//------------------------------//
// The Feeling You Get 
// Story: Mind Over Matter 
// by Boopy Doopy 
//------------------------------//

“Leo,” Doctor Spark told me softly, still hugging me and rubbing my back, “I know it’s hard, but you can’t bite yourself.”
“I can’t help it!” I choked out in between tears, still biting down.
She went silent at that, and gently used her magic to massage my cheeks until my bite loosened. Then she put my head against her chest. She stayed quiet for several minutes, still rubbing my back, letting my pony body sob, trying to get me to calm down. Then she spoke again. 
"I'm sorry, Leo," she tried to tell me soothingly. "I know how bad you feel, but-"
"No you don't!" I shouted angrily, wanting to push her away from me, my pony body opting instead to stay wrapped in her arms. "It's just going to keep getting worse! I hate my life!"
"It's going to get better, Leo-"
"No, it won't!" I told her bitterly. I knew that genie would keep making things worse for me. It was never going to stop. I was never going to change. I was never going to stop being so itchy.
Doctor Spark paused for a second, as if debating if she should tell me something, then continued. "I know how you feel, Leo. My parents were… mean to me, too. I know it's hard."
"You didn't throw away your life for no good reason," I thought angrily. "You had every reason to just give up, and didn't. I had no reason to throw everything away, but I did because I just didn't care. And now I'm a scared, likely abused, colt because of how stupid I was."
"I know how bad you feel, Leo," she continued, "and I know how much it hurts, but you can't hurt yourself. It's not going to make you feel better."
"So far," I thought as I scratched my face, "it's been the only thing that's kept me from cursing and screaming about just how much I hate myself and everything around me, the life I lived four days ago, and how much I want to die right now. And even then it still hasn't been working that well."
"I promise they won't come back if you don't want them to," she told me. "They won't come back here, Leo."
I rubbed my head against her chest, gently scratching my cheek, trying to calm myself down. I couldn't let myself get worked up. I had to manage myself and this pony body. Its fear already made me fearful. There was a reason it was afraid, and its fear made me shiver at the thought that those two could come back at any moment. I knew that whatever they did had to have been horrible to get that kind of reaction. Still, I took guilty solace in the fact that whatever they did didn't happen to me. They might not have even done anything to this colt body, either. This could all just be an overreaction, a hope that I was going to cling to.
 It wasn't much later before Herbal Essence and Thundertail showed up, silently making their way over to me upon seeing my condition. I couldn't tell why, but their presence seemed to have a calming effect on me. I lay down and closed my eyes as the couple stroked my back and mane, and I could feel this pony body's tension and fear start to dissipate. I didn't fall asleep though. Instead, I tried to think about what just happened and what it meant.
It could have just been that this colt body felt guilty about running away and had the most severe overreaction possible, but I knew that was extremely unlikely. In the moment, I felt its terror at their proximity to me, and it was strong enough to make me afraid. There was almost certainly a reason this pony body was afraid of them, and I didn't really want to think about what they could've done to produce that kind of reaction.
Then I started to wonder if that was really this colt body's reaction, or if that was my reaction. I initially dismissed that idea. I wasn’t an abuse victim. I was a drug addict who just so happened to be in this poor colt’s body. But then I started to question that. Was I really a drug addict? Sure, all of my actions fit, but all of my actions also fit being an abused colt.
Was I ever really a human, or had I been a colt my whole life? This entire time, I'd been under the assumption that I was me, and I was fighting against somepony else. That theory still made sense. But then again, I could still feel its want to be comforted, its hurt when it admitted to not having any fun or being treated unfairly. I felt its terror at that couple's sight, it's panic at the thought that they might come closer. As much as I tried to control this body, I couldn't ignore those feelings that it gave me. I didn’t remember ever being a colt, or, at least, I didn't think so, but I did hear about people getting amnesia forgetting about traumatic events. That’s what could have happened to me, with my brain backfilling for the missing pieces.
“First of all, that’s ridiculous,” my human mind thought as I scratched my cheek. “This colt body recognized its parents, but you didn’t. That’s not really ‘amnesia’. Second, we can't even be sure this colt was abused.”
"So what? It nearly had a panic attack from the guilt of running away? No child, no matter what they did, naturally reacts that way to seeing its parents."
"We can't even be sure it's our parents! Just because they say they are doesn't make it true,".
"That stallion had a nearly black mane and dark green eyes just like mine," I thought. "That mare's coat matched mine to a tee!"
"That could just as easily be a coincidence," my human mind said.
“All of the facts point to this colt being abused by that couple, and our actions fit abuse much better than drug addiction,” I told it as I scratched my cheek. “My itching could just as easily be anxiety as it could be addiction. It actually fits anxiety better I think, since it’s only in one spot.”
“So what? You just imagined living on the street? You’re backfilling awful memories with more awful memories?”
“If I was a human,” I asked my human mind, “then what happened to the pony who inhabited this body? Where is he?”
“Probably in your human body! I don’t know!”
“That’s ridiculous. If someone else existed in this body, then they have to still be here because of our reaction to that couple. But I don’t hear anyone else in here, so this all makes much more sense if I was always a colt.”
“So what?” my human mind asked, starting to get angry. “You just imagined learning to read and write and do math way above what a five year old could do? You just imagined remembering dozens of songs and stories and conversations you’ve had? You just imagined ruining your life?”
