//------------------------------// // Marks, 1 (Interlude) // Story: Shears // by Antikythera //------------------------------// Twilight walks into the office like diving into the sun. At the central mahogany desk, a middle-aged white stallion sits, his hooves in his lap. His gaze follows Twilight as she ambles in, head down, and seats herself on his couch at his gesture. There are posters on the wall, dispensing platitudes, but her attention is drawn to his cutie mark, two interlocking silver puzzle pieces, visible underneath the surface of the desk. Maybe, here, something will click into something else... No, Twilight. No miracle cure fantasies. "Hi, Miss Twilight Sparkle." "...Hi." "My name is Willing Hooves. It's great to finally meet you; your mom has told me quite a bit, but second-hoof knowledge never really serves to get to know somepony. Do you know why you're here, Twilight?" "...Because I'm bucked up." "...I suppose you could say that. But that's pretty harsh phrasing, and it doesn't convey much information. What do you mean by that?" "I mean... I have... problems." She's been in the office about thirty seconds, and she's already fidgeting, stumbling, speaking as a far dumber pony than she is. "That's a start, but what sort of problems, Twilight?" She thinks of her conversation with her mother on the train ride, and does her best to re-conjure that begrudging acquiescence. You have to tell this stallion the truth, Twilight. If you don't speak deliberately and clearly to him, giving the appointment the best chance you can, then you're wasting everypony's time and money. "Do you want me to just, like, rattle them off? It's a lot." "We have to start somewhere, and it's easiest for us to decide where to begin if I know the options. You will have influence over our path, but I assume you'd agree that some problems are more pressing than others. Our first few appointments will be a sort of triage, dealing with the most important problems first, as best we can, to get you into a position of stability, from which we can tackle more specific problems. So yes, please, if you're up to it. Rattle them off." Absentmindedly staring at the "You only fail when you stop trying" plaque on the end table, Twilight forces herself to refocus on the patient stallion in front of her. Something gives, and the words begin to flow. She actually practiced this. She practices it a lot. "Okay. Uh. I'm not performing well in any of my classes except math and magic. I have severe motivational issues. I don't do much for fun except read. I have episodes where I get disconnected from reality, that I don't really understand. I get confused. I forget things. I don't feel like a real pony sometimes; I feel like I'm made of parchment, like I'm two-dimensional, or like I'm hollow. I get scared easily, by loud noises, and by crowds. And... I don't get along with other ponies. I don't have any friends. My classmates hate me. I don't talk to my brother. I don't get along with my mom. I never go out with anypony. I don't talk to anypony." And I hurt myself, in ways I don't always recognize, but it always leaves a mark. "I see." That's all you have to say? Twilight thinks, until she realizes therapists need time to think, too. She resumes her poster survey. After a couple very quiet seconds, Willing Hooves brushes a silver lock out of his eyes and continues, "I understand you've seen psychologists before?" "Yes. Three of them, in Canterlot. It's been a couple years since I've seen anypony, though, so I don't really remember how things went with them... we sort of gave up. No one really knew what to do with me. My problems aren't... normal. I'm just not like other ponies, even other ponies with problems. I've sort of accepted that I just don't get to live a life like everypony else's. I'm not happy, but I get by. I'm not failing out of school, and I don't cause other ponies problems. Nopony depends on me. So, I just sort of... keep living." "I see. Let me ask you a more pointed version of the question I asked you earlier. Do you know why you're here? Why you're here, in Fillydelphia, two hours' train-ride from your home in Canterlot, instead of seeing somepony new there?" "...Not really. Apparently, you're pretty good, I guess." She gently paws the arm of the couch. "Thank you, but that's not exactly the full reason. It's because I specialize in dissociative disorders. Most psychologists deal more with general issues, things like acute depression, interpersonal problems, the sort of thing for which straightforward talk therapy is quite efficacious. The most common mental disorder that your typical psychologist can handle is called major, unipolar depressive disorder, which is a persistent depression, not necessarily sourced in daily events, with serious deleterious effects on somepony's life. That's all well and good, because it's a very important condition to recognize and treat, but it's also fairly direct to understand and approach. Maybe, this is something that you have. Maybe not. But I am convinced that there is more going on in your head than that, and if other psychologists are poorly equipped to help you, it's my hope that I am not. I believe, sincerely, that you could be living a much fuller life. You're an exceptionally smart pony, Twilight. We can build you a better life than the one you're living. All I require of you is a willing attitude. I am far from infallible, but I do know what I'm doing, and I have treated similar cases