Emergence - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The discussion with Lin Yi's mother went smoothly. She would do anything to see her daughter healed and free from her despair, never mind just cooperating with a move and occasionally assisting with psychological work. However, she felt incredibly guilty towards me. After all, as a caretaker, I needed to be with Lin Yi twenty-four-seven, and she knew how difficult Lin Yi was to be around now, that looking after her was an agonizing task. Fortunately, she didn't know that I had even quit my job for Lin Yi; she only knew me as another psychologist and was immensely grateful for the help from my senior and me.

Our first step in the treatment was to change Lin Yi's living environment. For this, Lin Yi needed to move into my home and live with me. A four-month-old infant normally couldn't be separated from its mother, but Lin Yi was currently incapable of fulfilling her maternal responsibilities and would, in fact, have a negative impact on the child. Moreover, the child's presence would adversely affect Lin Yi's treatment. The plan was to introduce the child at a later, intermediate stage of her therapy.

I now learned that Lin Yi's daughter was named Lin Wangyou, with the nickname Youyou. The name itself revealed how much she loved this child, embedding her deepest hopes into it. Although the name on the household register was currently Zhang Aijing, Lin Yi herself refused to acknowledge it. She was determined to change her daughter's name back one day.

Youyou was only four months old, far from weaning age. But Lin Yi's health was poor and her milk supply was low. About half a month ago, Lin Yi had stopped breastfeeding, and the child was now on formula. This conveniently avoided the issue of the child being unable to leave her mother for feeding.

My concern was that Lin Yi herself wouldn't be willing to move in with me. Although she suffered from a severe mental illness, she was not mentally incapacitated. She understood her situation and retained relatively normal social abilities. Her ability to utter such sarcastic and hurtful words, and to trick her way to the building's rooftop, showed that she was still very intelligent and possessed considerable aggression and defiance. She didn't like me at the moment, even viewed me with hostility. I had to be fully prepared. If she absolutely refused to move in, my senior and I might have to resort to more extreme measures, like hypnosis and psychological induction.

Fortunately, to my relief, Lin Yi didn't seem to resist much. Two days later, I brought her home. I had her sit in the living room while I took her luggage to the guest room to unpack. She had pathetically few belongings-just a single suitcase with some changes of clothes. When I finished unpacking and returned to the living room, I saw her sitting silently on the sofa. The TV was on, but she was staring at it blankly, mechanically changing the channel every two seconds with extreme regularity.

I had already received the treatment plan from my senior. One point was that when Lin Yi exhibited compulsive behaviors, I could, depending on the situation, interrupt her and redirect her attention elsewhere.

So, I pretended to walk past the television, observing her reaction from the corner of my eye. Her eyes didn't move at all; she didn't even look at me or seem to notice my presence. She continued the mechanical action of changing channels, once every two seconds, neurotic and perfectly regular. This seemed to be a behavior she also exhibited at her parents' house. The case notes provided by her mother mentioned this specific action: turning on the TV and constantly changing channels. However, this symptom was infrequent, only appearing after she was triggered and had an outburst of rage.

I had initially thought she was indifferent to the new environment or didn't mind moving. Now it seemed that wasn't the case. She was clearly affected by the unfamiliar surroundings; she felt uneasy and anxious, which triggered the compulsive behavior. At this moment, she was likely experiencing hallucinations and delusions, needing to repeat a certain action to feel secure. If forcibly interrupted, she could become even more agitated and frantic. The typical approach for a psychologist would be to let it run its course and guide her gently. But my senior had advised the opposite: whenever a compulsive symptom appeared, I should try to interrupt it and divert her attention.

So I sat down cross-legged in front of the TV, blocking the remote's infrared sensor with my body and obscuring a large part of the screen. Then, with my arms crossed and a smile on my face, I sat there, staring at her without blinking, waiting to see her reaction.

She continued pressing the remote out of habit for a few moments before realizing something was wrong-she could no longer change the channel, and an annoying figure had appeared in front of her. Her body began to tremble slightly. I saw her lower her head and bite her bottom lip until it turned white. Then, in a fit of anger, she threw the remote aside, stood up, and began pacing back and forth. I remained still, sitting on the floor, looking up at her and observing.

After a while, a pained, low growl started to emanate from her throat. It was a deeply unsettling sound, like someone being choked, a guttural noise that carried a hint of danger.

I frowned, my whole body tensing in preparation for any sudden, aggressive action she might take.

Then, I saw her, her beautiful eyes now bloodshot, walk towards the kitchen. A bad feeling washed over me-she was going for a knife! Reacting instantly, I leaped up from the floor, caught up to her in a few strides, and grabbed her. But her strength was astonishing; she threw off my hand in an instant.

I lunged forward again, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. She began to struggle violently, kicking her feet and finally letting out furious screams, shouting fragmented phrases.

"Kill you, kill! Hack you to death! Die!!! Die!!!"

I quickly shouted, trying to snap her out of what I knew was another hallucination.

"Lin Yi!! Lin Yi!!…"

I repeated her name over and over, tightening my grip around her waist, using my abdomen to push against her lower back. With all my strength, I leaned back, lifting her completely off the ground. With her legs dangling, she couldn't get any leverage and couldn't break free no matter how much she struggled. I was using every ounce of strength I had. When she was in this state, her power was immense, forcing me to use long-forgotten martial arts techniques to restrain her.

