The Little Filly Who Could

by Boopy Doopy

Chapter Eighteen

The rest of the train ride back to Baltimare was uneventful, and by mid morning the next day, they were stepping onto the platform of the train station that led in and out of the city. It looked no different than it always did, perhaps a bit less busy because of the time of day, but Emily looked around curiously at everything around her. She had a confused, slightly incredulous look on her face as she took it all in.

Ivory Spark didn’t ask about it immediately, instead following her family to their home, one that was only a few blocks away from the station. She’d need to talk to the train engineer to see if they recognized her, something that slipped her mind to do. But that was a thought for later, because as soon as they entered the home, Emily gasped.

“Whoa! This looks just like the house I used to live in when I was, like, ten!” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “Look at this place!” She smiled brightly and laughed at the sight of it, quickly running inside to examine it. Ivory Spark followed behind her parents after her.

She suddenly stopped in the center, and turned to Ivory Spark seriously, a move that caught the mare off guard and almost made her bump into her. “This is extremely weird. Are you sure I’m not actually schizophrenic and just hallucinating all of this? Because there’s no way my childhood home can just… exist in Equestria. That doesn’t make sense unless I’m, like, hallucinating. Or dead.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re hallucinating,” the mare said, “since you know who I am. And I’m certain you’re not dead.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t– actually, I’ll say that later,” the filly decided. “I wanna see if everything’s the same or if some stuff’s different.”

She didn’t hesitate, walking off and leaving Ivory Spark alone with her parents. They had confused looks on their faces, confused enough that the unicorn didn’t wait to be offered a seat to sit down and explain what she thought was happening.

“It’s complicated, but–”

“Is that DID thing?” her father asked. “Because she’s acted like that before, where she’d walk into a room and act like it was the most novel experience of her life. We just thought it was something foals did, but the way you described it earlier makes it seem bad that she’s doing this now.”

“It’s not ‘bad’ in the sense that it’s going to cause her harm, but no, it’s not good,” Ivory Spark said. “I can’t imagine though how you’d think– well, that doesn’t matter. But if she’s dissociating a lot, then no, that wouldn’t be good.”

“Are you sure she’s not just playing with her imagination?” Cloud Mender asked. “I mean, foals play make believe, right? Why can’t she just be doing that? We know she’s a bit old, but–”

“Yes, in theory she could be playing pretend, but in reality, given what she’s described to me and what I told you, that’s almost certainly not what’s happening.” There was a slight tone in her voice that Ivory Spark tried to leave out, but she couldn’t help it. It was one that made her appear like a teacher who was a bit exasperated with her students.

She pulled out the words she’d used with Emily a few days ago on them. “I know it’s hard,” she started, moving a bit closer and putting a hoof on Cloud Mender’s shoulder, “but you have to trust that what I’m telling you is correct. What she’s going through is real. But with those classes you’re going to attend and with my working with her, she should be able to overcome what’s happening to her now, and what happened to her before.”

“I know. I just… I hate to hear it,” the mare sniffled. “If it is whatever you say it is and it’s caused by trauma, and all those things really did happen to her, then we could have prevented it! I don’t know how, but somehow!”

“I’m sure there’s a hundred ways we could change the past, but unless you have a spell to time travel, it's best to focus on what we can do right now to help Emily. That’s going to include those classes that I told you about, but know that you can visit her whenever you’d like while you’re taking those classes.”

The two nodded, and Willy Whisps sighed, neither saying anything more until their daughter came back. Her smile was gone again, and she had a serious look in her eye as she sat next to Ivory Spark. However, like her parents, she remained silent, Ivory Spark being forced to break it.

“What are you thinking, sweetie?” the mare asked. “Look familiar? Unfamiliar?”

“It looks exactly how it looked when I was ten, and looking at the city itself, it’s just like I imagined it being in Mind Over Matter when I wrote that,” Emily said. “It’s making me feel like I’m going kind of crazy, and heck, it’s not a good feeling. This isn’t the city I grew up in, but, like… it shouldn’t look this familiar. This house is the one I lived in though.”

“Well, it’s good to recognize things, wouldn’t you say?” the unicorn offered. “It’s better that you’re recalling and understanding what’s happening than it would be for everything to be unfamiliar.”

“Yeah, I know, but it's making me feel crazy! Like, how can this be real? I’m not supposed to be a pony! I’m supposed to be a human! But apparently I’m not, because–”

“You’re on that whole ‘human’ business again, Emmy?” her mother asked, raising an eyebrow. “You keep talking about them like they’re your favorite thing ever. Celestia, it certainly seems that way with how often you write about them.”

“Humans are easy to write about,” she said automatically, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s cool to write about humans discovering Equestria for the first time, just like I’m doing. Except apparently I’m not because everything looks like it’s supposed to and how I wrote it. And it’s making me feel completely crazy.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll be able to talk all about that if you’d like. For now though, Emily, how about we get out here, and I can show you the place you’ll be staying for now.”

“The place I’m staying? Am I not staying here?”

“Not yet,” Ivory Spark explained. “It’ll be a few weeks before we get you back home for good, and until then, you’re going to stay in the group home here.”

