A Symptom of Trauma

Content warning: Unreality, Miscarriage and discussions of abortion, discussion of medical issues and procedures, gaslighting (sort of), out of body experiences, body horror, and other horror elements. Also this is not a social commentary nor does it reflect any political views, it’s just a horror story. Please take care of yourself and do not read if you believe you’re unable to handle this subject matter!

“The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own.” Cassie said in a terse voice that was accompanied by a heavy sigh. The man across from her was the sixth therapist she’d seen in the past two months and this one wore the stereotypical tweed jacket and had the stereotypical salt and pepper hair and beginnings of a beard, just past a five o’clock shadow but not full enough to really seem intentional. Cassie was starting to doubt the validity of said stereotype, given that he was the first of six to look anything like one. Like a Freudian psychoanalyst from a bad tv show. His name was Mr. Johanneson and he hummed patiently, looking at her with a casual and understanding patience. He had kind brown eyes.

“You know, that’s quite normal. It’s called depersonalisation and can be an aspect of depression. It’s also very common for it to happen to people who have experienced traumatic events.” Cassie groaned in frustration, throwing her head back and pressing both palms into her eyes.

“It wasn’t a traumatic event!” She groaned, louder than she had intended. She tried keeping in mind the other people in the building who were presumably seeing other therapists. Cassie had never before been the type to complain very much or make a huge scene. She was finding herself rethinking that outlook lately. She pulled on her hair and huffed out another sigh and righted herself. She frowned and chewed on the inside of her cheek but stuck out her chin and looked Mr. Johanneson in the eyes and dared him to comment on her outburst.

For his part he simply looked exactly as calm and understanding as he had before, no sign that he was anywhere near as frustrated as she was. Mr. Johanneson didn’t let the antics of other people affect him. Cassie used to think she could say the same for herself but six therapists in and she was definitely rethinking that.

“I apologize for upsetting you, Cassandra, that was certainly not my intention.” He replied, smooth voice; kind eyes. Cassie groaned again but at a much more appropriate volume and for a much more appropriate length of time.

“Eugh, call me Cassie, please.” She corrected, trying to sound agreeable but her disgust was easy to read at the sound of her full name.

“Oh! I’m sorry, you didn’t write anything in the preferred name section, let me just make a note of that!” He said amicably, not even a hint of irritation as he grabbed a pen, scratching in the amendment to her name. Cassie couldn’t help but prickle at the creeping sense of dread his statement filled her with. She had put her preferred name, she always did. She remembered doing so, it was only yesterday that she was filling out the patient intake forms.

“I did though, I always do.” She replied, as it suddenly seemed vital that he believed her.

He made a small noise in his throat, something all therapists actually did seem to have in common, they were all very good at making those weird humming/soothing sounds; acknowledging what someone was saying without interjecting any unnecessary words. It should have been comforting but Cassie found that with each therapist she saw she was resenting it more and more. She just wished they’d say whatever words those sounds were meant to be.

“Ah, well, perhaps the receptionist copied the file over and missed it then, we are updating our system to be more digital and less paper intensive, for the environment and all.” Cassie felt the tension in her body settle, the cold wave of dread melting away and the buzzing of ‘something is wrong’ that had started to sound in the back of her head quieting. The lull of it actually left her feeling a bit shaken, like some important piece of her was now missing, but she knew it was better to not be an anxious wreck. It must be, why else were there therapists?

“Anyway, sorry about that Cassie! Now… as I was saying, I didn’t mean to frustrate or offend you. You clearly have some strong feelings regarding what happened to you a few months ago. Would you like to talk about it or would you like to move on to something else?” Mr. Johanneson continued, refocusing on the conversation prior. He seemed to be good at that, unlike her first therapist, Constance, who had been a bit scatterbrained and always smelled like weed and jasmine tea. Cassie almost missed her now. She tried to make one of those therapist humming sounds but it just came out as a choked off growl.

“It’s… it’s nothing. Like, it’s fine? I had a miscarriage! I had a miscarriage of a barely formed fetus that I didn’t even know I was pregnant with! A fetus I didn’t want! From a pregnancy that only happened after hooking up with some rando guy I didn’t care about or hardly even know who, by the way, sucked in bed! And absolutely decidedly not in the fun way!” She shrugged, throwing her hands up higher than they needed to be. “It wasn’t a traumatic event! If anything it was luck! Nature’s abortion, free of charge and free of judgment. Well, for the most part, anyway.” She continued. She really did feel fine about what had happened. She still wasn’t sure how she had ended up pregnant in the first place though, she remembered giving the guy a condom and then being the one to help him put it on. She knew for a fact that she had not missed a single day of her birth control either.

