The Personal Files of Dr. Mindwell

by rillegas08

07: Hughbert Jellius, Session 1, Substance Abuse(?) and Obsession

Word of my accomplishments so far seem to be spreading quickly. Perhaps I should consider hiring a secretary before I get too overwhelmed by the number of ponies asking for help.

Regardless, yesterday a pair of unicorns with off-white coats stopped by my house, a mare and a filly. The mare had a beautifully quaffed and curled mane, and the filly's mane was pink and purple. It was also curled, even more so than the mare's.

"This is the house Scootaloo told me about," said the filly as I opened the door. "She told Apple Bloom and me really good things about him."

"You are Dr. Mindwell, I take it?" asked the mare, and I confirmed her question. "Twilight has been singing your praises as well, Doctor. I'm Rarity, and this is my little sister Sweetie Belle." Ah, the unicorn sisters that Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash had mentioned.

"I've heard a few things about you both as well. What can I help you with?"

The younger sister spoke. "Actually, it's not exactly something for us. See, this last Hearts and Hooves day, the Crusaders were trying to find a special somepony for our teacher Cheerilee, and I was kinda harsh on several other ponies around town while trying to find one." She told me about several ponies: an older stallion named Geri, whom she'd called too old as he was delivering a eulogy; a young colt who was playing a video game; a short pony; a tall pony; and a grey stallion she'd called 'strangely obsessed with tubs of jelly'. "I've apologized to them since then, but I'm pretty sure I was right about one in particular: the jelly stallion. He wasn't bothered by what I'd said, but I've seen him around a few times, eating a lot of jelly, salivating over a new flavor at the jelly shop, or things like that. I think he might need your expertise."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Jellius," I greeted him as he entered. Since this was our first meeting, I paid attention to his appearance: he had the same coat and mane colors as the walleyed mare I'd seen at the train station and at the post office. I noticed a substance that appeared to be jelly at the corner of his mouth. His cutie mark was three strawberries.

"You're welcome, but I'm still not sure why you asked me to come."

I told him who I was, what I did for a living, and how Sweetie Belle was concerned about his apparent obsession. "She suggested I meet you."

"I told her I didn't mind what she said about me. I do really like jelly!"

"Speaking of which, you have something in the corner of your mouth." I levitated the box of tissues to him. He took one and wiped his mouth, taking the jelly with it. "There we go. In any case, she was concerned about some behaviors she's noticed you exhibit since then, and addressing her concerns is the least I could do."

"Well... all right then." I brought him to the sofa, which he sat upon. I sat at my desk as usual.

"Now then, let's begin. When did you realize your love for jelly?"

"I was a young colt, working at my family's berry orchard. We grow all kinds of fruits, and most of it is processed into jelly, which we send all across Equestria. 'Jellius's Jellies'." Once I learned his name, I had wondered if he was related to the family who created the most popular line of jellies, jams, and preserves. "My task was to crush the berries that would eventually be put into jars. I'd eaten our jellies at meals before, but it wasn't until I tasted some strawberry jelly that I knew I wanted to continue the family business. It was the most delicious fruit product I'd ever tasted. I also got my cutie mark: three strawberries, one for each jar I ate that day." Oh my. "Course, it wasn't until the next day that I got a big stomachache from eating that much jelly. I cut down after that."

"When you have spare time, what do you like to do?"

"Eating jelly, organizing the different flavors, telling ponies about new flavors..."

"Any hobbies that aren't jelly-related?"

He had to pause for a while, then spoke again, slower than before. "I... I can't think of any. It's been a while."

Perhaps Sweetie Belle had had a point. If he didn't have any hobbies that didn't involve jelly, or just didn't remember any, then perhaps he was as obsessed as she thought he was.

"It's all right if you can't remember. You can take as long as you need, or we can continue if you'd like."

He nodded and stayed silent for a few more minutes, trying to remember anything he could. Finally he spoke up.

"I might have enjoyed reading. It's hard to remember."

"Can you say how long ago that might have been?"

"Nine... ten months, I think? I'm sorry, everything from before Discord came to town is blurry." Well now, that's interesting. I had very little information about what had happened with Discord, and perhaps this would be a good opportunity to learn a few things.

"What can you tell me about Discord?"

"The way I understand it, and I've heard some of this from other ponies who remember what happened better, he was freed from his prison and started spreading chaos all throughout the town. He's like a mix of a the body parts of a bunch of different animals or something. Apparently he chose Ponyville over a larger city because the only way to stop him was here or something. He started spreading his chaos: clouds made of cotton candy that rained chocolate milk; the ground became all hilly and checkered with bright colors; some of the houses and ponies started floating away. Sometimes he focused on individual ponies before getting bored and moving on to somepony else.

"He sounds like an interesting character."

"You weren't there. It was only for less than a day, but he made living here horrible."

"You mentioned that he sometimes focused on individual ponies. Did you experience any of this firsthoof?"

"I don't remember. Other ponies tell me I was turned into a plate of gelatin." Perhaps this transformation had something to do with his obsession. "One second I was running somewhere, and the next everything was fixed, although my legs felt unstable. Buildings were on the ground, the ground itself was flat and green like it should've been."

Well, that would seem to rule out post-traumatic stress disorder, as a symptom of that condition is a vivid memory of an event that could be triggered by something mundane.

