Dance over the Thunderclouds - 4. 4. Rebel

Finding a therapy place for Dominic in a specialized clinic proved to be a frustrating and arduous process. In the last years ruthless government cuts had reduced the mental health care system to a bare bones skeleton only. Intensive therapy clinics had become a much desired but scarce asset.

As a result, Monika Moller decided to step up the frequency of the temporary therapeutic sessions at the hospital, because withholding this support to Dominic could lead to unforeseeable and disastrous results. But each session followed the same course.

Dominic would sit opposite Monika, ostensibly sulking, skillfully evading all questions and avoiding all answers; even the question “You’re feeling better today?” was barely answered with a tetchy “Guess so”. When Dominic rose at the end of the session and walked to the door, Monika would always end with a cheerful:

“See you next time, sweetie”.

The only answer she would get was a droopy:

“Guess so”.

She knew full well that the boy wasn’t sulking. It was all a question of extreme fear and distrust, common symptoms in the disorder he suffered from. The moping was just a defensive system, meant to fend off any intruding and probing in his inner feelings and thoughts. But…it didn’t change much to the fact, that the results of the therapy were miserably unsatisfactory.

Now, with Dominic just gone from another one-sided, frustrating session, she grabbed her writing pad and read the few rapidly made scribbled jots she made. There was nothing new in it…she almost knew them by heart from previous sessions:

“Apathy…closes up…fear…distrust…wow, three words at once…fuck, I don’t make any headway with this kid!”

She swiveled her chair around and stared pensively out of the window, asking herself:

“How do I get through his defenses?”

“It’s like the Maginot-line”, she thought out loud, referring to the large French defensive line from the 1930s that was built to protect the country from another German onslaught, “But even the Maginot-line had weak spots, as I remember. What are Dominic’s weak spots? He must have some…or at least one”.

Thinking over this question didn’t do much good to improve her mood. For a long time, she gazed out of the window, searching for that one small possibility to get through the armor, that appeared to encapsulate Dominic, but her eyes were no longer pensive only but gloomy as well. But suddenly this bright idea popped up and a broad smile came on her face, when she cried out:

“Yes…! That is it! That is the trick that could do it…Rebel!”

Rapidly she swiveled the chair back again so that she faced the desk, grabbed the telephone, and pushed in a number. A long talk followed.

But once this was over, her smile became even bigger. This might do the trick! This could reduce the walking fortress. And things were set up for a serious try to do so.

 

When Dominic stepped into the room for his next session, he was on full alert right away after one glance through the chamber. Things had changed since his previous visit; furniture had been removed and there was more space. There was even a high piled, soft carpet in the middle of the room, that hadn’t been there before.

Suspiciously he stared at the young psychiatrist, who greeted him with a beaming smile, saying:

“Hi, sweetie, how are you doing?”

The only reply was a shrug, while Dominic thought:

“What is she up to?”

“Sit down”, Monika invited him, pointing at the only available chair, “Does your medication work?”

As always there was the same answer, this time grumpy, displaying truckloads of distrust:

“Guess so”.

But he did as was told: he sat down. To his amazement Monika said nothing, but only smiled at him, a kind of impenetrable smile, that might have thousands of reasons, in Dominic’s mind all negative ones of course. She maintained her sphinxlike pose for a full minute, then she rose, walked to a side door, that lead to the next room and said:

“I’ve got a surprise for you!”

There was no need for her to fetch the surprise: as soon as she opened the door, it galloped in by itself with the force of a wild hurricane. It was a huge dog, a Golden Retriever with thick blond fur, that ran into the room with a “Let’s have some fun”-attitude sparkling from his dark eyes.

“Dominic, this is Rebel!” Monika spoke laughing.

Then she stuck out her hand and pointed her index finger directly at the boy on the chair, saying:

“Rebel, this is Dominic!”

Dominic couldn’t have known, that the pointing gesture was a command, that made the dog clear who he had to approach to make contact with. And Rebel did it in a most tempestuous doggy-like way. He almost jumped on the boy, placed his front paws on his knees and sniffed all over the face.

“It tickles”, Dominic giggled.

But Rebel wasn’t satisfied yet: with his tail wildly wagging he started to lick Dominic over the face, who reacted with loud laughter, exclaiming:

“He likes me! Cool!”

After a few minutes Rebel made a full turn, sweeping his bushy swishing tail over Dominic’s face, causing another outburst of spontaneous laughter when Dominic cried out:

“Get your tail out of my face, you funny dog!”

The rest of the session seemed a waste of health insurance money, limited as it was to frolicking around through the whole room between boy and dog, both having lots of fun doing so with Dominic laughing more and more. But Monika was satisfied, because she found the weak spot in Dominic’s defenses:

“It clicks” she thought jubilant, “Damned, it clicks!”

