Having just re-read The Screwtape Letters and gotten a random review for this project- the first in years- I've decided to pick it up again. Have fun...

Jan. 25, 2006

I have been slacking in my journal entries, and have seen the affects of this all too well in working with my patient. Here, I will record a brief summary of events that have taken place since my abandonment of this log:

I mentioned in my last entry that my patient's parents had decided to divorce. However, they persisted in delaying the processes and, because she desired for her parents to divorce in order to release her from her own internal pain, my patient became even more frustrated than before her parents announced they would be separating. I also mentioned that she had become unconcerned with her parents' feelings because they had inadvertently crushed her morale with their unconcern for hers.

By the way, I must say that Groundenwip and Flunderboot did excellent work with the parents in this area. It amazes me that the parents actually did have a great amount of concern for my patient, and would worry about her and ask her to talk about her problems, yet they would do nothing to change their habits in order to actually relieve her pain. How can human beings fall into such traps? When my patient would share her troubles with her parents they would smile and give her a pat on the back, thinking that they had made great progress with their daughter, and then proceed to completely ignore all that she had said. Absolutely brilliant.

But I digress. Eventually I was able to turn my patient's unconcern for her parents from a tool of self-preservation to passive-aggressive vindictiveness. And the most wonderful thing about it was that she was fully aware of her vindictive attitude, yet did nothing to change it! Of course, it is common knowledge that a human'sawareness of his sin is always something that must be avoided, but at that time it was a good sign that my patient was on her way to our side.

However, my patient's mother died suddenly of liver failure (having never divorced her husband). The death of a loved one is almost always a turning point in the condition of a human soul. On one hand, a person may become angry with the Enemy, blaming Him, for some ridiculous reason, for the loved one's passing. Humans do not seem to realize that death simply happens to their animal bodies, and they have trouble grasping the concept of the immortal soul. The alternative direction a human may take is the reevaluation himself and his life, which, unfortunately, is the path my patient took, and I have to admit that things have really gone downhill since then. What an unfair advantage the Enemy has following a death! I was distracted by the ecstacy of her pain and was completely unaware of the spiritual awakening that was taking place directly in front of me. Among many other things, my patient has finally overcome her vindictiveness towards her parents and has become patient with her father who, I am pleased to say, has not taken the death of his wife quite as well as his daughter. And I must say that Keelsnap did well with my patient's sister during that time. I had thought he had finally lost his touch. However, his has proved to be a very difficult patient, and I believe that his battle will eventually be lost unless he greatly improves his strategy.

Of course, I must focus on my own patient. I have been able to keep her from her prayers, reducing them to mere mumbling thoughts made just before she goes to sleep. She uses the fact that she is in college to excuse herself, but in reality she has plenty of time to read her Bible and pray and simply chooses not to.

And something quite interesting I have been able to accomplish in my patient is the presence of genuine hate. One of her friends, a patient of Screel (a very odd patient, by the way, but I have lost my purpose too often in this entry to go into detail), was sexually abused when she was younger by her brother, whom both patients saw on a regular basis and whom was never punished for his actions because his parents refused to believe their son would be guilty of such a thing. This gave birth to an enormous amount of bitterness in Screel's patient, of which Screel took artful advantage. As a result, I was able to create a hate for this brother of which my patient was completely unaware. She thought violent thoughts about him, and laughed in malice whenever something unpleasant happened to him. Strangely, however, my patient was completely civil and even kind whenever she interacted with him, but I was able to stir up guilt within her for being disloyal to her friend when she treated the brother this way. I thought this hate would be very simple to maintain, provided I keep the word "hate" from her mind, until the brother joined the war between the Americans and the Middle Easterners. When my patient heard of this, I recorded the following thought:

Oh, yes! He might die! Oh, no, I want him to die.

It seems that wanting someone to die is howmy patient defines hate. Though this definition is flawed, it nevertheless alerted my patient to the fact that she did, indeed, hate this brother. Though I tried, I was unable to foster an unconcern for her hate and only managed to plague her with guilt as she vowed to learn to love the brother, despite the fact that he is, quote, "A disgusting human being." While I am proud of that thought, I am afraid she may overcome it along with her hate.

As for a direct attack on my patient's faith, I discovered long ago that creating an incompatibility between scripture and rationality was the best solution. In fact, I nearly had her when she found what she thought was an inconsistency between Old and New Testament doctrine, but my efforts were swiftly quelled when she discovered she had mistook modern Jewish ideology for ancient canon. Now I have posed a new question for her: If God is omnipotent and perfectly good, then why is there evil in the world? She has found several answers for this which have not fully satisfied her, but I have been fairly efficient in causing her to forget these theories, flawed as they may be. It is increasingly important that I not allow her discover the true answer (or even a satisfying false one for that matter), though it is common knowledge beyond the earthly realm.

Signed,
Lenchweed

I hesitated posting this because I've discovered my writing as a high school sophomorewas much better than my writing as a college freshman. College sucks the intelligence from your brain.