Chapter 14 - Bring In The Professionals
Greg's appointment with the psychologist was scheduled for Monday of the next week. He didn't want to go, but he also didn't want his friends to bombard him with questions on why he refused to see a professional.
His psychologist was a woman who looked to be in her late-forties. Slightly wavy blonde hair shaped her face. Her eyes were a faded shade of blue, and had probably been bright when she was in her teenage years.
"Hello Mr. Sanders, you can make yourself comfortable on that couch there," the woman smiled, "I'm Ariel Dunmore."
"Hi," Greg replied as he sat down on the couch.
"You just let me know if it gets too chilly in here. I always find it too hot in here so I usually have the heat turned down." It was obvious that she was trying to make friendly conversation so Greg would feel more comfortable talking with her.
"Okay."
"So, how are you today?"
"I'm all right," Greg replied.
"Well, I suppose we should get right down to it. I'll have to be honest with you, this is probably going to be quite a long boring hour or so. The first meeting... is usually just a lot of me asking questions," Ariel explained.
Greg nodded.
"When we got the call about your appointment, there was something mentioned about nightmares? Do you want to tell me a bit about those?"
No, I'd rather not thank you very much, Greg thought to himself. He knew that if he said that out loud he wouldn't get anywhere.
"They aren't much of a big deal. "
"Why don't you tell me exactly what happens in them."
"I'm in the cage... and some guy comes and shoots me," Greg didn't mention that the guy was his friend Nick.
"I see," Ariel wrote something down onto her pad of paper, "So do you have these nightmares often?"
"Sort of."
"How many nights a week?"
Greg knew that he had them almost every time he'd go to sleep, but he also knew that he didn't want to tell her that. He wanted this to be over as soon as possible.
"Three or four," he lied.
She wrote more things onto her pad of paper. Greg was beginning to feel like she could tell when he was lying.
"I've been told that there was a recent... incident that occurred with one of your friends," she flipped through a few of her papers, "Nick I believe his name was. What happened there?"
Greg couldn't believe what he had just heard. Nick told them! He had to have told them! I can't believe he told them!
"It wasn't anything big."
"Greg. I think it was something big. Look, if you want to return to work, you're going to have to talk to me. I'm the only one who'll give you the 'okay' to return," Ariel stated.
"All right, all right," Greg gave in as hetold herthat he'd lashed out at Nick, but didn't go into detail about it.
"So, what made you do it?"
"I don't know."
Ariel wrote a few more things down onto her pad of paper. It was beginning to drive Greg crazy that he couldn't see what she was writing. He desperately wanted to be able to read it, but he knew that she would never show him.
"Look, I'm going to be up front with you. I know that the guy in your nightmare was Nick. When we received the call about you, we were told every thing that had happened and decided that we needed to talk to you sooner. Since I'm being honest with you about that, could you please be honest when you're telling me things? I want to be able to clear you as soon as I can so you can go back to work, but I can't unless you cooperate," Ariel explained.
"You know...every thing?" Greg asked.
"Maybe not every thing, but I have a good idea of what has recently happened to you," she replied, "What makes you scared of Nick? What made you lash out at him?"
"I don't know. I just got scared, I don't know why, I just did," Greg lied. He didn't want to tell her about what he saw when he looked at Nick that day, what he heard.
After the session, Ariel had a good idea of what was going on with Greg. She also knew that it would be best if Greg was to see a psychiatrist who specialized in what she suspected. That way, if in fact he was suffering from it, a proper diagnosis could be made. It would definitely take a lot of time and assessment in order to be sure.
Greg didn't like the idea of being told he needed to see someone "more specialized". The psychiartrist whom he was told he now needed to see was a man that looked to be about Grissom's age that went by the name of Mr. Shultz.
Before the assessment process began, Mr. Shultz explained that they would have to talk quite in depth about what had occurred, and that it might be hard to bring it up. He also explained that it would have to be done to first monitor his reaction to talking about it, and secondly to get to the bottom of things and come up with a solution.
Great, you're making me feel better about this already, Greg thought sarcastically.
"I want you to explain what happened. What happened after you were abducted?" Mr. Shultz questioned.
The tone of his voice made Greg realize that he had to tell the truth. He could tell that Mr. Shultz was trained to tell when someone is lying. Talking about being abducted wasn't very hard, until the part about the cage and the nightmares were mentioned.
"He kept me in this small room for most of the time. Sometimes when he'd make phone calls... he'd make sure that I was in the room to hear it. He... he always got angry when I didn't answer him. I guess he just lost it and put me in that cage," Greg explained.
"Tell me about the cage."
"It wasn't very big. He... he left a glass of water in there for me. He said that it was exactly what had happened to him..." Greg hesitated, he didn't want to talk about it anymore.
Mr. Shultz decided it was time to move on to the next topic of discussion.
"So, these nightmares... are they, re-inactments of what happened to you?"
For a moment Greg didn't speak. He didn't want to talk about the nightmares anymore. He'd told Sara, and she'd told the psychologist. He'd told the psychologist, and she made him see someone "more specialized". He was tired of talking about the nightmares.
He shook his head.
"Then what happens in these nightmares?" Mr. Shultz asked.
Greg shook his head again. He wasn't talking about it. He didn't want to think about it, and if he talked about it, it caused him to think about it. He didn't care if he got cleared, he didn't care about going back to work. He just didn't want to talk about the nightmares anymore. He'd talked about them enough.
"Greg. What happened in the nightmares?" Mr. Shultz repeated in a more persistent tone.
In hopes that everything would just go away, Greg closed his eyes. Once they were closed, the first thing he saw was Nick's face, painted with a malicious smile.
"How does it feel to be trapped?"
Nick picked up the gun and aimed it right at Greg.
"No!" Greg gasped, as he opened his eyes to see where he was.
"Greg..." Mr. Shultz began, he was going to ask what had just happened, but didn't get a chance to finish his sentence.
"Just stop asking me questions! If I wouldn't tell Nick what was wrong like Sara wanted... what on earth makes you think that I'm going to tell you! You're a total stranger, I don't even know who the hell you are!" Greg boomed without thinking as he stood up.
"Greg, sit back down. I know you don't want to talk about it. I know it's hard to talk about something like this, but you aren't going to get better if we don't get to the bottom of this," Mr. Shultz explained.
"Then I won't get better," Greg said as he walked towards the door.
Without bothering to look back, he opened the door and walked out.