The next round would be fully in Rebel’s hands…sorry…paws!

This next round was after three days. When Dominic entered the room, his eyes searched the dog in hopeful expectation. The disappointment was clearly visible on his face, when he didn’t see him.

“Sit down, Dominic”, Monika invited him another time, “And…did you like it to play with Rebel?”

“Guess so!” Dominic replied as usual, but there was vigor and pleasure in the “Guess so”, that had until then always sounded depressed, apprehensive and mistrustful.

“Then let’s take a look if Rebel likes a repeat as well”, she smiled, rose and walked to the same door from where the dog had appeared.

And yes…there he was again and he had clearly set his mind on a replay: equally boisterous, wild and cheerful like the first time with his “Playing time”-attitude, licking Dominic’s face a second time, provoking a carefree laughter from the boy, when he cried out:

“I think he loves me!”

“Oh yeah…he does”, Monika confirmed, “I can see it in his eyes. Look at them!”

Crawling and cuddling through the thick fur on the dog’s head Dominic looked into the eyes: they were a very deep brown, splendidly contrasted in the blond fur around them and they expressed warmth, honesty, fidelity, playfulness and trust, in one word they signaled a dog’s love!

“Yeah…”, Dominic muttered impressed, “I think he loves me…guess so. And…”

There was a short span of silence but then the words came, that Monika had been waiting for:

“I think I love him too…I think…I trust him!”

It took Monika a lot of effort to hide her excitement. That would be devastating. Instead, she gave herself some moments to recover, at the same time giving Dominic the chance to let it sink in, what he had just said. Only then she said, tentatively and carefully searching her words:

“Dominic…. since you don’t want to tell me what is bothering you…do you think you trust Rebel enough to tell him about it?”

Dominic stared at her, his eyes full of wonder. He giggled somewhat nervous, when he said:

“Talking to a dog? That’s…that’s weird!”

“No”, Monika objected gently, “It is not weird. A lot of people talk to their dogs because they trust them. And Rebel is a real good listener, I promise you. Besides…he will never tell anyone what you have told him, not even to me. Dogs don’t gossip!”

“Guess so”, but less defensive, more convinced.

Dominic’s face showed doubt…he was in two minds: yes, he wanted to talk to someone he could trust. And no, not when there were other people around him, who could see and hear it and would tell it all over the city to make him laughable, just to hurt him.

Monika read his mind, because she said lightly:

“If it is me, that bothers you…No problem, I’ll go to the other room and do my overdue paperwork. And when the session ends, I return. So you can talk to Rebel. Is that OK with you?”

“Guess so”…but now in a tone, that was confirming and hopeful.

“OK, then I’ll be gone. See you later, sweetie”, she smiled, rose and walked into the other room.

As soon as she was gone, Dominic looked around furtively if he was indeed on his own but then he took the dog’s head in both his hands, stared into the gorgeous, warm eyes and whispered:

“Hey, Rebel…can I tell you something? Something that…I want to get off my chest?”

The dog wagged his tail cheerfully in a dog-like invitation.

“But…you won’t tell anybody…do you?” Dominic asked, still somewhat suspicious.

There was another tail wag to confirm, that Rebel would take all his secrets with him in his grave.

However, there was another unknown for Dominic: it was the tiny video camera, that was carefully aimed at the chair where he sat and the dog. And on the other end, watching the screen, were Monika and the dog trainer. But she kept true to her word: she couldn’t hear anything, but she could observe the boy, partly out of professional curiosity, partly for security reasons. She had to intervene when emotions got out of hand, to avoid that Dominic would hurt himself or the dog.

Anyway, she had no intent whatsoever to work on backlog paperwork. Instead, her eyes were riveted to the screen, studying every detail of the boy’s body language and strenuously observing every tiny change and twitch in his mimicry, hoping to get somewhat wiser of what she saw.

She saw how the boy started to pat and cuddle the dog, who reacted with tail wags, making his whole body move up to his ears from enthusiasm. But then…did she see that right? Yes…Dominic’s lips started to move and he clearly started talking to the dog. She hoped it wasn’t only the usual kind things one says to a sweet dog like Rebel, but that it was real talking.

“Man”, she muttered, “I would gladly donate a month of salary to know what he is talking about!”

“Sorry, doctor?” the dog trainer asked.

“No…nothing!” she mumbled.

At one point Dominic’s arm rose and his hand swept over his eyes and cheeks, as if he was wiping tears away but he kept talking!

“Damned”, came another frustrated whisper from Monika’s lips, “I would have loved a microphone in there!”

Stealthily she glanced at her watch: another twenty minutes before the session was over. Dominic’s lips kept moving like a waterfall came over them, a torrent of painful memories and hurt. So every now and then he gestured in great excitement with Rebel acknowledging it frequently with his tail, like a well-trained, good therapy dog is supposed to do, and his faithful and sweet brown eyes kept staring keenly at the boy in a bidding to let it all come as if he wanted to say:

”Just let it come, I’m here to listen, sweet boy!”