before, often with success. I know you are very scientifically minded, very data-driven, and I know you don't have much data on me or the process of mental health therapy. But let me ask you, preliminarily: how do you feel about the prospect of regular therapy? Do you think it is something you would be willing to cooperate with me in? You have to say yes. You have to. You don't get to think about it. Stop thinking about it. "...Okay. I'm okay with it. I... want to be different. I want to be different in almost any way. I want to be anypony else." Willing Hooves smiles his sad smile, as Twilight looks nowhere in particular. "Excellent, Twilight. I have the highest hopes for us. Let us waste no time in getting you the help you deserve. First, I would like you to tell me about your 'episodes', in as much detail as you feel is relevant." "Okay. Let me collect my thoughts a little." "Certainly." How do I explain to a complete stranger what an episode is like, when I barely have a handle on them myself? It's impossible to fully explain a phenomenon whose primary effects are confusion and a complete divorce from every mental faculty. But she's written enough reports to know the only valid tack is to own what you don't know, not to craft some half-rumped guess. Just tell him whatever you can. Don't try to explain anything you don't understand. That's his job. Just start talking. Twilight swallows, and starts, "To begin with, it happens primarily when I get scared or when things don't go my way. Minor episodes happen when I, like, can't find a book, or when somepony says something slightly sharp at school. Major episodes happen when things like... um... when bigger things happen. First, it starts affecting my vision. Maybe it just blurs, maybe it goes double, maybe it just sort of... diffracts? Doesn't come through quite straight? But most commonly, it's like the world is zoomed out. Like I'm looking at everything through a tube. And the worse the episode gets or the longer the episode goes on, the more the tube stretches out, and the farther the world shrinks away. Sounds get muffled, and... Sometimes I can't understand speech. Or respond. Sometimes I can't comprehend that somepony is speaking to me, specifically, and I tune it out without thinking about it, thinking they're talking to somepony else. Sometimes I just can't hear. Or..." She puts a hoof on her chin. "It's more like the signal just doesn't reach the right part of my brain, like, I hear it, but don't know what speech is, that it's something worth paying attention to. Sometimes... I can't feel my body. I can't feel my heartbeat, or my breathing, and it feels like I'm dying, or dead. I lose sensation in my hooves, and it makes it hard to walk. My magic just fades away, like my horn doesn't exist. It's like reality is like a pinprick in a huge black void. Sometimes, when I get really bad, I can't find the tiny world again among the darkness, and I just... am. Sometimes I can manage to think about math, which passes the time. But I can't think about anything else, it's like... something's cleaved away the entire concept of external reality." She hasn't exhausted what she could say, but she needs to move on. "And, even for a while afterwards, I forget things. Not facts about the world, like, where Appleloosa is, or who's the ruler of Equestria, or the quadratic formula, but facts about myself... my identity. Who I am. Where I live, who my mom and brother are, what my cutie mark is..." She looks away. "Sometimes I forget my name. Or that I'm Twilight Sparkle, like, she's not somepony else that I know." "I'm sorry, Twilight." Willing Hooves brushes his mane out of his eyes again, and after a moment of contemplation, asks, "Can you tell me when these episodes started? And when the first major episode was?" "It's been happening as long as I can remember. I don't have very many childhood memories, but... the earliest I remember was when I was around two and a half. I blacked out because my... my dad... wouldn't buy me the Celestia plushie I wanted. He said I had enough Celestia stuff already... which, in retrospect, was probably true. It happened pretty quickly that time. I was at the market stall, and the next thing I knew, I was at a restaurant. Mom and dad thought I needed food. I think I fainted, and my dad carried me there. It was the first episode that had effects beyond just zoning out. Apparently I didn't actually lose consciousness, just control, or awareness, like most of me was taken somewhere else. Under my breath, I was murmuring most of the time in between. I was just... counting. Just counting up from zero. I don't know if that was really the first episode, though. I was generally unresponsive as a filly a lot of the time... But... My dad spent a lot of time with me. He had leeway with work hours when I was young, since he did mostly independent work in his lab, so he would often just sit with me, with a hoof around my neck, while I did... nothing. He... he—" Don't think about dad. "...Anyway, that was the first time it got sorta bad in public." "I see. It sounds like Night Light took good care of you." "He did. But, um. Could we move on?" "Sure, Twilight. I only want to dive in as deep as is comfortable for you, since we are just getting to know each other. Moving on: it's interesting to me that you had Princess Celestia paraphernalia as a filly, given your close relationship to her now." "I guess so," says Twilight, as she feels a small flutter in her chest. "Well, she's always been a role model of mine. The most prominent one, by far. Have you ever thought about the incredible force of will it must take to be as old as she is, but still wake every day and carry the entire country? Or the world-rending power consolidated in that one horn? Or just thought about how much she knows?" "I honestly cannot imagine the weight of being such a pony." Twilight nods. 