat if I give him the money. That’s the only way that’s worked. He hasn’t eaten my homemade dinner for nearly five months now.” She rapidly blinks back the surfacing tears, rubs at the circles beneath her eyes. Then she turns to Dr. Witz and says, voice hoarse, “He thinks I’m a monster. And I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong.”

“He’s in a hard time right now. He’s suffering.”

“We all are. My own child hates me and he thinks no one else is going through hard times?”

Dr. Witz reaches out to her, but doesn’t make contact. Not yet. “It’s a mental disease, Ms. Harris. It’s all in his head. It’s,” he takes a pause to gather the right words. “it’s a slow death. A guide to stop breathing.”

The horror on Camille’s face is not surprising to see. “So he won’t stop? He won’t stop until he’s offed himself?”

“The mental illness,” Dr. Witz corrects. “The mental illness won’t stop until he’s dead. But that’s where you come in. That’s where we come in.”

Camille stops to further process all of this. But he can see her head visibly turning and her mind grinding and he knows, then, that she’ll never completely understand. But that’s okay, that’s part of the process: realization, shock, processing, then understanding and evaluation. Once she knows how to help him, the next step will be getting him to know how to help himself, Dr. Witz thinks. Then that’ll be his time to come in.

No matter what, he’s got to definitely stop the slow death. The guide to stop breathing.