But about ten minutes before the session’s end it happened what Monika considered to be the breakthrough: Dominic lied down on the carpet and without any command or request to do so Rebel lied down next to him. The boy pulled the dog’s body against his with soft pressure, curled over the dog and laid his own head on the furry flank. Monika could see how his shoulders started to shock in an outburst of excruciating sufferings.

“Gotcha!” she cried out excited and half loud.

“Wrong, doctor”, the dog trainer responded with a smile, “Rebel got him!”

“Yeah”, Monika grinned, “You’re right. That dog is fabulous! But…it was my idea to get him in the game!”

“OK”, the dog trainer chuckled, “I give up! But you’re right. My boy is one of the best in the city and I’m mighty proud of him. That kid is another one in a long row”.

Monika smiled a sincere thank you at him and casted another glance at her watch:

“Time is up. But I extend it a little to give him some extra time”.
However, after five minutes she had to stop the session. The next patient was almost there. She rose and walked back into her office. Gently she laid her hand on Dominic’s shoulder and asked:

“Are you OK, Dominic?”

“Guess so”, was the poky, tearful answer, given in the way a small boy does when he is caught in the act of some childish offense.

Monika grabbed some Kleenex from her desk and gave it to the boy, saying:

“Here…to wipe your tears away and to blow your nose”.

Dominic rose and did as was told. Once it was done, Monika said:

“You want to say goodbye to Rebel?”

“Yes…”, the boy said eagerly.

He started patting the dog again but stopped abruptly, looking up with fearful eyes at the psychiatrist. With trembling voice he asked:

“Doctor Monika, will I see him again?”

“You want that?” Monika reacted with a counterquestion, a smile on her face.

Without saying a word Dominic nodded violently but while doing so, his eyes shone like brilliants.

“Then I’ll set it up”, Monika grinned, “He’ll be here as well next time!”

Dominic laid his stern on the dog’s head and pushed a kiss on the gleaming black nose tip.

“We’ll see each other again, Rebel”, he muttered.

Then he looked up in a slight shock, ashamed that he had shown so much affection for the dog.

“But now he has to go back to his trainer”, Monika grinned, ignoring the kiss on purpose, gently putting some pressure on the goodbye.

“Guess so…”, Dominic smiled, “See you next time, buddy!”

But even the “Guess so” changed this time; it was not the usually listless finisher or an expression full of uncertainty, doubts, and distrust. This time it was energetic and almost happy!

One whistle of the dog trainer, who was waiting at the door, was enough to get Rebel out of the room.

“So”, Monika started her wrapping up of the session, “You better go to the coffee, grab a cup to recover a bit and then make a new appointment with Erika at the reception. Is that OK with you?”

“Guess so”.

The energy and happiness were already starting to fade, but it remained a whole lot better than it had been before this encounter between boy and dog.

After Dominic left, Monika thought over what had happened. It satisfied her. Getting Rebel turned out to be a golden idea.

“Quite appropriate, since he is a golden retriever!”

She grinned at the thought and started to update her notes on this session on her laptop. Only after fifteen minutes, when she could be sure that Dominic had left the station, she rose and walked to the reception.

“Erika”, she asked the lady behind the desk, “Did you schedule Dominic?”

“Yes, doc”, came a cheerful reply, “Next Friday at 14.00”.

“The usual hour?” Monika wanted to know.

“Yeap”, came the matter-of fact reply.

Briefly Monika thought it over, then she said:

“Call Rebel’s trainer and let him schedule the whole Friday afternoon. Then schedule Dominic the same way, the whole block of four hours”.

The woman looked up in surprise but what else could she do than saying:

“If you say so”.

“I said so, Erika”, Monika grinned, “I said so!”

Then she turned around and whistling she started to do her rounds over the station.

 

The moment for Dominic’s next therapy session was coming with quick steps and for a reason Monika couldn’t understand herself, she felt tense that Friday morning. Would she be able to exploit that one weak spot she discovered in the boy’s extensive fortifications, that he had construed over the years to defend his soft and damaged inner core? With her own uncertainty growing, she actually started to doubt: was it the much sought-after weak spot or had it been a simple case of misinterpretation of his behavior?

It didn’t matter: with the clock ticking towards 14.00 there was no way back. Rebel and his trainer were already in the side room, she walked into her office and the only one lacking was a patient, called Dominic.

But he came about a minute later, announcing himself with a single knock on the door. When he stepped in, he surprised Monika. The boy looked almost happy!

“Incredible! That dog is not fabulous but a God-sent wonder on four paws!” she thought.