'Weight' is a good way to put it. Like the entire world rests on her haunches, because honestly, it probably does. "But... I threw out a lot of my Celestia stuff when I got my position with her. Just felt weird, uh, snuggling up to a plushie of my personal mentor. Plus, I don't know if she would ever come to visit me, but if she does, I don't want her to see a bunch of herself lying all over my room. She'd think I were, like, obsessed with her or something." And I'm not. Not anymore. "That's understandable. What's your relationship with Princess Celestia like now?" "Um, pretty professional. We mostly talk about magic. I don't really bring anything else up. She's not happy about my progress in other subjects, but she doesn't press too hard about it. And... we rarely talk about my... problems. I think she knows I don't like to talk about it, and that's her whole thing—she's whoever somepony needs her to be. I figure, if Celes—I mean, if Princess Celestia doesn't make an effort to fix me, then I must really be beyond help." And yet, here I am. "And I can't lay out all of my issues in front of the most powerful being in the world, the only living pony I even sort of get along with..." "I see. That makes sense, I suppose, but is it really fair to say that she doesn't make an effort? Maybe she thinks it would do more harm than good to bring up certain things, but she still helps you. A wise, virtuous role model like her is a wonderful thing for a filly like yourself to have. Maybe you don't specifically talk about your dissociative episodes with her, but Twilight, my little pony, there is more that defines you than those episodes, and a growing filly needs more than just 'fixing'. I would expect she conducts your growth in myriad ways. It sounds like you're very lucky to have such a friend in the princess. Would you mind telling me about your first major episode?" "I, um, well. Uh," Twilight stumbles, shaken by the sudden shift of topic. "It was, um... the night I got my cutie mark. At my entrance exam... the night I met the Princess," she says, now understanding why he asked. "Do you already... Did my mom tell you about it?" "Yes, although if you're up to it, I'd much prefer to hear your account. I understand that it was extremely traumatic, but I want you to know that I'm very much on your side. Based on what I already know, I don't blame you for those events, nor anypony else." Twilight looks down at her hooves, which she finds shaking, and surprisingly far away. "I... can't, I just... no, I'm not... Can we... not? Not yet." "That's perfectly acceptable. I'm sorry for bringing it up, Twilight. We can broach the subject whenever you're ready; there's plenty left to talk about that isn't so stressful. Would you like some water, or a snack?" He gestures to the basket of fresh apples sitting on the corner of his desk nearest the couch; Twilight doesn't see. "...No." "...Okay." He leans back in his chair. "Let me know when you're ready to move on to something else." Twilight shakes her head a fraction. "I'm okay. It's okay. I'm fine." She feels his gaze on her, burning, dry; a twinge of desperation flares. "So..." "So, let's back up a bit and branch off somewhere else. You have a curious cutie mark. Would you mind telling me what it means to you? It's been about two years since you got it, correct?" "That's right." Twilight contorts to look at the mark on her flank: a black circle, with seven nubs around the edge. Inside it, there's another circle in the negative space, this one toothless, white, and parted into semicircles. The separation between them aligns with two of the outer teeth, and as it extends, it breaks through and cleaves the whole mark in half. "I... I've never really known exactly what it means. I think... I hope it has something to do with magical ability. Because the alternative is... I don't know. Maybe something I don't want to be good at." "I can understand that. It's always very difficult for ponies who don't fully comprehend their cutie marks. Did your magical capacity increase when you received it?" "Yes," Twilight admits. "By how much, exactly?" "...By a factor of six and a half. Something around there." Willing Hooves removes his glasses. "...My. Did you learn any new capabilities?" "...No. I mean, I don't know how I would tell, y'know? But at least I didn't feel any natural calling to some special ability. I tried all the things I'd heard about, some of the, like, 'lost fields', but... I just got a lot more magic. I'm at around 800 thaums now. That's all." "Fascinating. I knew academy unicorns were gifted, but... most fillies your age are just now celebrating a hundred. I understand why you're so proficient in magic for your age." For my age? Such patronizing paternalism. I'm proficient in magic, period. And my thaumage isn't the only reason. "It's no great mystery that your cutie mark is to do with that." That's not an answer, idiot! "But what does it mean?! I had an above average capacity before I got it, but a high number hardly constitutes a special talent. If my talent is