“Ah. I wonder if that’ll look like I’m expecting, too. I don’t like writing stories about group homes, but my friend did once.”

“Well, I’d love to hear about it when we get the chance to talk more. Ready to go though?”

“Yup!” Emily flapped her wings, seemingly excited about the new experiences she would get.

---

“It’s so crazy how similar this looks!” Emily said as she and Ivory Spark walked to her office. It was mid afternoon when they left, Ivory Spark taking some time to talk to her parents and Emily at the same time before heading out to the office for the first time. She wanted to talk to her one on one right now if she could, and see about getting diagnosis criteria for her. Better today than tomorrow, in her opinion, especially since it would help her get on track with how she should start to work with her.

“It’s so weird! Like, it doesn’t look like any city I’ve ever been to, obviously, cause Earth doesn’t have ponies, but it looks just like what I imagined Leo and Herbal Essence and Thundertail walking through!”

“Oh yeah?” Ivory Spark smiled. “And those are the characters in your story, right? Mind Over Matter?”

“Yup! It’s like I’m actually in it! Well, I mean, I basically am, since you’re here, but still, it’s really cool! I wonder if I’m ever gonna meet that colt, Leo.”

“Well it’d certainly be interesting if you did,” the unicorn said. “Did you write anypony else you think you might know in your story?”

“No, it was just four characters, counting Leo. Well, like, around ten, but mostly it was you talking to Leo and trying to help him and nothing else.”

It was weird to hear about the fact that she was written about, and Emily’s reaction when she first saw her meant they must have met before, but she was at a loss for where that would’ve been. Or rather, when it would have been exactly. There were lots of places they could have met, but the filly didn’t look familiar to her. She was certain she would’ve remembered meeting her like Emily did Ivory Spark.

It wasn’t long before the two got to her office, a little place with a window that overlooked a grassy field with a playground for foals half Emily’s age. There was a large calendar taking up two thirds of her desk, along with a mug full of quills and pencils and a couple of notepads on the side Ivory Spark sat on. There was a more comfortable chair where Emmy sat, and a couch along the other wall, with posters hanging on the walls containing definitions of words like trustworthiness and responsibility. Behind the mare was a shelf of books, and a small table containing just a lamp that illuminated the room, as well as a picture of she and another stallion that looked roughly like she did. It very much resembled a school counselor’s office, a theme she went for since she was a foal psychologist.

“My actual psychiatrist’s office looks way more boring than this,” Emily said. “He liked to keep the lights down low and the curtains closed because he said darker places made ponies be more still.”

“Well I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I can turn down the lights if you’d like,” the unicorn offered.

“It’s fine. Just something I thought about,” she said as she took a seat on the end of the couch and rubbed her hoof along the arm of it. She had a look on her face that made it seem like she was more anxious now. Her expression tried to form into something like a smile, but ended up seeming more like a subconscious grimace. It made Ivory Spark’s expression change into a reassuring smile.

“This shouldn’t take more than an hour, sweetie,” she said kindly, “and then after that, I can show you where you’re gonna stay for a little while until your parents finish those classes. And before you know it, you’ll be back home. Sound like a good plan?”

“Yup!” was the enthusiastic response, Emily flapping her wings as she said it. “But first you’re gonna make sure that I definitely don’t have DID, because I don’t.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to see now, won’t we?” the mare said lightly, opening her desk and looking through several folders for the one she wanted. “Now let’s get started, okay? These first questions are gonna just ask about you in general, okay?”

“Okie dokie.”

The first part of the test was exactly that– a bunch of easy questions about her physical health and the like. Not much was revealed through it, except that she burned her knee and hoof once and still had a scar from it, and that she had asthma along with her GERD, but that she hadn’t had an asthma attack in years. No other health issues, mental or otherwise, did she complain of, and the mare moved on to the next part of the test.

“Do you ever remember a time when you’ve been terrible for a long time?” the mare asked. “Depressed?”

“Nope, I don’t think so.”

“Mhm, do you ever feel like you have sleep problems, like sleeping too much or too little?”

“Not that I know of, although sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night randomly. Or I’ll stay up too late thinking about things. Also my parents and friends say I walk and talk in my sleep, but I don’t think I do.”

“I understand. What about feeling like you don’t eat enough?”

“Not really, except when I take ADHD meds, I’m not as hungry.”

It was mostly ‘no’ to similar questions the mare asked, like being uninterested in usual activities and being fatigued during the day. She skipped over asking about having difficulty concentrating since the filly said before she did, and was glad for the continued ‘no’ to suicidal behavior. All good, as far as she was concerned, she thought as she moved on through the questionnaire.

“Do you ever feel like voices are arguing in your head or commenting on your actions?” Ivory Spark asked.

“No. I mean, I guess I argue with myself in my head, but not really.”

“What’s that like?”

“I don’t know. I think I said it before, but basically, like, I’ll think to myself, ‘You need to wash the dishes’ or ‘You need to do homework’ and then say out loud that I will. And then argue with myself in my head. But like, that’s something that’s always happened.”

