“Mike, thank you for sharing. I want you to follow Mike’s lead and spend this week writing in your journals about one positive thing that has happened each of the 7 days. It can be something as simple as getting a good night’s…or good morning’s rest, to something major like starting to accept who you are. Next week we will share one positive thing with the group. We need to try and push out the negatives like Mike. Be like Mike. Mike has spent three years with us, and each time, he would introduce himself as a “bi-clops” but today, he finally had the courage to see that he is a Cyclops, despite him having two eyes,” I told everyone.

Some of them nodded.

“But Dr. Rose…,” Gary shyly said.

“Oh, I would like to apologize. I’m sorry to Gary and others who may be incorporeal and unable to physically lift up a writing tool to write something down. I need to be more inclusive in my wording and the way I speak. You can ask a friend or someone to write it down for you, or if you don’t want to share something personal, just be sure to remember it. Repeat it three times to yourself in the morning, afternoon and night so it really sticks in your head…er…in your thoughts.”

“We have time for one more speaker. Do any of our new participants want to share for the first time?”

Ashley slowly raised her hand.

“Yes, Ashley?”

“I would…like to talk about my situation,” she said.

“Okay, first introduce yourself, tell us a little about yourself, then open up as much, or as little, as you want.”

“Okay. My name is Ashley of the Baltic Sea. as you can see, I’m a mermaid,” she said. Her tail lifted up and splashed down in the pool we set up for her.

“Hello Ashley,” the group all said in unison.

“This is my…fifth or sixth week coming here, but my first time talking. I know some people are talking and wondering what my whole issue is and it is embarrassing to talk about and…”

“Ashley, I’m going to jump in right now and say everyone here has felt that way once upon a time. But I assure you, while there may be some natural curiosity about who you are, it comes from a positive place, one where people want to help you instead of ridicule you,” I told her.

“I…I can’t swim,” she said. She winced, anticipating laughter or shock or something. But the group was silent.

After a moment of bracing for the worst and not getting the reaction she thought, she opened up a little bit more.

“Mermaids are like birds, in a way. We have to learn how to swim. We leave our little caves and jump in the current and try to swim…but the times I did it, I just couldn’t do it. I would flop my fin back and forth but I wouldn’t go anywhere. I had to be rescued several times by my siblings, all of which are younger than me. Each time they would take me back to the cave and I’d sit there. And I’ve sat there for sixteen years now. I can’t swim. I know other mermaids talk about me. I know they laugh and I’m an embarrassment to my family. And I wish I could swim. But I just can’t…” she said.

She waited for someone to speak up and jump in with their own trauma, but again, the group was silent.

“My dad used to tell me he can’t wait to go out for our first swim, and I was so excited whenever we talked about it. He never pushed me, nor did my mom, they told me when it is time, it is time. So when I began to swim a little on my own in the little cave we lived in, I thought it would be just a matter of days before I’m in the big ocean with my dad and family and friends. But days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and months turned into 16 years. I’ve been stuck in that damn cave for 16 years. I tried, I really did. I tried every day. I still do sometimes, when no one is around. But it just…it just doesn’t work for me,” she continued.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me. Am I broken? Am I a defect?” she said, tears now welling up in her eyes. “Why me? What did I do? I just want to swim with my dad. I just want him to be happy. I know he is embarrassed that I’m never at family gatherings or functions. I know he is embarrassed when he introduces his five children, then has to explain where the sixth one, his oldest, is. I don’t want to be like this. But I just don’t know what is happening or why I can’t swim. I’d give anything to be out there in the ocean with them. I know my mom wanted to see me date and get married and start a family of my own. Who wants to get married to a defect? Who wants to get married to a mermaid who can’t swim?” her tone was getting angrier and louder.

“Ashley, I want to stop you right there. You are as you are. You are not a defect. You aren’t broken. I know it is a huge ask of me, but I want you to stop referring to yourself as one. And your feelings are normal. Everyone here, every single one, has felt the same thing you felt one time or another. Everyone here felt out of place. Everyone here felt like they didn’t belong. But slowly, we realize we are the ones that put up the walls that separated us because of the way we think. You are still a mermaid. We have a lot to work on, a lot of trauma to unpack, and I want to have a few private sessions with you in the meantime. I think you made a tremendous breakthrough today. But this is the first step in a long and difficult journey. But we are here with you,” I said.

She nodded and patted her eyes dry. “Thank you Dr. Rose.”

“Thank you Ashley for sharing,” I said. “It looks like we are out of time. But I just want to let you know we will be saying goodbye to Hector tomorrow. He isn’t here with us, he went back to his family to tell them the good news, but we will have a going away party tomorrow for him. When Hector came to us, he was a lost gnome who had really bad allergies and couldn’t stand, literally, in a garden. But! We worked with him and while we weren’t able to solve his allergies, we did find a place where Hector can live a full and happy life. He is going to intern and possibly become a gargoyle! So that’s big exciting news for him. Instead of standing guard in a garden, he will be high up in the clouds on top of the largest buildings in the world. Hopefully he’s not scared of heights,” I said, jokingly.

