Evaluation #: 100622

Psych. Evaluation #: 100622

Patient Name: Miranda Jacobs

Reason For Evaluation: Through multiple therapy sessions prescribed for post traumatic stress disorder due to childhood trauma, the patient has been unable to accept that she has never been in contact with a dragon. These ‘memories’ have only recently resurfaced, according to Ms. Jacobs.

Transcript #101354 Begin:

Is it recording now? Good. I know none of you are going to believe me. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because Tom said you would hear me out. I’m going to tell you exactly what I told him. Word for word, step for step. So get comfortable because I can remember every detail. That’s the weirdest part. I was only four, yet this memory is crystal clear. It’s like it happened yesterday, and I recorded it and stored a high resolution copy of that recording right in here.

[Doctor’s note: Ms. Jacobs points at her head when she says this.]

So, like I said, this took place when I was four years old. My family had a big backyard with a tall fence made out of some sort of chestnut colored wood. The backyard was full of all sorts of toys a four year old girl would love. There were trucks, streamers, dolls, and a couple of sports balls. I think my parents were trying to see which I’d take to, like a fortune telling ritual or something. Like whatever I chose would decide what path of life I would take. Only problem was that they weren’t the best at keeping an eye on me. They would pretty frequently get distracted by whatever was on the television or what they saw in the paper.

[Doctor’s note: I asked Ms. Jacobs if these points were relevant to the dragon.]

I was told I would have unlimited time here? I ramble. It’s how I get my points across. Anyway, where was I? Right, my parents. Like I said, they would get easily distracted, so I was a pretty banged up tike. Bruises on my legs, a scratch on my cheek, pretty much always covered in bandages. Can’t give them all the credit, though. I had a tendency of getting myself into situations that would encourage a few scrapes here and there.

That brings us to the first step of this story. Our house was in a rural area, surrounded by a lot of woods where, I later learned, the bigger kids liked to smoke away from parental supervision. Anyway, our nice wooden fence bordered those woods like a rocky shore containing an ocean of green leaves and thickets. There was pretty much a wall of shrubbery growing against the fence, just on the other side. Except, I learned that this wall had a hole.

[Doctor’s note: Ms. Jacobs sighs heavily, as if reminiscing about something lost, or happier times gone.]

One day, when I was walking the perimeter, bored with throwing sand out of my sandbox, I noticed one of the planks of the fence had become misaligned with the rest. Being the destructive little thing I was, I decided to see if I could pull away the plank. The wood was soft and moist, likely rotted, not that I knew what rotting was at the time. I grabbed it with my stubby little fingers and pulled with all my weight. The plank broke away almost noiselessly. I looked back at my dad, prepared to get yelled at, but something on the television had him enthralled. I considered myself lucky, and started to make my grand escape from the scene of the crime before he lost interest and glanced back at me. That was when I noticed something sparkle in that aforementioned hole in the wall of leaves and stems.

It looked like a shiny rock, or some sort of bottle cap. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I’ll give you my running theory afterwards. Well, you can imagine my excitement. I felt like the protagonist of the kid’s shows I watched on the weekend. Finding a helpful gadget that would solve all my friend’s problems? How could I resist? I got down on my hands and knees and reached as far as I could, but the thing was still a couple of inches away. I thought if I just pushed into the brush a little bit, I could snap it up and pull it out. So, I started pressing my face against the leaves, thinking they’d give solid resistance, like a wall or door might. I was wrong. I put too much force into my push, and overshot the shiny thing. Then, the ground I was using to support my weight shifted, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling down a hill, into the woods.

I’d like to say I was able to stop myself, or rolled to a rest gracefully. That would have been a lot better than what I remember. I rolled, watching the world tumble around me, with my vision going dark every time I would face the ground. I didn’t have a lot of coordination yet, so I had no way of stopping myself. Eventually, I ran into a tree at the bottom of the hill. I hit that thing hard enough to give it a shake, and cause some leaves to fall. No, it wasn’t a full sized tree. Just a little sapling, but it still hurt. Anyway, by the time I stopped and finally realized what had happened, I wailed and cried, and waited for my parents to scoop me up and tell me everything was okay. But they didn’t come.

Sorry, can I use the bathroom? Can we pause this for a moment?

Transcript #101354 End.

Doctor’s Evaluation: Inconclusive. The dragon has not yet been mentioned, though from certain areas of her story, I can start to see dragon related elements. Teens smoking in the woods may simulate the smoke of a dragon. A concussion from a childhood fall could cause post-traumatic amnesia, inducing hallucinations.

Doctor’s Conclusion: N/A.

Transcript #101355 Begin:

Sorry about that. Had to powder my nose.

[Doctor’s note: Ms. Jacobs seems slightly paler than before, and less energetic, as though she just emptied her stomach. When asked this, she gave a single, dry chuckle and continued her story.]

