Page 41 of Under Their Protection

“Yes,” I sigh. “When I’d get in trouble, Dad would whip me with a belt for… a while. It varied.”

“What were some things you’d get in trouble for?” he asks.

“Basically everything. They liked for me to be seen and not heard. I was expected to be perfectly mannered and never say 'no' to them or Harper,” I say. “Sometimes Dad would just make shit up if he had a bad day and wanted something to take his anger out on.”

“What do you think about your sister needing a kidney?” he asks.

“I hope she gets one, but her body rejects it,” I say simply.

“Why?”

“Because I want her to understand what it feels like to get something taken from her. She has spent her whole life being catered to and given everything while I have given her everything but my job. From little things like my prom dress to my fiancé. I didn’t want to be with him but the fact that she did it and didn’t care is what makes me angry. I want so desperately to just cut all of them off, but they make it impossible because they just keep wanting to take from me,” I say, with more tears spilling down my cheeks. Rowan hands me another tissue and I take a second to collect myself before Theo speaks.

“Do you think you are mentally competent?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Why?” heasks.

“Because I have held the same job for eight years. I am really fucking good at my job, too. I manage my own finances perfectly fine, even if I did let Isaac trick me into spending my savings on him. I am rational and logical. I do have anger issues, but it is very well controlled,” I explain.

“I don’t think you have anger issues,” he says simply.

“If it isn’t anger, what is it?” I ask.

“I think you have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This just means your PTSD is a result of long-term exposure to trauma. Specifically, your family. You talk about your job and your partners with ease, but your family is where it changed. With your sister, it is anger and resentment. With your father, it is straight fear, but you hardly mentioned your mom. I feel like although your father is the source of your fear, your mother is the source of the hesitance and defensiveness,” he explains.

“Mom had chance after chance to stop Dad from whipping me with the belt over stupid shit. She would openly tell me that she only wanted me so that her daughter could live. Neither of them has ever told me they loved me. They never acknowledged my birthday or included me in any holiday. I was nothing to them. Now all of a sudden, they want something from me again, so they pay attention to me. They forced me to come to family dinner so that they could try to guilt me into having major surgery, and then threatened me when I said no. They saw the bruises that Isaac left on me but blamed me.

“Them doing this helped me make my first real choice for myself by getting married to Rowan. I think my best friend was right when she said we would have ended up here anyway, but this is what finally pushed me over the edge,” I say.

“Simply put, you need to disconnect from your family,” he says.

“Definitely trying. If they get their way, they will have the marriage annulled so that they can be my next of kin again. Then they’ll try to have me committed or drive me insane until I have a mental breakdown first,” I say.

“Well, I’d like for you to establish care with me. I can have a scheduler email you the paperwork,” he says.

“You are going to have to give me more than that, Theo,” I frown.

“It means if you establish care with him, he has to be the one to sign off on you being committed. They wouldn’t be able to just bring in a random doctor to call you unfit. They’d have to go to him first,” Rowan says.

“Ah. Well, do you think I’m crazy, too?” I ask Theo.

“I don’t think you are crazy. I think you are traumatized. In your day-to-day life you may hide it well, but when you are triggered and cannot bring yourself back down, you panic. That takes the form of anxiety, anger, or both. I think seeing someone regularly to address your trauma more in-depth combined with taking the source of the repeated trauma out of your life will vastly improve your mental health.”

“I feel like I am having to put a lot of trust in you right now,” I admit.

“I understand. It likely feels like you are giving away your ability to choose because of your parents' threats but understand that in no way do I think you are unfit. No one should be making choices like an organ donation for you. Also, due to what I believe to be severe complex PTSD, a major surgery like that is extremely ill-advised.

“Alright,” I sigh. “I’ll fill out whatever it is I need to as long as I don’t have to actually come into an office to see you all of the time. Not that I don’t want to, I just don’t like missing work”

“I’d like to talk to you twice a week but only once or twice a month will I ask you to come into the office,” he says.

“Twice a week?” I ask.

“You are having night terrors every night, Anika. You have spent the last twenty-six years being traumatized and re-traumatized over and over by your family. It’s going to take time and patience to work through,” he says.

“I’m sure your boss won’t mind if you take an hour,” Max says, and I laugh.

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