Page 48 of The Monsters Within
“Scared, but not. I don’t know if I can explain it. Overwhelmed might be a better word,” I said, looking over the wheel Dr. Dunaway had given me.
It was three circles inside a larger one. The middle circle was sliced into seven pieces, and each piece was labeled with an emotion.
Happy, sad, fear, angry, bad, surprised, and disgusted.
From there, they were split into more emotions. Feelings that fit into each category but were different, more expressive. For instance, under happy in the second circle were words like peace, proud, content. And then the largest circle on the outside split even more into words like creative, success, and joy.
It had been helpful to me while I navigated learning what I was feeling as we talked about my past. Things I couldn’t put into words.
“Why overwhelmed?”
I turned to the right, letting my eyes travel over the photographs that hung on the wall until I could focus on a picture of Cash. I hadn’t noticed them the first day. But now whenever things got to be too much, there he was, smiling back at me, reminding me he was there.
“There were a lot of noises and smells I wasn’t used to. And people. There were always a lot of people. We didn’t talk to many people before Mom was taken.”
“How did it make you feel, experiencing all these new things?”
My eyes scanned the wheel to the largest ring on the outside. Looking over the words connected to fear, I chose one that fit.
“Insignificant.”
“Can you explain?”
This is what he did. He no longer let me just name the feeling. He wanted me to tell him why I chose that one. It wasn’t always easy. It made me think. It made me feel them all over again.
“At home with Mom, when it was just the three of us, the world was small. I didn’t know what I was missing outside. I didn’t know how big the world was because, for me, the world didn’t go beyond the backyard.”
“Tell me what you felt the first night Mimic didn’t come back.”
“Sad,” I answered quickly.
“Kytten,” he chided.
That was one thing I didn’t like about Dr. Dunaway. He made the seven words in the inside ring off-limits. I wasn’t allowed to use them. He said they were basic emotions that everyone understood, and if we were going to dig deep and find the monsters, find out what they craved and what fed them, then I had to be accurate.
Only I knew what fed the monsters. Blood. It was always about the blood.
My sacrifice.
My penance.
My submission.
“Lonely.”
“And the second night?”
“Abandoned.” That one was easy to name. I understood that feeling all too well, now.
“Those are both feelings of sadness. You weren’t scared?”
“I was. But I’d been scared since the day the man took Mom. I was used to that feeling. I lived with it every day. It was comfortable. Like a warm blanket. When Thorne left, it was different. I still would have been scared if he came back.”
Dr. Dunaway nodded, a sad smile on his face, and I knew he understood. He liked my answer, but it made him sad. I hadthat effect on people. It was why I didn’t like to talk about my feelings. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. I wanted them to see the happy little pixie that made them happy. My feelings weren’t that important.
“And what did you feel when you met Valhalla?”
“All of them.”