magic, then what does the pattern represent? It's no magical symbol I've ever seen, and I've seen pretty much all of them I can get my hooves on! I've scoured ancient language and magic textbooks and it's nowhere! It's nothing! And why seven? The nubs aren't even regularly spaced; two of them are aligned with the parting down the center, but seven is odd! And the symbol in the negative space, a circle with a line through it... in math, it's the symbol for the empty set. The set with zero elements. A container with nothing in it, a waste of space. What the buck does that mean I'm good at? Being an empty shell of a pony? Is the universe itself trying to tell me I'm worthless, I'm nopony?!" "Nonsense, Twilight. In my experience, cutie marks always carry some mark of great personal import and satisfaction, even if it's not always clear what. I believe the true meaning will come to you, in time. It always does. Your cutie mark is something to soon discuss in further detail, but not quite yet. Let's move on for now, as it seems to be rather stressful. So, Twilight, maybe we could discuss what helps you recover from these episodes? Would that be difficult at this point in time?" Nopony has an answer for me, not one that's worth a buck. What's the point of asking? I'll never know what I'm meant to do with my life; I'll never figure out what to say when a stranger asks me what it means. Just forget the universe branded you with a magical slap in the face and move on. She sighs. "That's... fine. Well." What does help me recover? "It depends on how bad it gets. If I'm just zoomed out, or losing sensation, ponies can talk to me, sort of anchor me down. But it doesn't always... take. If I'm totally insensate, there's not really much anypony can do... and I feel helpless too, since I can't even conceive of why I'm upset. I just have to wait. It subsides anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple hours, typically." "Do you typically recover alone?" "Yes. Unless my mom or Celestia is there." "I see. That's quite unfortunate, but can be addressed in due time. Do you have more to say about your recovery?" "...Not really. I just basically endure until it fades. I don't have the agency to do anything else." "Okay. Well, Twilight. Our session is drawing to a close, so I'd like to talk to you about my tentative diagnoses." Plural. "Before we do so, I'd like to emphasize that having a diagnosis is a good thing. It's not a good thing to have a mental disorder... not to say it's necessarily bad, either. But if somepony does have a disorder, it is far, far better for her to recognize it for what it is. There is no solution to a problem that comes without understanding; this is something I'm sure you already know. And each of us wants to comprehend who you are. Do you understand?" Twilight takes a deep breath, and recites a personal litany that she pilfered when she first read Starski: If something is true, I want to believe that it is true. If something is not true, I want to believe that it is not true. The world exists independent of my beliefs; rejecting a fact does not render it untrue. Reality does not bend to my whim or preconceptions. "I do." "Okay, Twilight. Please, don't be discouraged by what I'm about to tell you. Feel free to stop me if you need to, it's okay. I would like to have one or two more sessions before I put anything in your chart, but these are my suspicions: first, severe avoidant personality disorder, explaining the extreme distance between you and other ponies and your abysmally low self-esteem despite your incredible competence. I suspect deponization and derealization, with episodes of psychogenic amnesia and dissociative fugues in crisis. Possibly a coping mechanism symptomatic of avoidant PD, possibly an independent condition; we'll have to see whether it's mitigated by the progress in managing APD that I'm quite sure we'll make. Most likely, that will be sooner than you think. You may have post-traumatic stress disorder from the events of your entrance exam, but I am unsure. I'm doubtful that you suffer from unipolar depression; you engage fully in what few activities in which you do participate, and you take care of your body and daily responsibilities. I do not suspect dissociative identity disorder itself, because I find no evidence your mind harbors multiple independent personalities. Are you still with me?" Twilight snaps to. "Yeah." "Okay. I don't expect you to fully understand everything I just said, but I am going to write it all down for you. I understand you're quite the reader; I suggest doing cursory independent research on each topic I mentioned, just to get an idea of what I'm telling you. Of course, we will talk in much finer detail about these conditions at our next session, among many other things, but a pony like you will benefit from getting a head start on the research. Also, starting next session, we will start proposing concrete strategies to help you deal with these trials. Take heart, Twilight. Diagnosing you correctly is the first step toward a much, much better life, and I am equipped to help you with each of these things, in time. How do you feel?" He takes a quill in his mouth and begins scrawling on a small piece of parchment, and the scratching noise thereof carves his words into her brain. "I'm fine," she says, reflexively, and immediately recognizes it as a lie. Maybe Willing Hooves does too, maybe not, but it's okay: some lies are black, some are white.