But she kept her excitement under control and asked casually:

“How are you feeling today, sweetie?”

Dominic feigned indifference but after some hesitation he muttered:

“Quite OK! At least…guess so”.

But his eyes turned disappointed when he didn’t see the reason for these improvements.

“Don’t you worry”, Monika re-assured him, “He’s waiting for you, ready to give you another very wet wash with that huge tongue of him”.

The boy giggled expectantly and Monika rose, went to the door of the side room, opened it and called out:

“Rebel, you buddy is here!”

The greeting was as uproarious as the previous times, but then Monika said:

“Well, the two of you want to continue your little talk?”

Dominic nodded greedily.

“OK”, she said with a smile, “Then…I’m gone, back to my paperwork. If you need me: I’m in the next room”.

“Guess so”, but for another time in an almost cheerful way.

When she entered the side room, she grabbed a chair and sat down behind the monitor again, immediately looking on in fascination, that bordered to being almost unprofessional.

“There we go again”, she muttered.

“Don’t you worry!”, the trainer said almost comfortingly, “I know my boy. He’ll get it done!”

He hid a grin when he thought:

“That’s a new one! A dog trainer who counsels a psychiatrist”.

Monika’s patience was not put on the test for long. As soon as Dominic seemed to be certain, that he and Rebel were alone again, he sat down on the carpet and Rebel took up the place next to him.

Monika smiled, when she looked at the scene. If it hadn’t been in a hospital office but if the duo had been sitting at a clearing in some forest it would have been an idyllic picture of a boy and his trusted dog.

But the image of Shangri-La soon disappeared and reality claimed its place, when Monika saw that the boy started talking again to the dog. He kept talking on and on, the dog listening with his ears up and giving incitement with his eyes and his regularly waving tail.

After an hour of looking at this strange conversation Monika had a hard time to control the urge to go in:

“Patience, girl, patience! Don’t go in yet! Keep cool!”

But after two hours into the long session, she was no longer able to keep a grip on it.

“In for penny, in for a pound, girl”, she thought, “Or is rien ne va plus more appropriate?”

The moment of truth had come: would she be able to make the boy shift his attention bit by bit from the dog to her, so that he would talk directly to a human being? She knew she had only one chance, one single opportunity. If he shifted his attention, then it was a success. But if he withdrew the second he noticed her, she had lost it all! There wouldn’t be another window to gain his trust. To the contrary: he would feel betrayed, experience it as a break of promises and he would close down forever, prolonging his deep distrust towards her!

The thought made her nervous. But she had to do it if her treatment should have at least some success so that it would form a firm ground for further therapy at another clinic.

“Wish me luck!”, she muttered to the dog trainer.

In reply he crossed his fingers.

She kicked out her shoes and opened the door very careful. On her socks she sneaked towards her desk and sat down, taking all possible precautions that her chair didn’t squeak while doing so. Then she just sat without speaking a word, listening intently to what the boy, who hadn’t noticed her coming in, told the dog.

She sat there for about an hour without being spotted. She observed in fascination, she listened keenly. She didn’t dare to move a finger, afraid as she was, that she would break what could almost be called a spell. Dominic was completely fixated on Rebel, as if the rest of the world simply didn’t exist. He talked and sobbed, sniffed and giggled, but as far as he was concerned, he was all on his own with his entrusted four-pawed buddy.

Only after that hour he seemed to sense her presence. Slowly he turned his head from the dog to the desk, discerning her.

His eyes showed no expression of emotion at all: he stared at her with a penetrating gaze for a full five minutes without saying a word or even twitching a facial nerve. Monika thought, that she felt her heart stop and her breathing faltered. This was it: the second that would decide it all. And then, as if she wasn’t there, Dominic looked back at the dog, embraced the animal and started talking again, as he had been doing before, completely ignoring the other person in the room. The young psychiatrist heaved a long, deep, hardly audible sigh of relief.

After this short, tense interlude the status quo was resumed with only one talking and two listening during the remaining hour of the long session.

After that hour Monika realized, that the boy had to be kind of mentally exhausted by now and she was feeling pretty tired herself, so she decided to add a kind of cool down period for him, since no other patient was waiting on this late Friday afternoon. Gently she interrupted Dominic’s flow of words with:

“Dominic?”

He looked at her, somewhat annoyed by the disturbance.

“You must be thirsty after four hours of talking”, she said with a smile, “Would you feel like a cup of coffee?”

With a faint twinkle in his eyes he answered:

“Guess so”.

She nodded, picked up the phone and dialed. After a few seconds she said:

“Erika, can you get two coffees for Dominic and me?”

“Hey”, Dominic cried out indignantly, “Don’t forget Rebel!”

“Oh yeah…” she laughed, “And, Erika, some bowl of water for Rebel”.

