AHEA Chapter 6: Purely Psychological

Chapter 6: Purely Psychological

“What?” said Anjili in confusion.

“I have been observing you and I noticed that sometimes you don’t have a limp. For example, you ran in here today.”

“That’s because I was late.”

The doctor leaned forward to get closer to Anjili. “People with limps don’t run the way you do. You’re limp is slowly going away, probably because you’re finally accepting independence.”

“But why would my doctors lie to me?” she asked.

He smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Simply put; they’re scared of your brother. Once they had tried to tell him that you had nothing wrong with your leg but he had the doctor fired and threatened to sue the hospital.”

Anjili sighed. “My brother used to be very unreasonable. I still don’t understand. How could I consciously fake a limp? I’m pretty sure it’s real.”

“That’s because you didn’t consciously fake it, it was all unconscious. Tell me, have you always been waited on hand and foot?”

Anjili scowled at the way he phrased the question but answered it anyway. “Pretty much my whole life.”

“When was your brother born?”

“When I was 3.”

“Around about the same time you got polio?”

“Yes.”

“You were afraid that your parents would only focus on brother and forget about you. You were afraid that they’d love him more than you. So, your subconscious came up with this limp. It was a perfect way of ensuring that you would always get some attention no matter what. And it worked.”

Anjili’s temper was rising. “So you’re basically calling me an attention whore.”

“All children want attention Anjili and you were no different.”

Anjili stood up and walked to the door. She didn’t want to sit through this humiliation any more. As soon as her hand touched the door, she heard him calling her. “Anjili, we talked about how to deal with sudden bursts of anger.”

Anjili sighed and gritted her teeth. She then took long, slow breaths and counted to 10. By the time she had reached 10, she was much calmer.

“Good.” Praised the doctor. “Our session is over. Try to start walking without the limp. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow, have fun house hunting.”

“Thank you doctor.” She said quietly and left.