“Mhm, and does it ever feel like you’re commenting on your own actions?” she asked. “Does it ever sound like your thoughts are different from normal, or like you’re being commanded to do something in your head?”

“No, I’m not commanded to do things, but it sounds basically like me, I guess. Maybe, like, older? And my… wait.” The filly stopped speaking fully, and looked up at the ceiling, thinking of something.

“What is it?” Ivory Spark asked after a long moment of pause.

“Like, that’s not a voice in my head. That’s just my internal monologue, I think.”

“Well, does it ever feel like you have your thoughts or actions controlled by someone outside of you, or like you have some thoughts taken out of your mind?”

“I mean, well, what does that mean? I’m pretty sure no one controls their own thoughts, otherwise intrusive thoughts wouldn’t exist, right?”

“Sure, but a better way to get what I’m talking about is this: do you ever feel like you’re hearing your thoughts out loud?”

“I… what does that mean?” she asked, exasperated and clearly uncomfortable. “I know my thoughts are in my head, and I can’t actually hear them out loud, but like, I guess sometimes they sound, like, louder than when I intentionally try to think of something or say something in my head. But I know I don’t physically hear them if that’s what you're asking.”

“Okay, I understand. One more question about your thoughts, and then we can move on. Does it ever feel like you believe things that you know aren’t true, or like what you're thinking doesn’t make sense, or like other people might be able to hear your thoughts?”

“Nope. Hard no to all of those things.”

Ivory Spark nodded and moved on from there. She asked about how often Emily walked in her sleep, and got an unsure answer from her. She also asked about how often she stared into space thinking of nothing, and whether or not she had an imaginary friend when she was younger. The first question was an obvious yes, and the second one she answered no to, but turned out to be a yes as well, saying she had one only because her friends had one.

The unicorn skipped questions about abuse, and got a ‘mostly no’ to Emily noticing possessions she had that she didn’t remember getting or seeing her handwriting change, and a yes about being clumsy sometimes and losing her possessions consistently. It was no surprise when she said that ponies she thought she didn’t know came up to her acting like they knew her, or that she felt like she didn’t remember large parts of her foalhood. She said no to having memories come back to her like she was having a flashback, and yes to sometimes feeling like the world around her was unreal. Ivory Spark asked about the latter.

“It’s just, like, right now,” she said. “Like, I know the world is real and I’m a pony, but it feels unreal at the same time, since I’m not supposed to be a pony.”

“And did that ever happen when you said you didn’t live in Equestria?”

“Yeah? Like, I’d move my fingers or my arms and stuff, and I’d be surprised sometimes that they just move when I make them move. Like… I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“That sounds pretty weird,” Ivory Spark agreed lightly with a little smile, “but it’s okay if things feel weird. These next few questions might seem strange, but it’s important you answer honestly, alright?” A nod came from the filly, and the mare continued, “Do you ever feel like you have superpowers no one else has?”

“Nope.”

“Do you ever feel like you have telepathy or can see the future in a dream?”

“No.”

“Do you ever feel like you’ve seen a ghost or been possessed by a demon, or experienced a past life no one else knows about?”

“No, no, and yes, but if I’m actually crazy and not really a human, then no. Or actually, that wouldn’t count as a past life since I was just there a few days ago. Either that, or I’m very schizophrenic.”

“I don’t think you’re schizophrenic, sweetheart,” the mare smiled again. “But I do wanna ask about voices in your head again. You said when you hear your thoughts out loud, they seem like they’re coming from inside you, right?”

“Yup, and it’s never, like, a dog barking or a pony passing by or something. And it’s never from far away either. I know it’s always in my head.”

“That’s good. Do you ever feel like it’s another pony, or like it has a name?”

“I don’t think my internal monologue would have a name, and I don’t think it feels like another person, even though I argue with myself about what I should do like I said before.”

“Do you ever refer to yourself as a collective? Like, calling yourself ‘we’ or ‘us’ for example?” Ivory Spark already knew the answer was yes, since she heard Emily do it before, but was curious about her answer.

“I guess I do, but like, only when I’m talking to myself, and…” There was a long pause as Emily once again went silent, thinking about something before she continued. “Ugh. God damnit. Fuck.”

“What is it?” the mare asked, ignoring her cursing.

“I have DID, don’t I?”

Author's Note:

I apologize for the long break in between chapters.

Comments

[Codiert]

DID=Dissociative identity disorder

[Khanathara]

“I have DID, don’t I?”

Well, everything seems to be pointing to that right now. So maybe.

[Goodluckfox]

I missed the bits where Emily refers to herself as “we” as well as her talking about the sexual abuse. What chapter?

[Boopy Doopy]

11639596

Emily looked extremely frustrated, but answered her. “It’s just, like, it’s– I just talk to myself. A lot of people do that.”

“What kinds of things do you talk to yourself about?”

“I don’t know. It’s just random things. Like, what kind of music to make or a story to write, or random arguments I had and stuff. Or saying things like, ‘Alright, we need to start cleaning our room now’ or ‘we need to get out of bed’. It’s not like I’m talking to someone completely different in my head and they’re talking back.”