Once Erika had brought the coffees and the bowl of water in, which was accepted in gratitude by the dog, Monika started a gentle evaluation to be able to determine how the following sessions had to proceed by inquiring carefully:

“Dominic…, what I want to know: didn’t it disturb you when I was in the room with the two of you?”

Holding the coffee cup with both hands he stared out of the window for quite some time. Then he faced the psychiatrist in an almost insolent way and said:

“No, not really. Why, should I?”

In surprise Monika almost muttered:

“But you noticed me! About an hour ago you looked me straight in the eyes”.

Dominic only nodded.

It puzzled Monika and it prompted her to ask:

“Can you tell me why you didn’t?”

Dominic sat, without speaking. He stared out of the window again, carefully sipping from his coffee and with his face and eyes devoid of any sign, that might betray what he thought or felt. For Monika it seemed, that he played a very delicate poker game with her, keeping his trump in his sleeve until the last possible moment.

But finally, he decided to play it, when he said, painstakingly searching for words:

“From small boy on I learned that…it was better to be suspicious of everybody. Everybody only wanted to hurt me and even hurt me bad”.

He took a deep sigh, took another few sips of his coffee, let his left hand sink on Rebel’s head and continued:

“It made that I deeply mistrusted everybody around me. And then…”

The movement of the hand on Rebel’s head betrayed uncertainty, moving as it was in a stroking gesture over the fur. But Dominic picked up again:

“Then…I met Tobi. You know, he’s real sweet. And he does all he promises me. I learned to trust him…at least to a certain extent”.

Monika said nothing, but waited as long as her patience would endure it. Every intrusion in the boy’s outspoken thoughts might cause a loss of momentum. And she was rewarded for it:

“And then I met you…somewhere downstairs…at this funny machine. I don’t know why…but in a way I sensed you were a kind person. Not like that other doctor, that man, who wanted to hurt me”.

“Hurt you?” Monika asked in surprise.

“Yeah…”.

His hand stroked Rebels head almost like possessed by now, but the dog didn’t take any offense to it. He just stretched out and enjoyed all the cuddling.

“He wanted to put me in the slit…”, Dominic carried on, “And then he tried to stab me. But you…you just talked with me like I was…almost human”.

A deep sigh followed and then:

“I can’t…I can’t explain why but instinctively I felt I could trust you…so…I trusted you this afternoon…you know, that you wouldn’t harm me”.

An almost teasing and provocative smile slid over his face for a sole second, when he said:

“But don’t get me wrong. Only to a certain extent!”

“Why that?” Monika asked heedful.

“What?” Dominic grinned, “The certain extent? That is a really dumb question”.

“No”, Monika objected mildly, “I mean: why do you trust me, no matter to what extent?”

Dominic shrugged with another sigh, only to mutter:

“I don’t know how to say this…”.

“Try!” Monika pushed him extremely gently.

“I…I…I’m fed up with being completely controlled by my past and memories. I want…a normal, happy life…like everybody else. And I sense that you can help me with that! But at least I should trust you then”.

Professional or not, Monika felt a tear burn behind her eyes. It moved her deeply. Here was this boy, manacled during the whole of his childhood and afterwards, robbed of all chances, vulnerable, distrustful and despaired. And he reached out, gave her his trust!

With some awkward, phony movement she swept the tear away and reacted with:

“That is very courageous of you!”

“Guess so…but…there’s one condition!”

“And that is?” she probed very cautiously.

“That Rebel is there as well”, he muttered, blushing somewhat, “I need his…support…his being there, so that I can at least pretend I’m talking to him instead of talking to you”.

His face turned red of shame and he sobbed a few times, but then recovered and, looking directly at Monika, he asked:

“Doctor Monika, is that a weird condition?”

“No”, she smiled re-assuring, “It’s not weird at all. I can live with it very well. I promise, that Rebel will always be there, as long as you need his support”.

Dominic cinched his eyes and with his free hand he swept over them.

“You must be tired”, Monika smiled, “Maybe even exhausted. It was a very long and intensive session. So, how about if you go home, take a good rest and tell Tobi from me, that he should take good care of you. Doctor’s orders!” she added in mock firmness.

“OK!” was the sole tired reply.

He rose, cuddled Rebel to say goodbye, kissing him again on his big black nose tip, and walked to the door. Just before he left, Monika called out:

“Have a good weekend, sweetie!”

“Guess so”.

Then he turned around, faced her and with the same eye-blinding gorgeous smile, that she had only seen once at Radiology, he said:

“A good weekend to you too, doctor Monika!”

With that he disappeared from the doorway into the corridor.

Monika stayed in her office for another ten minutes. It was not to give Dominic an easy and relaxed way out, but more to re-organize her own thoughts and feelings. Then she rose, grabbed her coat, switched off the desk lamp and walked to the reception.