So, there I was. A four year old, lost in the woods, battered and scared. I had never been without supervision, and let me tell you, the world is so much bigger when you’re only three feet tall. After crying for what felt like forever, but was probably more like thirty minutes, I wore myself out. I guess my adrenaline ran its course, because I was asleep pretty quickly once the crying stopped.

I woke up some time later, and it was significantly later in the day. The sun filtered through the leaves like several golden fingers reaching down to caress the forest floor. I sat up, still feeling like crying, but without the energy for another tantrum. My limbs felt like they were covered in weights as I pushed myself to my feet. I didn’t know what to do, but I did know I didn’t want to stay in that spot any more. I looked back up the hill where I had fallen from. The incline was way more than I knew how to crawl. Heck, it almost looked like a sheer cliff-face. It didn’t inspire the confidence I needed to try to climb back up.

So, what was I supposed to do? My immature rationale told me that the forest couldn’t be that big, so if I chose a direction and started walking in it, I could probably get out, and then my house would be right there, with my parents waiting to pick me up and clean my wounds. I hoped they had some apple juice. Tears started to well in my eyes, but I was able to keep them down this time.

Just as I took my first steps in my chosen direction, my skin prickled with goosebumps, and my breath caught. There was a primal sense of panic, like my body was trying to warn me of an imminent threat. I looked around, but didn’t see anything other than the various greenery and forest décor. My breathing became quick as I continued forward, and I kept having the urge to look behind myself, as well as the urge to do anything but. If there was something scary, I didn’t want it to get me, but my curiosity was just as strong as my fear. I turned around several times during that walk, and every time I thought I saw something different. A shadow person behind a tree, a rock with a face, those sorts of tricks our eyes play on us. Nothing that lasted for more than a glance.

The day waned on and it became apparent that the forest was a lot bigger than I had thought, and I wasn’t even sure I was still going in the same direction I had originally chosen. It must have been nearly five o’clock in the evening, and since this was sometime late autumn, that meant the sun’s light was starting to lose its piercing ability against the dense forest canopy. The ground became harder to see, and distant shapes started to meld together into strange amalgamations of typical forest scenery. It was disconcerting, and I could feel my limbs getting heavy with trepidation.

[Doctor’s note: Ms. Jacobs takes a drink of water. She drinks nearly an entire bottle in one series of gulps.]

I’m gonna need more of that. This next part is my least favorite to tell, so I’m going to pause a few times.

I keep walking, my sense of direction completely skewed, my hope of having apple juice soon almost entirely dashed, and in great need of a nap and a bath, neither of which I typically wanted to sit still to take. Now? I can see how valuable of a gift I had been resisting all those afternoons. I continued walking. And I’m walking. Yep, still walking. I probably walked for twenty or so minutes, which is a long time when you’re that young, and still I felt like something was right behind me.

I was just about to sit down and take a break, trying to decide whether or not it was worth being the hero of my childhood cartoons, when I heard something loud crunch behind me. It sent an electric shock through my spine that stiffened my muscles and straightened my posture. Every fiber of my underdeveloped mind was telling me not to look at the source of the noise. Well, every fiber except one, apparently, and that one was louder than all the others. Slowly, I turned towards the sound, like a sunflower gradually changing its angle to follow the sun, and do you know what I saw?

[Doctor’s note: I answered ‘the dragon?’]

Nope. Nothing. Well, nothing moving. There was a bush that had a strange depression in it. As though someone had been sitting on it, or something very large had stepped on it. This broadened my perception. Now, not only was I looking for any sign of the edge of the forest, but I was looking for a big creature. I thought that was the most likely. Who just goes out and sits on bushes?

I stood, rooted in place as birds and cicadas were chirping. I scanned over the surrounding area, trying to spot anything that may be a cause of concern, an explanation as to why I was feeling this gut-wrenching fear. A flash caught my eye. Something shiny had swiftly moved at the edge of my peripheral. Then, movement again, this time disappearing behind a wall of bushes. I was sure, am sure, that I saw some sort of tail with small thorns lining the top of it in parallel. I didn’t investigate the noise. I started jogging now. I wanted to get out of this forest. I wanted to be safe again.

As I started picking up speed, it also started picking up speed. I knew it was following me. It was after me, and if I stopped running, it would get me. I was sprinting now, as fast as my clumsy little legs could carry me. My heart was thumping, my ears were filled with the pumping of my own blood, and my breath was coming in short bursts. Every now and again, I would try to glance behind me, and I kept seeing something new. I saw a glow, like coal embers, peering out of the bushes. I also saw the shiny thing again, but this time it was more defined, like a thick spike made of bone, catching the scarce light in a certain way to make its brilliantly white color reflect like metal.

