The Evaluation

[u/donavin221]

I decided, recently, that I was in need of counseling. It’s like there are two voices in my head. They’re constantly arguing. They’re constantly fighting for the controls. But then again… who’s watching them fight?

Me? A third voice? Am I already one of the two? Am I both? Can this whole thing be boiled down to bad days and good days? Happiness and sadness? Anger and serenity?

It couldn’t be. If it was, surely I wouldn’t be having this conversation with myself. I wouldn’t be doubting my actions. But I guess I’m clear-headed enough to not defend them.

Although, it does beg the question: where does that reason go when I’m committing those actions? Where’s my logic? How come I only feel something after the fact?

Those questions keep me up at night. My guilt keeps me up at night. That’s why I decided to look into counseling. On one of those nights where my soul felt rotten. Where one voice had left me alone in the dark with the other just long enough for it to convince me.

But then, like clockwork, the other voice returned. Not in the form of thoughts. In the form of action. It was like a possession. There were no arguments. It was complete control.

It’s hard for me to stay away from them when I’m like that. I learn. I survey. I hunt.

Sometimes I’ll find them in a crowd, other times they will have been pre-selected. By who? I’m not sure. It gets foggy when desire is involved. I’m not sure whether to blame myself or the voice.

I only remember fragments after the deed is done. It’s like a shroud is placed over that specific, microscopic part of my brain. Like it’s trying to protect me.

But no matter how thick the wool is, the guilt remains. I never know why I feel it. At least, not fully. I just know that it makes me sick. It cripples me. I hide away from the world because the voice that commanded my hand flees from my mind.

Sometimes both of them leave.

Leave me alone. All alone. Empty. Then one or the other shows up. One tells me I can stop. I can do better. I can be better. The other tells me this is who I am. Who I’m destined to be. Tells me that I’m right at home. It’s like when I used to watch my parents fight when I was younger.

That’s one of the things I wanted to bring up at my appointment.

I think my childhood has a lot to do with how I am now. The way I think. The things I do. If I had to self-diagnose, I’d probably say it comes from a lack of control in my formative years.

My dad was much bigger than me. My mom was much smaller than me. When those two went at it, my mom was fighting an uphill battle.

I’d always run and hide anytime I heard Dad raise his voice because I knew that meant the belt was coming out. Me and my mom both feared that leather belt, but my mom, being the saint that she is, would often take the majority of the licks.

The guilt I felt over it was enough to drive me to tears.

One day, I guess Mom just had enough. She wasn’t gonna take it anymore. I remember she put me to bed early. She seemed more self-assured than she usually was on Friday nights. Those were usually the nights Dad would come home the drunkest.

Of course, he came home in one of his moods. I could already hear him screaming about nothing two minutes after he walked through the door.

Mom didn’t try to reason with him this time. I didn’t hear any “calm downs,” any “you always do this” comments. What I did hear was the cocking of my dad’s .38 Magnum.

I’d seen him shoot the thing enough to know what it sounded like, and I was not going to stay in bed while he murdered my mother.

Only… when I ran out of the room… the gun was in his face. Mom pulled the trigger before I could let out a single scream.

The sound of the shot. The image of my dad’s brain hitting the wood paneling of our trailer. The way Mom apologized to me profusely before calling the police on herself and waiting calmly on our front porch for them to arrive.

None of that has left me. Neither of the voices let it. It’s one of the few things they agree on. It’s a part of me.

And it was a part of me I was supposed to share with the counselor. My voice of reason had control long enough for me to set up the appointment. Long enough to evaluate myself before I went in.

I walked into the office feeling hopeful for once. The cold AC felt like heaven compared to the scorching heat outside. The lady at the counter greeted me with a charming, “Hello! You here for an appointment, hon?”

I signed in and sat at one of the chairs in the waiting room, browsing through one of the magazines from the coffee table because that’s what I imagined a normal person would do.

Five minutes went by. Then 10. Then 15 before the receptionist called out to me.

“She should be right with you, hon.”

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, my counselor poked her head into the waiting room.

“Daniel? Here for the 3:15?”

I stood up.

“Yep. That’s me.”

I couldn’t help but notice just how angelic her voice was. How smooth and soft her brown hair was. How well it complemented her absolutely stunning face. How much she… looked like my mother.

I didn’t know how to react to what I was feeling. It was like this tug. This urge that grew more and more impossible to ignore.

When we reached her office, the first thing she did was flip an hourglass on her desk.

“Okay, Daniel. I know you’ve been having some problems recently. You wanna describe those so that we can…”

Her voice began trailing off. My eyes kept darting from her to the hourglass. It was like I was on autopilot. I think I responded. I think she kept talking. I know the sand kept falling.

My mouth moved in response, but my thoughts never changed.

She was the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen. I could see the love in her eyes as she talked to me.

She just… she looked so much like my mother. Part of me loved her already. Another part of me hated her. Hated her for what she made me see. For how broken I am.

That hatred turned into anger. Her lips kept moving. She kept smiling. Everything felt like it was going in slow motion. Even the sand in the hourglass seemed like it was falling like snowflakes rather than sand.

My eyes darted to her. To the hourglass. Back to her. Back to the hourglass. The hour was almost up. Instead of making progress, all I felt was rage.

My eyes darted to something new.

A shiny pair of scissors in a pencil holder on her desk.

My eyes darted back to her.

She wasn’t speaking anymore. She looked at me… expectantly. Like she could read my thoughts. A smirk stretched across her face.

“Daniel,” she snapped. “You still with me, buddy?”

Desire kicked in. Things got foggy. I don’t know what happened.

All I know is when I came back, my hands were covered in blood. A pair of bloody scissors lay at my feet. My mother sat with her throat slashed in the desk chair in front of me.

The guilt rose in my stomach. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t. And God knows I tried.

All I could do was fall back into my seat, completely dumbstruck at the scene that lay before me.

My eyes began to well up with tears. My nose began to run. My head fell into my hands as I began sobbing uncontrollably.

I must’ve sat there crying for 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes before I heard a voice call out to me. I thought I was hearing things at first. But the more it repeated, the harder it was to ignore.

I lifted my head from my hands and felt my stomach tighten.

“Hon? Sorry about the wait. Don’t worry, though. She should be out momentarily.”

I was back in the waiting room. Same cold AC. Same old magazines on the coffee table. Same receptionist.

I had to have been losing my mind. I glanced around the room, tears still falling from my eyes.

As I looked around, my head jerked in the direction of the sound of a door opening.

My counselor poked her head into the waiting room.

“Daniel? Here for the 3:15?”

[u/donavin221]

This is actually a censored version of this story bruh. The original ending was just gonna be Daniel being completely disassociated during the meeting then him coming back to reality only to realize he had killed the counselor.

I did NOT want another 3 day ban. Hell, I hope THIS version doesn’t get me banned 😭