“Hey, doctor, “, Erika said when she arrived there, “What miracle have you worked with Dominic?”

“Why that?” she asked in bewilderment.

“He left here whistling”, Erika said, disbelief in her eyes, “I’ve never seen that before with that kid”.

“Ah…you know how it is!”, Monika replied with a satisfied and happy grin, “Doctor-patient confidentiality!”

“Yeah, sure”, the woman sighed.

“Did you schedule him?” she tried to evade the subject with a more business-like approach question.

Erika nodded:

“Tuesday, 15.00”.

“OK, then get in touch with Rebel’s trainer and book him as well!”

With that she walked out of the station, starting her way home. But there was a huge smile on her face: incidentally Erika had given her the best news she had in months!

 

Session appointments maintained their twice a week rhythm with Rebel’s role becoming progressively less and less over the talks. However, the dog’s presence remained vital, especially when Dominic discussed something which made tensions and fears swell up to such a high level, that it threatened to cause another repelling hedgehog reaction. Then Rebel’s eyes, paws, tail, wet nose and tongue and the softness of his fur kept the flow of words coming, in the worst case in a somewhat faltering way.

One afternoon Rebel’s support was more than needed. It was when Dominic told the psychiatrist about the critters, how they felt on his body, what they did, how they ate him, in small bits and pieces, when he was in the slit! While doing this he held tightly on to Rebel, trying to gather as much strength as he could get from the animal, while he talked, sometimes even muttered and stuttered, on about this terrible ordeal, his words interspersed with subdued anger while his body shuddered at certain moments. But apart from these short outbursts his voice stayed level for most of the time.

Looking at it from a purely rational point of view, Monika knew that the critters were only a product of the boy’s own imagination, a kind of nightmare endured with open eyes or maybe an attempt to make the hazard he was exposed to concrete by making a real image out of it, but in reality, they had no place whatsoever.

However, to get a better picture of what Dominic visualized, so that perhaps she could make therapeutical deductions from it, she asked:

“Can you describe these…critters?”

“I know how they feel…when they walk on my skin and when they start biting”, came a sad and very pent-up reply.

“And…”, Monika asked carefully, “how do they look like?”

With a shock Dominic lifted his head from Rebel’s and stared at her with angry, almost hateful eyes.

“I had expected a more intelligent question from a doctor!” he cried out caustically.

“Why that?” Monika reacted, surprised and alarmed.

With a vile, contemptuous laugh Dominic responded:

“Because I told you it was pitch dark in there. I couldn’t see the damned things, even if I wanted to”.

“He has a good point there”, she thought, feeling a bit cheated.

“Sorry, you’re right”, she apologized halfheartedly.

Apparently, Dominic didn’t recognize a good reason to respond. He just sat without a word.

“Are we talking psychotic hallucination here or is there another reason?” Monika wondered. There was only one way to find out: ask for it!

“But, sweetie…who put you in the slit?” she kindly probed.

“The old, black sorcerer!” the reply shot back.

“Why you call him that way?” Monika angled carefully for a conclusive answer.

“Because the geezer always wore black”, Dominic said, his hand sinking back to Rebel’s head again, where it started to stroke, feeling the relaxing effect of the soft fur. For Monika the last piece of the puzzle fell in its place: here was the other reason!

“Do you mean…?” she carefully quizzed.

“Yeah” was the monotonous confirmation, “that creepy old pervert!”

Dominic made it very clear that the session was over, as far as he was concerned. He just laid his head back on Rebel and remained in that pose in a visibly frightened and cramped way for about fifteen minutes without speaking a word. But then he looked up, stared in front of him with his head somewhat tilted and with shrouded eyes, as if he was thinking something over. Being curious if something would come, Monika decided to wait in silence.

With this session’s end approaching, Dominic said:

“There is something I really can’t understand, you know?”

“Tell me about it!” Monika replied with an inviting smile.

“When I think about it…”, he started haltingly, “I know that these are my memories. I know that I really lived through them. But in a way they don’t feel like my memories…they feel like they are some other person’s recollections. And when I tell you and Rebel all this…it is like I’m reading out aloud some story, written by another. I really can’t understand it. Do you?”
Monika thought about Dominic’s words for a few moments, then nodded and said:

“I think I can!”

“Tell me”, the boy cried out sharply, “I want to know why this stupid difference is there!”

Speaking carefully and slowly to make sure that Dominic would understand what she said, she started to explain:

“The memories you have are really your own memories…unfortunately! You lived through horrible things as a child and a youngster. So, the things you tell are true. But you do it in an almost mechanical way. And that tells me, that you don’t want or even can go another time through the pain, both physically and emotionally, that is connected to these recalls. Because you can’t handle that pain a second time. Your mind has suppressed this suffering to an unconscious level”.

