Meenah Turbine, Victor
Dr. Demeter's office was open. That was why I agreed to go there in the first place. I'd brought up the idea of seeing someone to my mother and she was all for it. She started collecting names right away, and I started making calls. Then we did a few recon trips to get an idea which one was the right fit for me. I was leaning toward a woman, which I felt bad about- Elissa had been just as much a threat as Caio. The only hard no, however, was an office that felt closed in. It had to have windows. Preferably a second door. Dr. Demeter's office had floor-to-ceiling windows looking into a private courtyard with benches and flower bushes. While we were introducing each other, she saw me looking and said we could meet out there if I preferred. She sealed it right there.
"I think the tour went pretty well," I said. Dr. Demeter and I had seen each other a few times already, and the tour was a big step. The Career Districts weren't too happy to see me, but the others all went wild. I had something of a reputation as a Career-killer, even though two of the three were accidental or indirect. And the one that was on purpose I didn't like to think about. "I didn't really feel that scared. The speeches were fun. I'm good at talking."
"Any concerns since we last saw each other?" Dr. Demeter asked.
"I still have a lot of nightmares. They haven't really gotten any better," I said. They were always about Atticus. I hadn't had any about Caio. It was always that I'd killed Atticus but something went into his dead body and it started clawing after me. I left the light on when I slept.
"What do you think about after you have the nightmares?" Dr. Demeter asked.
"I think about how it happened. It plays over and over in my head. Sometimes it seems like for hours," I said.
"That's PTSD in a nutshell," Dr. Demeter said, laying her notepad on the bench next to her legs. "It's a survival response. When you experience something on this level of trauma, your brain reacts to it, and it just sort of gets stuck. The threat was so great that your mind doesn't know it's safe to let go, so it keeps reacting."
"Will it be like this forever?" I asked.
"I will be like this a long time," Dr. Demeter said gently. "But it is not hopeless. You can improve and heal, and we're going to get you there."
"I tried the thing. What you said," I said. "I had a nightmare and when I woke up, I tried to re-center the moment. I thought about the bed under me and how it felt. I squeezed the blanket real tight and felt that it was there. I was sure I was in the Arena, but the Arena doesn't have blankets. I pictured a calendar in my head and I looked at the date and it was today, not four months ago. I was still really scared, but I think it didn't take as long to feel better. It didn't feel as long."
"I'm glad to hear that," Dr. Demeter said. "Have you been keeping up your diary?" I kept a record of when the nightmares and flashbacks happened. We studied it together and mapped out what things I should avoid. Most things were obvious, like the dark and small spaces. Other things were almost kind of funny when they weren't happening, like people with accents. I liked my diary. It was my first little landmark of fighting back.
"I had a really bad flashback." I twisted my hands in my lap. I'd brought Tapey along to the session. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. It hadn't escaped Dr. Demeter's notice.
"What happened?" she asked. It had never been hard for me to talk to Dr. Demeter, even about difficult things. It was actually easier to talk to her than almost anyone else. I'd always been in tune with people, and that was her entire job. I didn't have to change to reflect what she was looking for. She already reflected me.
"I was visiting Mom and Dad for dinner. Mom was out buying something she forgot to get, so it was just me and Dad. We were in the living room together trying out the new television I'd bought them. We were both sitting on the couch. It was all fine. Then he stood up." I started talking faster. "He was standing above me and time snapped back and it was Elissa standing over the rock I was behind. He reached for the remote on the coffee table. When he did, his hand moved toward me. I thought it was Elissa. I snatched it up and I bit him. I bit my dad," I said. I rubbed my balled fist against my cheek.
"What did he say?" Dr. Demeter asked.
"He said it wasn't my fault," I said. Which is just what a father would say. It didn't change what I did.
"And he was right," Dr. Demeter said.
"I shouldn't be doing this anymore," I said. "I'm supposed to be past this. I was getting better. I hadn't done anything like this in weeks," I said. It wasn't even that I felt guilty, or even scared. I was frustrated. It felt like I'd run for weeks and slid back to the start.
"And it will likely be even longer before the next time," Dr. Demeter said. "Or maybe a trigger will come unexpectedly. But sometime the trigger will come and you won't react. This isn't a battle. It's a war. A war is slow to fight and slow to win, but you've won them before. It's okay to react. You're not messing up. You're rewiring a brain that only did what it did to keep you alive and doesn't understand that you're safe now. The important thing is to work toward you feeling safe."
"Not much has changed since last week."
"That's good news, all things considered," Dr. Demeter said. "I saw your show yesterday. You seemed very enthusiastic."
A lot of the Victors threw together something they could call a talent. I actually loved mine. I was a sought-after guest at all sorts of Capitol events, from fundraisers to roasts. Nothing made me feel more at home than getting in front of a crowd and putting them under my spell. I'd raised tons of money for District Five and other charities, and I'd also done wonders for my mental state.
"It makes me feel normal again," I said. I loved it how Dr. Demeter meant it when she smiled back at me.
"I'm sleeping better, too," I said. "Still some nightmares, but it's okay. Something to work toward, right?" When I first visited Dr. Demeter, I'd told her I didn't really want to use medication. I would if she really thought it was necessary, but I wanted to try other things first. We'd gone with other strategies in the end, but I did decide to try some melatonin supplements. It didn't stop the nightmares, but it made it easier to sleep and I felt better in the mornings. I also felt like the nightmares were a little better, even though melatonin didn't work that way. Dr. Demeter said it was a placebo effect but that it still worked even if it was a placebo.
"You've come very far," Dr. Demeter said. "You're a very strong young woman."
I shrugged. "I just kind of keep going," I said. There was a lot that I couldn't control in life, but that didn't keep me down. It was what got me through the Arena and it was what got me through what came after. Always, I endured.
And here we are again. To the end and then back to another start. Each SYOT I write is different in its own way. This victory I think was perhaps the most genuine. It feels like a survival story about a girl, not a story about a character who was flashier than the others. It kind of feels more high-class as far as an SYOT can be.
I'll be rolling right into my next SYOT, which is a conventional Games. I'm going to wait to start writing until I get every form this time. Not as some passive-aggressive thing, just so I can have a solid start date and write at a regular pace without interruptions. I'll take the time before that to update the one-off stories like 75 Victors, as well as expanding my wiki. I'll put up the next story basically when I feel like it. I don't have a particular time. Don't everyone rush off, though. Most of the slots are already reserved, though I did hold back two slots because new submitters don't know I pretty much always have open reservations and I want to have some new blood to join the old. I also finally got wise and held back two other slots against the sadly quite likely event that I double-book a slot. This way I don't have to abjectly beg people to pls give up a slot because I made a mistake.