“That mare called us Leo! How do you explain that?”.
“She absolutely did not,” my human mind told me. “You are making that up.”
“She absolutely did.”
“No, she didn’t. And even if she did, so what?”
“It means that our human past wasn’t real.”
“Even if it wasn’t truly real, it was real enough. Even if it was just all a hallucination, it was still real. You can't just abandon all of that on a whim.”
“If it didn't actually happen,” I said with finality, scratching my cheek, “then it wasn't real, and it doesn’t matter.”
My human mind made my pony body clench its jaw. “Okay, it’s not real. Now what? You convince yourself to go back to drug use since it didn’t actually happen? You convince yourself it’s okay because you’re not really a drug addict? You throw your life away again?”
“I’M ITCHY!” I screamed in my head. “AND I’M TIRED OF IT!”
I could feel my pony body’s teeth chattering, those tears I hated starting to form again. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it, that itchiness was still there, and I hated it. I desperately wanted it to go away, and, at that point, I didn't care how. I found myself suddenly wishing for Doctor Spark to offer me medicine. 
Herbal Essence put her arms around me, rubbing her forehead on my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Leo,” she said, barely a whisper.
“The past isn’t real,” I thought, scratching my face, shaking from my itching, trying to convince myself of it. “I’ve never been a human, and taking medicine won’t hurt me.”
“You’re safe here,” she said soothingly. “Nopony’s going to hurt you,”.
“It’s not going to hurt me,” I thought as I desperately tried to ignore being itchy, hating this feeling with all my heart.
It felt like an eternity trying to ignore being itchy before their presence started to get me to calm down again. There was something about them, about Herbal Essence in particular, that did that. It was a nice feeling, and I put my focus on that, allowing myself to be comforted by her. I was just about to drift off before I eventually felt her stop rubbing my back. I didn’t quite notice at first, but once I did, my pony body looked up to see they were already out the door.
“Where are they going?” I asked Doctor Spark worriedly, my itching coming back.
"They're going to come back in a little while," she assured me. "I just wanted to talk to you privately for now."
"Okay…"
She got down to eye level with me. "Are you feeling okay, Leo?"
I shrugged slightly, looking away. "I guess," I lied.
"Do you know who those ponies are?"
"I have a pretty good idea," I thought.
My pony body was silent, still looking away, opting not to answer.
"Was that your mom and dad, Leo?" she asked me softly.
I stayed quiet, my pony body shrinking back slightly at that. I could feel myself getting upset again.
"Leo," she told me, and used her hoof to gently turn my head, looking me in the eyes. "I know it's hard," she whispered, "but I need to know if they're hurting you. I won't make you go back to them if they were, okay?". She paused for a second, as if hoping I would tell her on my own, then asked, “Do your parents ever hurt you?”
“Yes,” I thought, suddenly feeling afraid.
I had no idea where the feeling came from. Even though I tried briefly to convince myself I was, I didn’t actually believe I was this colt for my whole life. I was a human for twenty years and several months before four days ago. But still, I wanted to say yes. I wasn’t just feeling its fear, or its desire to say yes. I myself felt afraid. I myself wanted to say yes.
“No,” I whispered.
I couldn’t say yes. Sure, I felt afraid, but I didn’t know if there was an actual reason to be afraid. For all I knew, I could have been putting two innocent ponies in custody.
“Are they ever mean to you, Leo?”
I sniffed, feeling its sadness and pain start to infect me. I closed my eyes and tried to believe what my human mind told me earlier. I was not an abused colt. I was a stupid idiot who threw his life away stuck in this abused colt’s body, assuming it was indeed abused.
“No,” I whispered, opening my eyes and looking away.
"Why were you so scared?" she asked me.
The way she asked almost got me. I just about told her that I thought they were hurting me, but stopped myself. Saying that could ruin their lives, and I wasn't going to make accusations that I couldn't confirm. For all I knew, that could have been a withdrawal symptom.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly, pushing away my pony body’s urge to cry.
“Leo,” she whispered, putting a hoof on my cheek, looking upset, “I know it’s hard, but you have to tell me what happened. We can’t fix anything if we don’t know,”.
I started to tear up. Not from the conversation, but from her hoof. It was resting directly on my cheek, in a position that she could easily start scratching it in, but she wasn’t. I was itchy, and she wasn’t scratching.
Why did she have to put her hoof on that cheek? She knew that was the cheek that was bothering me. She knew this itching was more than I could stand. She wanted to see me suffer.
"Or maybe she's telling you it won't hurt you," I thought. "She's saying it's okay to accept help. She's saying one won't hurt you. She's saying one won't ruin your life."
“Don’t you ask,” my human mind told me, being the rational one this time. “You’re a fool if you do. Whether it does something or not, either way, you’ll be worse off.”	 "Ignore your itching," my human mind told me. 
I closed my eyes. “One can’t hurt me,” I thought. “She wouldn’t give a colt addictive substances. It’s not going to hurt me.”
"Ignore your itching," my human mind told me. "Cry. Kick and scream at her. Bite yourself. Do. Not. Ask."
“We won’t let them hurt you, Leo,” Doctor Spark tried to tell me.
“It won’t hurt me,” I told myself, trying to rationalize what I was about to do. “The past isn’t real, so it can’t hurt me.”
I looked up at her and whispered, “Can I have some medicine, please?” with tear filled eyes.