Airi called the name "Ryou Bakura," and the boy rose to enter her office. As the boy sat across from the therapist, Airi could tell something was different today.
"Good afternoon, Ryou. How was your week?" Airi said to start things off.
"Actually, I'm not the host. I'm the other one," said Bakura.
"Oh!" Airi was pleasantly and delightedly surprised. It had been almost two months since Ryou had started therapy and she hadn't met the "other" Bakura yet. This was something to be excited about. "It's nice to finally meet you! Is there a preferred name you'd like to be called?"
"Just 'Bakura' is fine. That's what most people call me," Bakura said boredly.
"Hello Bakura. I'm surprised to see you front. Your host said you didn't want to talk to me."
"Yeah well, enjoy it while it lasts, because this is the only time you're ever going to see me. After today I'm not coming out to talk to you again," Bakura said matter-of-factly. "First of all, I don't like the sound of your voice. It's so dainty, like some kind of fairytale princess. I can't stand it. Second of all, the only reason I'm fronting today is because my host is too embarrassed to tell you a problem he's been having, so I have to do it for him."
Airi adjusted her tone of voice so that it was lower and more gravelly. "Alright, what's the problem?"
"He's been having emotional flashbacks about the time I stabbed his hand. Apparently what I did was bad enough to traumatize him."
"Oh shoot, that's really bad."
"Yeah. So can you help?"
"There are several ways to recover from trauma. One is to talk about it a lot, and when I say 'a lot' I mean he has to talk about it so much that everyone is sick of it. Another way, the most effective method, is through exposure therapy, which is to reenact the traumatic event."
"You want me to stab his hand again? Are you stupid?" Bakura spat derisively.
"No, not like that. Exposure therapy is meant to expose the individual to situations and objects associated with the trauma in a safe environment in order to reduce fear and decrease avoidance. If you reenact the situation and events of that day, but safely and painlessly, it will reduce the fear of that event. What I want you to do is act it out, just without the stabbing part. Repeat the words you spoke during the incident exactly the way that you said it that day. Do this as many times as it takes until your host heals."
Bakura sighed. "Alright, as soon as we get home, that's what we're going to do. Anyways, later." He got up and started walking towards the door.
"Wait, where are you going?" Airi said.
"My host doesn't want to front today, and I've got all the information I need from you. There's no reason for me to stay any longer."
"You're only been here barely a few minutes," Airi pointed out. "You're sure there's nothing you'd like to talk to me about? Anything you'd want to get off your chest? This is your chance to share with me your side of the story."
"Nah, I"m good. There's nothing to discuss."
"You're absolutely positive?"
"Well…" Bakura contemplated for a moment, then went back to his seat and sat down cross-legged. "That depends. Are you going to tell my host anything I tell you? Because if you do, I can sue you for breaching confidentiality."
"Technically it wouldn't be a breach of confidentiality because, from a legal standpoint, you are considered one person, and telling your host wouldn't be the same as telling, oh say, an employer or a teacher. However I would like to talk to you about why you're lying to your host. The whole point of therapy is to break down dissociative barriers, and the fact that you're keeping secrets means you're building up those walls."
"There are things that I've done that my host can't know about, otherwise he'd be too afraid of me to let me front ever again."
"Why do you say that? What kinds of things have you done?"
Bakura laughed. "You can't expect me to trust you enough to tell you that. Let's just say I'm not as reformed as my host thinks me to be."
"You think you're not reformed?"
"I'm a persecutor. Been one since the beginning. Always knew that the way I was doing things wasn't 'healthy.' I knew it wasn't 'right.' But it was working. And nothing else mattered. Arguably I hurt my host a lot, arguably I was too forgiving and could've been stricter. Doesn't matter. The past several months I've been…looking for alternatives. I'm nowhere near done looking for a way as effective as the one I was following. But I'm at the point where others, both our system and outsiders would probably stop calling me a persecutor…" Bakura's face darkened, his eyes dead and sinister. "I don't want that. I don't want to be just a regular protector. And yes, I'm aware that all this labeling is meaningless and you don't have to use a label. I know. I'm not dumb. But I want to be called a persecutor. Because in my eyes that name means power. It means knowing what you're doing. It means being efficient. It means being in complete control of the situation and defending the system in the way you know best. It means having a goal and doing anything to achieve it, because I'm a part of this system too, and I'm going to make sure he stays alive, this idiot. That's what that name means to me. And I know that by calling myself that it's probably 'misleading' because persecutor means an alter who hurts the system and others and you know what? Yes. I will hurt people again. But also the same goes for literally everyone else. People hurt. Even protectors will hurt others if there's no other way. No one's a saint. I'm probably messed up for taking pride in calling myself a persecutor, but I am. I'd rather feel pride than just be a boring protector."
"Now, Bakura, I just want to emphasize that your situation is not very uncommon at all. Nobody will disagree that you were protecting your host. It's largely a matter of trying to find better ways to protect now, ways that don't involve pain. Persecutors can become very powerful allies because you don't have to give up that goal. Your goal doesn't change, and nobody will think any less of you if your ways of protecting become less 'persecutory.'"
Bakura sniffed. "Oh please, you think you can tell me how to do my job of protecting my host? It's not that easy, you know, especially considering he's special needs."
"Of course I'm not doubting your competence. I'm just saying that your methods of protecting can change. After all, you wouldn't want to traumatize your host again. You seem to value your relationship with him."
"I have to. I depend on him to live."
"Whatever your reasons are, you value your relationship with him, which means you have to make the effort to cultivate it. He depends on you just as much as you depend on him, plus he has a lot of faith in you."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," Bakura said.
"And it's especially important for you to cultivate trust in one another, especially considering you only have two alters. There's no one else to act as mediator."
