✅1️⃣ | Hypnosis Doesn't Work Like That!

13: A Problem Shared is a Problem You Couldn't Solve By Yourself

"Feeling any better this morning?" Adi jumped a little at the voice behind her, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. Britney was about the only person who could sneak up on her. They liked to chat here, sitting against a tree in one of the school courtyards, and almost every morning Brit's appearance gave Adi a start.

"I don't know," she did her best to give a nonchalant answer. She didn't like to talk about her problems.

"You escaped your mom saying it so far? Maybe the hypnosis thing has worn off overnight. Your brain wouldn't put up with that stuff for long."

"No. She... I had to get changed when I got to school. It's got worse somehow."

"Oh no! You didn't listen to that file again, did you? What happened?"

"I can't stop it anymore. She said my name, and I just couldn't stop, I was terrified the... that it might be too much for the pull-ups and it would leak, or something. And no, I didn't. I'm not dumb enough to listen to something like that more than once."

"Oh, that's tough. You've got no idea why it would have happened?"

"Not at all. I can't believe this, it's supposed to be wearing off, but it just turned into more of a problem. I'm normally on top of things like this, I know just about everything about these kind of files, but I can't understand why this one worked like that. And I don't have a clue why it would get stronger, that's so messed up. I don't know what to do."

She was breathing faster when she got to the end of that little rant, and she knew she must be looking weak in front of a friend who used to respect her. But right now she couldn't stop herself, she couldn't keep all those feelings inside. On some level she knew that she was failing, and she couldn't deny that she was going to need help if the situation didn't fix itself soon.

"Okay, don't get all worked up over it. This thing targets your mind, right? So maybe there's some trickery in there, it leads you to think about it in a way that makes it harder to understand what's going on."

"You think I'd fall for something like that?"

"I'm thinking about that escape artist guy who was on TV last night. It's a lot harder to open a safe from the inside, even if you've got the key. Maybe someone on the outside has an unfair advantage when it comes to helping you out. Or... it's easier to solve a maze when you're looking at it from above. Even for a genius, once you're inside you can't see further than the next bend in the path."

"I guess. You think you could help?"

"I can try. You're my friend, right? And so often I can't help you with anything because you always know better. So if you're working blindfold or something here, I can be your eyes. If it's not starting to get better by tonight, send me the link to that file and all the discussion on it. I'll see how much I can learn without listening to it. And I'll read the description for you as well."

"I already read it!"

"Yeah. But some of the ones you've reviewed before say things like once you listened, you won't be able to see this part of the description, so it comes as a surprise. You didn't expect it to work, or you would have left yourself a note about any bits like that. So a second pair of eyes could help."

"I guess. Thanks. I just don't see how it can get stronger overnight. If you could make it that powerful, why wait?"

"Maybe..." Brit's lips were moving as she rehearsed the words in her head. Or more likely, she had nothing in her mind and she was trying to hide the fact until she thought of something. "Does it build up over time? Like, let you get used to one suggestion enough to believe that it's real before the next one starts, so it's not such a big surprise?"

"That doesn't sound likely."

"Well, is it supposed to just... you know... make you have 'accidents'? Or are there other parts to it as well?"

"It's supposed to be flexible, you can decide what you want it to do. Like the example it gives is saying to yourself 'If I was a baby, I'd piss my pants', so I just used that one. It's supposed to be able to make you do whatever baby things you want."

"You could–"

"Yeah, I could have tried something less embarrassing. But how could I know this will be the one file that actually works? After so much BS and snake oil, this one's special?"

"I was going to say," Britney paused and took a deep breath, like she was nervous about upsetting Adi. "You could have said something like that by accident, couldn't you? Would it be close enough last night? When you said it was good that it was only a little spot, you said something like 'if I was really like a baby, I wouldn't know how to hold it at all'."

"I didn't!"

"You did, I remember you saying something like that."

"I... I did, didn't I? So that's why it got worse, because I made it get worse. I can't believe I did that."