Twenty Five
"How was practice?" Luke asked as I entered his office after practice. Ashton had picked me up and brought me to the hospital.
"Good," I lightly smiled as I sat down on his couch.
"Sierra is going to take you to see a sleep therapist in a couple of minutes," Luke said and I nodded. "Ashton already filled them in but they want to talk to you as well,"
"What will I do there?"
"They're just going to ask you questions, maybe set up a follow up appointment as well," Luke explained and I nodded. The door opened and SIerra came in with a smile.
"Ready angel?" she asked and I nodded. We said our byes to Luke, then went down to the next floor for the appointment. As we sat in the waiting room, I texted some of my friends in our group chat until we were called back.
"Hi Carter, I'm Dr. Gibbs, how are you?" He came in with a smile.
"Good, how are you?" I quietly asked.
"I'm alright, thank you for asking," he grinned and sat down. "So tell me about what's going on," he said, but I just shut down and looked away.
"She's been having trouble sleeping. Dr. Irwin had prescribed her some medicine, but it made her nightmares worse and caused sleep paralysis,"
"He had filled me in on that, yes," he nodded. "Carter, when you're trying to sleep does your mind fill with worries and thoughts, or can you just not fall asleep?" he questioned, but I shrugged.
"Both," I mumbled.
"How long does it take her to sleep?"
"It really depends. Whenever she stays with my husband and I she falls asleep within the hour, but she wakes up a lot and won't fall back asleep. She's taking melatonin right now,"
"Carter, are you nightmares about your past, or made up?" he asked.
"Past," I muttered as I bit my lip.
"What I want to do right now with you is change your nightmares, do you know how we're going to do that?" he questioned, but I shook my head. "We're going to talk about one of them, and at the end we're going to rehearse a different ending to make it less scary for you. So when you sleep, you will remember this ending and it won't be a nightmare," he explained. "Can you tell me about one of your nightmares?" he asked, but I shook my head.
"I know it's hard baby, but he's going to help," Sierra held my hand trying to calm me down.
"It doesn't have to be the whole thing, how about just the scary part?" he suggested. "We'll only talk about one,"
"There's one where I'm drowning," I vaguely said and looked up to see him smile.
"I work with these ones a lot," he told me. "I want you to go through parts of the dream in your head and get to that part, close your eyes," he instructed and I obeyed. The image of my second foster father dragging me up the stairs filled my head until we were in the bathroom. He had pushed my head under water and held it there as I tried to break free from his grip. "Instead of drowning, I want you to imagine the water being pushed away, Right when you touch it, the water disappears. Everything around you vanishes," he said. I imagined it, knowing I had control over it right now. "All the things around you turn into a place where you feel safe. Whether that be school, home, or with friends," he said. I kept imagining it until I was outside in the yard with Petunia, Luke, and Sierra, then I opened my eyes. "Better?"
"Yes," I quietly nodded.
"Good, let's keep going through that in your head," he said and I sighed, but nodded. I knew sleep therapy was going to take a lot longer than I anticipated.
YOU ARE READING
trust | lierra
Fanfiction"How did they fix their relationship?" "Lots of trust. That's always the key, trust," "I don't trust a lot of people," "That's alright," - TW: Mentions of self harm and abuse