"After everything was fixed again, what's the first thing you can remember doing?"

"Well, like I said, my legs felt unstable. Wobbly. All my joints, actually, seemed more flexible, but that got better soon. I laid down so I could rest and stiffen up."

"How long did it take to feel better?"

"I don't know. An hour, maybe two. What I do know for sure is that by then end I'd started to feel hungry. I stood up again when I felt strong enough again and made my way back home. I had to stop and rest once, because I felt too flexible again, but it didn't take as long to recover the second time. I got home and had some food."

He looked like he wanted to continue, but something was stopping him from doing so. Whether it was a block in his memory, or an emotion caused by what happened next was yet to be determined.

"It's weird. After eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I ate all the jelly that was in my house. All 30 jars of jellies, jams, and preserves. They were even more delicious than I'd thought they were before, and everything else didn't taste as good. I expected to get a big stomachache again like I did when I got my cutie mark, but... nothing. I felt fine."

Strangely obsessed with tubs of jelly, Sweetie Belle had said. Now a new hypothesis had formed in my mind: Discord had indeed turned Mr. Jellius into gelatin, and somehow after everything was returned to normal, he was not, and if not everything about him returned to normal, perhaps some other ponies in town also had some lingering effects from Discord's chaos. Perhaps the chaos magic had latched onto something relating to his cutie mark. I hadn't heard of any magic that could show that kind of semi-sentience, but it's chaos magic. It very likely didn't follow the same rules as a pony's magic, so anything could happen.

About this time, I noticed some movement at the window in the corner of my eye. I glanced over, and saw what appeared to be the tip of a horn and a silver-ish mane drop below the sill.

"Excuse me a moment, Mr. Jellius."

"Okay."

I got out of my chair and walked over to the door. This interaction is one for another file, so I will not include it here. A short time later I returned to my desk.

"I'm sorry about that. What were we talking about?" He reminded me that he'd been talking about eating all the jelly, and the resulting lack of a stomachache. "Ah yes, thank you. Perhaps the lack of a stomachache is a medical health situation," I suggested. "Have you contacted a doctor to see if that might be the case?"

"I've never felt the need to," he replied. "I never got sick from eating so much after that, so I didn't think it was an issue."

"On the contrary, a stomachache is your body's natural response to eating too much or to eating something toxic. If you ate that much jelly, yet it did not result in a stomachache, then that would indicate that there is something unusual going on."

"So you think I should go see Dr. Horse?" I assume that was the doctor in charge at Ponyville Hospital.

"I do. In many cases it's better to be cautious than to wait too long and regret not getting help sooner. Would you like me to let him know you're coming?"

"Well, if you think it's best."

I nodded and wrote a reminder to send Dr. Horse a message.

"What thoughts go through your mind when you encounter jelly now?"

He answered quickly. "Stuff like 'I wonder if that flavor's just as good as the last time I had it', or 'I'm gonna have a jar of this flavor made that's big enough for me to swim in'. Sometimes jelly's all I can think about, and I can't get it out of my head." The next few moments were silent. When I looked up, I saw a saddened look on Mr. Jellius's face. The next words he spoke were spoken softer than how he'd been talking for the whole session. "Doctor, what's wrong with me?"

Several things. An obsession, a fixation, a compulsion to consume all the nearby jelly perhaps. In some ways Mr. Jellius's behavior exhibited symptoms of substance abuse, if jelly were indeed an addictive substance. I sighed, trying to think of the best way to say what was on my mind without hiding the facts behind a screen of niceness. "It could be several things. I'm afraid Sweetie Belle was correct in saying you had an obsession with jelly, as you have thoughts and urges about this food that have caused some physical and likely some emotional harm as well to you in the past. It could also be a form of substance abuse disorder, as it shares some symptoms of substance abuse and of substance dependence, although I'm less inclined to consider that as a likely option because we haven't talked long enough to determine if you have other symptoms that may support that possibility.

"It could be other things as well, but the important thing is that you receive help so that it doesn't get to the point to where it takes control of your life. You've already come to the realization that something is unusual about your behavior, and I'd like to help you take control of whatever it is that's going on," I looked at the clock, and added, "which would require more sessions. This appears to be a complicated situation, and we're nearly out of time for today.

"However, I don't want you to continue if you don't want to. If you come back, it won't be because anypony has forced you to come."

He was silent for a few moments again, then asked, "So how often should I come in?" Ah, good. He was willing to receive help.

"We can begin with weekly sessions, if you'd like. My schedule is slowly filling up, but I am available to see you at the same time and day of the week as today."

He sighed. "Yeah, let's do that. I'll rearrange my schedule if I have to, but I'll be back. I'll see you next week."

I opened the door to let him out, closing it behind him. He was the first client I'd had who hadn't thanked me for helping him, yet I wasn't too concerned. I hadn't helped him much, after all, and for the most part had actually made him feel worse about his situation than he was before. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Author's Note:

Headcanons galore.

Comments

[Xanderfox]

Well if Discord created or exacerbated the mental disorders in Ponyville then .. yea Mindwill's assignment there makes even MORE sense. Living in a town that has stress whiplash , zero to apocalypse in 30 seconds, would make properly dealing with your issues more complicated.