Dreams of Stars (A Once Upon a Time/Jiminy Cricket fanfic)

Dreams of Stars Part 5

"It's not unhelpful," Dr. Hopper put in quickly, "Part of what we need to do here may be to discover what that bad experience was that's dragging you down."

Bridget laughed a little. "Wouldn't that be nice, if all this could just be pinned to a bad experience?"

"Well, perhaps not all of it." Dr. Hopper smiled, making the little creases appear in his cheeks.

"Anyway, sometimes I just wish I could be more like Sister Astrid," Bridget said.

Dr. Hopper seemed to be waiting for her to say more, but when she didn't, he prompted her: "In what ways, specifically, do you want to be like her?"

"Well, she's never afraid to try to do things, even though she keeps making mistakes," Bridget replied thoughtfully, "And...she doesn't stay guilty for too long, I suppose. I know she feels bad about her mistakes, but I don't think she's as terribly ashamed of them as I am. When I cause an inconvenience or something worse to someone because of what I've done, I'm always so ashamed. I can't help it. I just keep thinking about what I should have done, and how selfish I was being, and part of me feels it would be wrong not to feel bad about having caused someone that much trouble."

Dr. Hopper nodded. There was a thoughtful look in his eyes as though he was carefully considering what she was saying. "But you don't think it's wrong for Sister Astrid to...let go of her mistakes?"

"Not at all—and I would like to be like her, as I said, but I can't seem to get around this."

"Last week, you seemed to want to stop making mistakes."

"Yes, well, I want to stop being so troublesome to everyone, and I think that my lingering guilt over what I've done wrong in the past is making me nervous, and that makes me mess up all the more. I recognize that—you don't have to psycho-analyze it out of me—but I just can't seem to get over it. I keep telling myself I should just get over it, but I can't!"

Dr. Hopper had chuckled a bit when she said "psycho-analyze", but now his expression was serious. "Would it be fair to say that what you really want is an attitude change?" he guessed.

"I don't have a bad attitude!" Bridget exclaimed, "I really want to work hard and do well, but—"

Realizing that he had used the wrong word, Dr. Hopper backed off. "No-no, I didn't mean to imply you have a bad attitude," he assured her hurriedly, "I only used that word to contrast doing with feeling. You're going to keep making mistakes—everyone does—but if you're positive about it like Sister Astrid, you'll be able to move forward. You won't be crippled."

"I know everyone makes mistakes, but I'm much worse than average," Bridget argued.

"I haven't found any reason to believe that," Dr. Hopper returned.

"You haven't seen me in real life."

"I think...this would be a good time for you to share with me some of the specific mistakes you've made that caused you to feel bad," Dr. Hopper said gently, "Did you remember to write some of them down?"

Bridget nodded. She had her spiral-bound, black notebook with her. Glancing at Dr. Hopper for a cue that it was time to open it, she did, and flipped to a page where she had described one of her failures that week. For a moment, she looked at it, then suddenly felt overwhelmingly ashamed at it. The job she had forgotten to do...Sister Nina's frustration...Sister Beth quietly doing the work for her...her intention to apologize to Sister Beth and the way she had chickened out at the last minute...