None of this stopped me, of course. If anything, it encouraged me to move faster. But, like I said, I had a knack for getting into situations that got me pretty roughed up. The last time I can remember looking back, my foot caught on something on the forest floor, and I fell. A root protruding from the ground hit me right in the gut, and that forced all the air out of my lungs. So, there I was, gasping for breath and begging for safety, when I heard a noise that was so palpable, so strong, it felt like it could have shattered me like a porcelain doll.

It was a growl, and it was right on top of me. I struggled to pull myself from the ground, still trying to regain the breath my diaphragm had so rapidly forced out, when I felt something moist touch my shoulder. Drool, I thought, and was too scared to check. With a great effort of will, I made it to my feet. I had finally regained my breath and was regulating my breathing when the crack of that growl broke the still night air like a sledgehammer violently cracking apart a cinder block.

That almost knocked the breath out of me again. I knew I had to turn around. It was waiting for me to either turn around, or run again, and I didn’t want to get eaten while being a scaredy cat. I forced myself to face the thing in one violent motion, and what I was greeted with was bigger than life. Impossibly big. It was like a moving building. Its eyes peered down at me with indiscernible interest. I couldn’t tell if it was trying to figure out what I was, or if it was trying to decide which part of me it wanted to bite off first, or if it just wanted to swallow me in one gulp.

I was petrified. Wouldn’t you be? This imposing thing, looking down at you like you were nothing more than a morsel on a dinner plate? I didn’t know what to do, where to go. My mind was drawing a total blank. I’m pretty sure it had already decided I was done for, and was putting its two-weeks in early. It didn’t move, though. It looked to the left and right, as if searching for something. Finding my voice, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“What do you want?!”

The dragon eyed me again, this time with clear, malicious amusement, and the rumble came again. It didn’t verbally answer me. I doubt it could. But it didn’t need to. I knew the answer. Me. It wanted me. Finally, my legs decided that negotiation wasn’t an option, and I bolted faster than I had ever done so before. I tried to run back and forth, hoping to confuse the thing. I could feel it approaching, hear the leaves crunching underneath it, and felt its breath brush against my back a couple of times. I didn’t know how I was still evading it, but I didn’t care. I was escaping. I was going to make it.

Then, the worst thing possible happened. I hit a dead end. Somehow, I managed to find another wall of plants in the forest. One just like the one I had fallen through. This had to mean I was at the edge of the woods, right? I just needed to get through this thicket. I pushed and I pulled, trying to shift the various vines and branches that interlaced so strongly throughout the years, but couldn’t find a path.

The dragon stomped up behind me, and I was too afraid to look at it. I felt a wave of heat, like an oven had just been opened directly behind me, and nearly collapsed from the pain. I screamed and held onto the thicket as tightly as I could, wondering if this was it, if this was the end of the story. Wondering why I couldn't have a happy ending like those books my dad read to me. And then, two hands reached through the brush, grabbed me by the shoulders, and pulled me through. The face I saw was unfamiliar and rugged, but kind. After I saw the badge and blue cap, I realized it was a police officer. He said some things into his walkie, but I couldn't hear it over my sobs of relief. All I could do was cry.

When I got to the hospital, I had a bunch of scrapes, bruises, cuts, you know, what you would expect from that sort of thing. What you wouldn’t expect, though, is burns around my ankles. There were two burns, both on the backs of my legs. I still have the scars.

[Doctor’s notes: At this point, Ms. Jones places one leg on the table and pulls up the leg of her pants. There are very faded and oddly shaped scars, as well as a circular spot of pink flesh, off color to her otherwise pale complexion.]

So, there you go. Not only did I hear a dragon, not only did I see a dragon, but I felt a dragon' breath. I was nearly eaten by a dragon. And I was just able to escape because it played with its food too much. End of story. Thanks for hearing me out.

Transcript #101355 End.

Doctor’s Evaluation: Patient shows signs of severe stress when recalling events. Hesitation in speaking, and difficulty continuing at parts. Patient genuinely believes she encountered a dragon.

Doctor’s Conclusion: Post Traumatic Stress from a childhood event causing severe fear, combined with an imaginative mind. In addition, a possible attempt at kidnapping may have occurred, causing the patient to see a potential predator as a true monster when recalling the event. A breakthrough in the patient’s therapy may have partially unlocked this memory, but to protect herself from experiencing the stress of the event again, the patient has replaced the perpetrator with what she believes to have been a monster too foul for anything real to represent.

Additional Notes: After finishing her story, Ms. Jones asked if we believed her. The doctors gave her an inconclusive answer, assuring her that we will be reviewing the transcripts and making our decision from there. The patient is to continue therapy with the aid of a physician prescribed SSRI. Before Ms. Jones left, and after the transcription had ended, she told us to 'add this to the examination'. She placed a brilliant opaque gemstone on the table that, admittedly, looks very scale-like.

Psych. Evaluation #: 100622 Concluded.