She paused to let it sink in. Then she continued:

“And you will never be able to go through that hurt again, if you have to do it all by yourself. No person can! But this…, call it forgotten pain, is exactly what is ruining your life now. It festers inside you and controls every thought and idea. This pain, that you push away, is also very absent when you tell about your memories. You tell it like ‘I heard it from some guy, sounds pretty weird, but in fact I don’t give a damn’. Mostly to avoid the pain, but also to keep up your image as a tough, cool street rat. But you do care…, you care a lot! You will have to go through it another time to make your peace with it, to assimilate it. But you can only do that with professional support and guidance. As far as the memories themselves are concerned…”.

She stopped another few seconds, looking at the boy in front of her, who had his eyes riveted on her face, as if he hung to her lips.

“You know, Dominic”, she went on., “I’m not a surgeon. I can’t simply cut your memories out of your brains with a sharp knife. They will always be there. But we psychiatrists can help you with coming over the pain, so you can assimilate it and get rid of it, giving you the chance to be happy, even with these horrible things from the past. And we can learn you techniques to handle your memories. So that they no longer control you, but that you will be the one who controls them! You understand?”

Another long, somewhat tense silence hung in the room when Dominic considered her words with a serious expression on his face. But at long last he said:

“Guess so!”

Monika looked at her watch and concluded the session with:

“Time is up, sweetie. Think it over another time what I just said. Now, you better go to Erika and make a new appointment for end this week. OK?”

“Guess so…”, but again its tone was despondent.

He patted Rebel with another kiss on his black nose tip and left the room without saying a word to his doctor, not even “Goodbye!”

 

And then there was this other session, in which Monika needed every ounce of support her four-pawed assistant could give her, when Dominic’s emotions threatened to get out of hand!

The funny way the session started could have given her a clear indication of brewing tensions and trouble, but for some reason she simply didn’t recognize it.

Dominic’s face betrayed, that he was tense from the moment he came in. Initially he sat down in the chair, but as soon as Rebel stampeded in and started to ramble around him in an invitation to have “some fun”, he rose and sat down on the carpet. Without further encouragement he started to talk, taking the psychiatrist through a detailed, meticulous narrative of that very first night his grandfather raped him, after struggling and stumbling two stairs up, driven on by the savage blows, face slaps, earwigs and kicks the old pervert gave him to get him in some semblance of a hurry.

And he did it all with a lugubrious graveyard voice, that remained level and almost robotlike with every word, sounding like a young Orson Wells reading out loud an Edgar Allen Poe-story. But his eyes…they told the real story: there was a bizarre mix of scorching fury and heartrending distress in them and while going through the story his whole body increasingly shuddered. But the voice…the expression of what he told…it was eerie!

Dominic’s account came to the point when he fell on the bed, describing how he almost consciously surrendered to avoid any more pain in the vain hope, that there would be no more of it. Only then his voice changed once, sinking to an almost animal-like low growl, when he said:

“But the worst was still to come!”

His voice recovered and resumed the almost computer-generated intonation, when he described into the tiniest details how the creep started to torture his little hole and penis in the most atrocious thinkable ways

Increasingly Monika divided her attention to concentrate on the story, at the same time carefully looking for obvious symptoms of another conversion syndrome. The way Dominic’s body shook was a clear indication, that something like that might happen.

To be prepared for just that eventuality her hand moved stealthily to a drawer and opened it. From it she took a vial of strong sedative and an IV drip, just to be prepared.

Dominic didn’t notice it. Absorbed as he was in his childhood experiences his voice droned on and on and on, his eyes were like a twin volcano. But they didn’t see anything. It made even Monika shiver and to avoid a disaster, she decided to try an intervention.

“Chill down, sweetie”, she said as gently as she could, “Take a break. Come down from your nightmare!”

“To be frank: I could use a breather myself!” she thought.

Because Dominic’s diabolical spiral to the darkest depths continued unabating when he came to the part where his grandfather “softened him up” by pushing a wooden stick in his anus with brute force, ignoring and actually laughing about the outcries of pain and then…raped him, deaf for all shrieks of physical suffering and mortal agony. And all with the very same tone of speaking… cold and impassionate.

Monika feared she had to resort to the sedative to keep at least a semblance of control. The boy was no longer able to keep his hands still, his facial muscles twitched, his eyes had to be burning out of their sockets by now and his breathing had deteriorated to a kind of panting and wheezing. But his voice…miraculously it remained level, monotone, deep and sounding like the harbinger of Eternal Doom.

Almost distraught by the unexpected turn things had taken, she called out:

“Rebel…you know a way to calm him down? No matter what?”

Flawless Rebel took the cue, rose fast and came to the rescue of his buddy in distress, when he started spurting in circles around the boy on the carpet, pushing his wet nose and long tongue in his neck, then on his cheeks, to finish in his face. And did it again and again!