The group laughed a little. “And in his place, we will have a new face. My sheet tells me her name is Sonya and she's a harpy," I said.

The sounds of miserable retching echoed off the basement walls just as they had been for the past week.

I wet a cloth and wrung it so it wouldn't drip on the way in, and handed it to her. She took a break from vomiting and trembling just long enough to wipe her skin and swallow the knot in her throat.

This is the longest she has gone without blood so far, and for all my reassuring and encouragement to stop; that she needs to take baby steps, and that breaking her record by 1 day was good enough, she insisted on pushing on. I knew better than to harm her resolve by pushing the issue any further. This was her choice to make.

11 months ago, Emia became a different person.

Emia had been cornered and grabbed by a woman in her 40's, bitten with venomous fangs, and lost almost a liter of blood. That should have been the end of it. But Emia's body did not wipe out the invading disease when it could welcome it as symbiotic. She found herself clumsy and impaired by the rough, jerky movements of her blisteringly fast muscles; pound for pound as strong as a tiger or bear. Her mouth was full of bleeding cuts as she "bit the fuck out of it" on a daily basis. She saw her last sunrise before she woke up with eyes mottled with large, ugly red and brown scalera and pupils meant for seeing in the dark. Sleep would not come at night.

For all the woman's profuse apologizing, she couldn't take back what she had done to Emia's physiology. She had colored every social interaction Emia would have from then onward. That was the second Emia I knew. The sad and desperate one. The third arrived to swipe my friend away with a flurry of intense stress and and aggression. She hadn't become shunned overnight. Not for reasons outside her control. You can deal with people looking at you like you're a charity case that might snap any minute. You can't deal with feeling that something is fundamentally, conceptually wrong with you. When you wake up every day of your life, feeling like a passenger to a hellish cycle of failing even the most basic of tasks, you don't take the rudeness and verbal onslaughts of random strangers on the chin.

And take it she did not.

That was the birth of the third Emia. The single inch she stood above my height would feel like a mile. Her muscles were steel wire under tension. Her eyes could be accusatory and guilty at the same time, and to pass her in the street felt like a cannonball had just barely missed your chest. We knew what she did. She knew what she did.

And like that, she was gone.

Three months ago, someone came back to the village claiming to be Emia, but none of us recognized her. Though overbearing and neurotically cautious, this Emia didn't want to hurt people. She simply believed she was. You could hardly speak to her without saying something that would send her backpedaling and profusely scrounging for something to apologize for. One by one, people fell off. The mannerisms and the drama left them uncomfortable enough to try and return to the days when she was out of sight and out of mind. But I grew up across from the first Emia. We drew an entire kingdom in the sand together. I felt I knew her better and I could see where the actual her began and ended.

The fourth Emia needed only a drop of blood from people to hold her off for a few days. A drop that any sane person was unwilling to give. But I had bled and bled for plenty of my life, and I knew no difference. Which brings us to where we are now.

"It's morning now. You've officially made it two weeks." I told her. Head slumped between her knees, she nodded slightly. I offered her a hand but she rose on her own on impulse. I was silent as she ascended the stairs and squinted out the window at that bright, blurry ball on the horizon. "We both know how this has to end." I told her. No response but the gentle thump of her head leaning on the glass. I placed a bottle of strong spirits in her hand, and you could see her stoicism turn to silent disgust for the object. Wrapping the strip of cloth around my arm, I kept breaking the silence. "Don't make me wait."

Good enough for her. Begrudgingly she swished the alcohol in her mouth and around those daggers of hers. The soft skin under the bicep makes the perfect target. I tense up, but I'm always tense. I'm paralyzed and lowered limply into a chair, but I have time to sit. She won't take too much. I know it.

Between the occasional misery of blood fastings, there's a person there. Someone who can be witty and fun and selfless. Someone who could have gone missing. Someone else chose to make Emia a monster, and Emia tried it, spat it out, and said "no".

When she came back to us, she came back dragging a friend behind her. Her own Emia. The disease comes in countless varieties. Some produce beard-like fur from the backs of their wrists, and conical claws that can cut glass. Some have brains which ceaselessly think, and torture them with endless counting and categorization. This one would flinch away if you made eye contact with him, and would suffer sunburns in a matter of minutes. The vrykolakas are burdened with the knowledge that they can become the abuser if they are not diligent, but they need patience as much as they need blood. The world is a complex mess of give and take to them. For those who for whatever reason cannot bring themselves to take, we'll be waiting.

I zone back in as she bandages my arm. These blood-takings are often her excuse to cook, and I smell some form of bread cooking in my house. She thinks I don't pay attention to her when I'm slowly regaining my composure, but I see it all. I see the effort that goes into her attitude, her appearance of normalcy. She must be a good example for the others. That's what brought her back home, I think. She hasn't felt hope in herself for almost a year, but I don't think she minds. She can place her hope in others instead. She can do it right this time. As our little group stretches out, and others trickle in, I can't help but notice and accept...

I will be leader in name only.

>!Written about my experience with PTSD!<

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