Clenching my jaw, I continued to call her name relentlessly. After what felt like an eternity, I felt her struggles finally begin to subside. Her whole body went limp, hanging against me. I had held that position for so long my waist was numb. Finally breathing a sigh of relief, I lowered her down. Even so, I didn't dare let go, keeping her locked securely in my arms.

I panted, my face and hair drenched in sweat. I was about to look down to check on her when a drop of sweat from my chin happened to fall on her long eyelashes. They fluttered, and she looked so captivating. My heart skipped a beat as I suddenly realized how intimate our position was. In that instant, it felt as if a hot water bottle had burst inside me, a warm current flooding my heart. I was overcome with an urge to kiss her.

But before I could act on it, her cold words doused me like a bucket of ice water.

"Can you let me go? Or are you unable to control yourself again?"

She was back to normal, but this must have been her superego state-a state where the id, after suppressing the ego, is in turn completely defeated and suppressed by the superego. I had encountered this version of her once before, that night in the bathroom when I was trying to undress her for a bath. In this state, she was extremely intelligent and dangerous, possessing a sharp-edged aggression that was even more perilous than her frantic episodes.

I slowly released my hands. She took a step back, creating distance between us. Her eyes were downcast, and that strange, sarcastic smile was on her face again.

"I know I'm living under your roof and have no right to make demands. You've helped me, and by rights, I should thank you, but that doesn't mean I will submit to you. My father is being discharged from the hospital, and neither my mother nor I want him to know about my current condition, so as someone with nowhere else to go, I can only stay here. Don't worry, I'll find a place as soon as possible. I won't trouble you for long. I also hope you can maintain your distance from me. Since you know what I've been through, you should know what I despise the most."

Her words weren't fierce, but they were incredibly painful. The last sentence, in particular, was like a dagger to the heart. Even though I was prepared, her words still cut me deeply. I took a deep breath, steadied my emotions, and said in as natural and light a tone as I could manage,

"I understand. Don't worry."

"Then, I'll be returning to my room."

She turned to walk towards her bedroom. In her superego state, she was obviously lucid and knew which room was hers. But I stopped her.

"Wait…"

Her back visibly stiffened. I clenched my fists and, maintaining a casual tone, asked,

"What would you like for lunch?"

"Whatever. I'm not very hungry." With that, she entered her room and closed the door.

I gave a wry smile, rubbing my sore waist and wincing as I twisted it. I slapped my cheeks to psych myself up.

"This is just the beginning! Time to cook!"

Through lunch, dinner, and all the way to bath time, she reverted to that silent, wooden state. This was her ego state, deeply suppressed, unable to release emotions. She spent most of her time like this. The frenzied id state and the hyper-rational superego state were fleeting. But from her constant switching between states, I could see the early signs of dissociative identity disorder. If she couldn't bear it any longer, a second personality might emerge to take on her suffering.

I needed to meticulously take care of everything for her, including feeding her, putting food on her plate, and getting her clean clothes. Otherwise, in her distracted state, she was likely to forget everything and make a mess. This drained nearly all my energy. I never knew caregiving was such exhausting work. By the time I got her settled in bed, I felt like I couldn't even stand up straight.

I got ready for bed as quickly as possible and then tiptoed to her door. We wanted to treat her without relying on medication as much as possible, especially sleeping pills. But it was a fact that she couldn't sleep, and without sleep, her recovery would be severely hampered. Insomnia has a significant negative impact on anyone's mental state, let alone hers.

Our current plan was music therapy, hoping to guide her into sleep by playing music. My senior had found many effective sleep-inducing tunes, and I had to try them one by one to see which worked best for her.

Right now, she didn't want me near her. If I got close, her superego state might awaken, and I had no desire to see that cold, intimidating Lin Yi. So, I could only place a chair outside her door, put my iPod and a speaker on it, and play the sleep music for her through the closed door.

I stood quietly by her door for a moment before heading back to my room with the music playing. I set an alarm for three o'clock to check if she had fallen asleep.

However, I hadn't even been lying down for ten minutes when I heard her door open next door. Then the music stopped; she had clearly turned it off. I was puzzled, listening intently for her next move. Soon, I heard a knock on my door. I went to open it and saw her standing there, hair disheveled. She shoved the iPod into my hand and then silently returned to her room.

I was at a loss for whether to laugh or cry. Did she find the sleep music too noisy?

"Don't you like listening to music? It helps with sleep," I said, following her to her doorway.

She walked to the edge of her bed and sat down. She should be in her silent ego state now. I wasn't sure if I'd get a response, but I asked anyway, just to try. I remembered she used to enjoy music, especially classical music.

To my surprise, I actually heard her reply. It was the same cold voice, but the tone was somewhat wooden.

"I don't like listening to sounds from a machine. It's cold."

I was stunned for a moment, then tentatively asked,

"What if I sing for you? Would that be okay?"

She gave no response.

Without waiting for her permission, I said softly,

"Go to sleep."

After watching her lie down and pull the covers up, I closed her door. Then I sat down on the chair outside and began to hum softly. Schubert's Lullaby. I didn't remember the lyrics, but the melody was familiar, so I just hummed the tune. Over and over again, I hummed until I started to feel drowsy myself. I pushed through the sleepiness until I felt more awake, and then I slowly stopped. My throat was hoarse and burning, my mouth dry. I checked the time. I had been singing from eleven o'clock until two-thirty in the morning.

I silently opened her door and crept to her bedside like a cat. I looked closely and saw that she was asleep. Her face was peaceful. A smile spread across my lips. For the first time, a sense of joyous accomplishment washed over me. I tucked her covers in and quietly slipped out.

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