Next, he stood behind the boy, jumped up on his rear legs and placed his front paws high, one on each of Dominic’s shoulders, only to begin a continuous shower of wet nose prints and licks over where ever he could lick: his hair, his cheeks, his neck, his hands…every body part the dog could reach, in the meantime frantically wagging and waving his bushy tail.

Monika got really tense by now: would Rebel manage to break the panic attack? Would he? Or did she have to resort to sedation?

Rebel didn’t think about all these questions; he just kept to the job at hand. He kept sprinting, so every now and then jumping him from the rear, at other moments from the front, continuously caressing Dominic’s skin with his huge tongue or scratching his front paws over Dominic’s chest and back in a kind of canine expression of:

“Come on, pal! I’m here for you! I’ll take care of you!”

Monika stared at Rebel’s endeavors, biting her nails while doing so. Rebel kept running around and jumping on the boy in a supreme effort to break through the blockade. But at last, Monika could heave a deep sigh of facilitation: it worked; miraculously Rebel made it happen!

Dominic’s satanic vicious circle was cut and his anger and despondency collapsed. His body relaxed, his breath was slowly restored to a normal rhythm and the rage in his eyes disappeared, instantaneously replaced by an expression of exhaustion. And his voice, the voice that had spoken like it spoke the words of the Devil? It kept silent! With wide open mouth he stared absent-minded and empty at the young psychiatrist.

“My God, Rebel”, she cried out spontaneously, “You furry Heaven-sent gift. You sweet Freud on four legs!”

Normally she was not especially fond of dogs. But this time she rose rapidly and walked towards the carpet where, in an a-typical expression of affection for her, she took the dog’s head in her hands and kissed it, like it was Peter Wagner. Rebel accepted the compliment totally different than Peter would have done. He did it in modest gratification with a wagging tail and shining eyes.

Then she gave her full attention to Dominic, who still sat on the carpet like a statue. She laid her hand cautiously on his shoulder and asked with a very soft voice:

“Are you OK, Dominic?”

Dominic only stared back with his blankly eyes, not even stammering a word.

“Can you hear me, sweetie?” she tried again, a little louder by now, “Are you OK?”

Dominic awkwardly lifted his head to face her. His eyes, that were virtually bereft of life, fixed themselves on her face and stared at it for what had to be two minutes, but not a single sound came from his lips. But finally, he let his head sink again, turned half a turn, laid his head on Rebel and embraced the dog’s neck, impervious of her presence, stuttering to no one in particular:

“I…I…am…so…t..t..t..tired!”

She decided to accept given facts and cut the session short. She picked up the phone, pressed a button and spoke:

“Monika here. Get me a bed for about an hour or two. I want Dominic to recover first, before we send him home again. That is…if no other unexpected things happen. Then I might reconsider. And oooh…get a room on his own so that Rebel can come with him. And send two nurses in to pick them up”.

When the nurses came in, they managed to get the two out of the room in a very careful way. A young girl took care of Rebel with a simple “Come, Rebel”, while the huge male nurse ascertained himself if Dominic was able to walk properly. When it turned out he wasn’t, the nurse just lifted him up in his tree trunk arms and carried him to his own room, followed by Rebel and the girl. Once there Dominic got hot coffee to calm down a bit and Rebel got his well-deserved bowl of water.

Monika sagged behind her desk, placed her elbows on it and sank her head in her hands, thinking:

“Should I have seen it coming? Have I gone too far? Should I have intervened earlier?”

She considered it for some time, then concluded:

“No, I haven’t gone too far. He just started this subject all by himself, in his own way and without any warning. As far as earlier intervention is concerned? Maybe I should have. I can better discuss that with my boss to avoid making the same mistake twice! And he better tells me what to look for the next time a patient comes in”.

She lifted her head up, only to lay her chin in her hands. Then she muttered:

“But my God, what a tough little whacker that is!”

Some tears came in her eyes when she added:

“I feel so guilty!”

After about an hour and a half Dominic had recovered enough to go home by himself and they released him. Monika transferred Rebel back to his trainer, whom she told:

“You told me, that he is one of the best in the city”.

“Well…eeuhh…yes. At least I think so”, was the somewhat embarrassed reply.

“You’re wrong!” Monika said with a beaming smile, “He is by far the absolute best!”

“Thanks, doc”, the man grinned shy, “I’ll give my boy an extra bone for that tonight”.

“You do that”, Monika said stern, “He deserved it. Doctor’s orders”.

But over time Rebel’s role diminished more and more. By now Dominic had found the courage and ability to talk directly to his psychiatrist, waving Rebel’s steadfast support, so during an afternoon session, that was fully spent on frolicking around the two of them, they said their goodbyes and Rebel was on his way to the next patient, who was in great need of his truly unique capabilities and talents.