"Actually…" Bakura looked up at the clock to confirm the time. "Three, actually. There's a third alter that my host doesn't know about."
"A third alter? Really? Who might that be?" Airi asked.
"His name is Zorc. He's a demon who hides in my soulroom. He's just a fragment and doesn't front, but he exerts a lot of passive influence on me. And we fuse sometimes, though only temporarily. Only when we decide it's convenient for us to achieve some kind of goal."
"That's interesting. You have the ability to fuse and unfuse with him whenever you want?"
"Yes, since our personalities are already so similar it's easy to fuse with him. We used to stay fused all the time, however we decided to unfuse when my host became too afraid of me to let me front. I had to gain his trust and make him believe I reformed, otherwise I'd just be stuck inside all the time, and it's easier for me to charm him into trusting me when I'm not fused with Zorc, since Zorc's influence tends to bring out the worst of me. So now that we're unfused, Zorc's only function is to be my persecutor. He tells me to hurt myself and others, and he torments me when I don't do what he wants. He frequently tells me I'm worthless, stupid, and so on, and tells me I deserve to be hurt. I don't know how to deal with him half the time."
"The correct way to deal with a persecutor is to treat him with compassion," Airi stated.
Bakura laughed as if that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, but then he stopped when he realized the therapist wasn't joking. "Wait, you're serious?"
"Yes, of course."
"But you don't understand. Zorc's a fragment. He doesn't have enough cognitive abilities to be reasoned with. He's just evil. He likes to hurt people. That's what he does."
"There is no such thing as an evil alter. Maybe you're underestimating him. Remember what the role of a persecutor is? A persecutor helps keep the illusion of control. He says, 'You're bad. The reason that they are hurting you is because you're bad, and if it's because you're bad then we can change it. We can stop being bad and we can stop being bad and they will stop hurting us. I can do something to make this better.' These beliefs that you are bad, or that you are unlovable, that you deserve this, are safer beliefs to hold than to accept that the situation is unpredictable and chaotic and that at any moment you could be hurt for no reason. Having this part in your system after the trauma is over can be really really hard because he keeps on telling you things like 'It's not that bad! Get over it!' or 'It didn't really happen' or 'You deserved it!' And that really hurts. It hurts to hear those things in your system and it hurts to feel those things coming from the part that believes them. But this part isn't bad. He's traumatized from doing his job to try to protect you. He deserves help, because he probably doesn't want to be doing that job anymore either."
Bakura was so flabbergasted that he couldn't formulate a reply.
"Start with trying to understand." Airi continued. "Talking to your persecutor about why he does what he does and what he is afraid will happen if he doesn't do his job is a good way to find out what is really going on. Ask him, What do you do? What are you afraid will happen if you stop doing that? How long have you been doing this? What made you start doing this? Understanding each other is so important to a healthy system."
Bakura rested his head against the palm of his hand and scowled.
"Is something the matter?" Airi asked.
"Your advice is shit," Bakura said bluntly. "Even if Zorc were someone who could be reformed, you should know from talking to me that being nice to others is not my strong suit."
"Well, have you tried being nice to others before?"
"Only to my host, and only because I have to."
"That's already a good start. Being kind might not come as naturally to you as it does your host, but you can get better at it with practice. Remember that you don't need to have empathy to be kind and compassionate, nor do you need to have empathy to learn how to sympathize with others. Perhaps it might be difficult for you to be kind because you don't have that automatic feedback loop that makes it feel good to do good, so you get no emotional reward from it. But if you choose to do good anyway, arguably it'd make you better than all the self-serving empaths who only do good for the emotional reward that comes with it. Your host truly believes you can be a good person, and to be honest I believe that as well."
"That's all sweet and touchy-feely, but I still refuse to act nice to Zorc. He doesn't deserve it."
"Perhaps if you have trouble being nice to Zorc, you could ask Ryou for help? Sympathy and compassion seem to come more easily to him."
"No, absolutely not. My host cannot know about Zorc's existence, otherwise Zorc may start persecuting him too."
"I understand. You want to protect your host from Zorc, because you feel that Zorc is too dangerous for Ryou to handle."
"Precisely. And you know what else? It's too dangerous for you to know about Zorc too, therefore I'm going to have to erase your memory of the last ten minutes."
"What?"
"Penalty game!" Bakura pointed at the therapist, and the Millennium Ring emitted a flash of light.
Half a second later, Airi blinked as if disoriented. "I'm sorry, I blanked. What were we just talking about?"
"You were giving me some kind of lecture about how my host and I depend on each other, and that we need to cultivate trust," Bakura said boredly.
"That's right! I'm sure you and your host can work things out if…"
"Alright, alright, I get it. Anyways I'm leaving for real this time. I'm sick of talking to you." Bakura stood up and headed out the door without another word.
After Bakura left the room, Zorc expressed his disapproval. "Why did you reveal my existence to this mortal woman?"
"Because I can! You don't own me!" Bakura growled. "Besides, I erased her memory of it so it's no big deal."
Bakura didn't know why he bothered to ask the therapist for advice on how to deal with Zorc. Perhaps if Zorc was actually a dissociative part in a DID system, treating him with compassion would work, but lots of the rules that applied to DID people didn't work quite the same for him. Zorc was a demon, for fuck's sake! How on earth did the therapist expect Bakura to sympathize with a demon? What worthless advice. That therapy session had been such a waste of time.
XXX
Terms and Definitions:
Fragment = an alter that is not fully differentiated or developed. Depending on the way that individual systems use the term, a fragment might be any alter that could not survive if left on its own or that could not pass for a fully developed individual without the help of other alters.
Sympathy = the ability to understand someone else's situation and know what can be done to help