She had informed exactly none of her therapists of any of that however, and she didn’t plan on starting now. She clenched her hands, resisting the urge to dig them into the leather of the couch.

“You mentioned that you had to go to the hospital for hemorrhaging?” Mr. Johanneson prompted and Cassie mellowed out a bit. At least he wasn’t pushing back on the whole “emotional turmoil of loss and grief” aspect like most of the other therapists had. Yet, anyway.

“Yeah, yea okay that part sort of… sucked. But it’s not like I died from it. Barely even hurt, not really all that much worse than my periods do anyway… it was a bit of a shock I guess. Waking up with my stomach cramping and bleeding like way more than I ever had before, two whole weeks before I was meant to be. Like… that wasn’t great. But it’s definitely not ‘traumatic.’ It’s not like I’m some soldier in a war, I just had a miscarriage. Do you know how common a miscarriage is? Twenty three million every year!” She informed him, that fact had made her feel worlds better when she first learned it three months ago.

Mr. Johanneson just nodded, a fond smile on his face that made Cassie feel like he may just be the right therapist for her yet. She wasn’t even quite sure why, there was simply something she trusted about him, despite her frustrations.

Granted her frustration was mostly at having to recount the same things over and over again and then being told “No, you’re wrong about the pain you don’t feel.” Mr. Johanneson was to date the only therapist out of the six who didn’t tell her with so much heartfelt sympathy how sorry they were that she had had a miscarriage. He just acknowledged it. It was subtle and still in its early stages but it was a welcome and refreshing difference all the same. At the very least Cassie hadn’t felt that uncomfortable need to apologize like she had in prior therapy sessions. She had yet to feel as though talking about what had happened to her was something she needed to sugarcoat for the person she was speaking with. She was amazed at how light she felt, being able to talk freely.

“Cassie, have you ever read ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ by any chance? It’s about how trauma, even things we consciously do not perceive as trauma, can affect us, mind and body. Now, let me be clear, I don’t mean to make you feel invalidated or unheard. If you don’t think of your miscarriage as a loss then it simply wasn’t one. But what it was, was a scary, unpredictable and, at least in the moment, unexplained situation that you woke up to, and had little to no control over. Something was wrong, you weren’t sure what, it was a painful and startling experience, and that alone absolutely can be counted as traumatic. Trauma doesn’t have to be something huge or long lasting, it can simply be a single event that you may just see as trivial. Especially when pain is involved. Sometimes our bodies remember the pain even if we don’t consider it to have been so bad.” He explained and Cassie bit her lower lip and mulled over his words. It was the first time a therapist had really mentioned the physical pain that had come with the miscarriage. For some reason that seemed to make more sense. She was quiet for a while, unsure of what to say.

“You said you had to have a blood transfusion?” He asked gently. Cassie blinked and nodded.

“Yeah… yeah. I guess… I guess I did lose a lot of blood. I mean I wasn’t close to dying but…” Cassie blinked a few more times, a strange rush of embarrassment churning in her gut at the way tears were welling up in her eyes. She swallowed hard and blinked them away. “Can we… talk about something else?” She asked softly, knowing her cheeks were flaming red. Her face felt hot and her eyes were stinging. She couldn’t meet Mr. Johanneson’s eyes, looking off to the left, feeling unsure what to think or do suddenly. All this time, insisting that she wasn’t traumatized, she simply wasn’t ready to consider otherwise. It felt way too much like like admitting defeat.

“Of course. Would you like to tell me about that instance with the mirror?” Cassie was grateful that he hadn’t pressed. She took a few moments to collect herself before nodding.

“It’s this old thrift store mirror I got a few months back, it has this like, tarnished copper frame and all. I’ve had it shoved to one corner of my crafts desk for some time now,” Cassie paused and laughed, enjoying the levity, and shook her head. “I mean, I don’t know why I’m describing it to you, it’s not like… I’m not delusional I swear, like I promise you I don’t think the mirror made me see some bizzaro reverse me or something. I just…” Cassie sighed. She knew what she wanted to say, that she just hadn’t known that trauma could work like that. But that would be admitting the trauma existed and that trauma was the reason she was here. That would mean admitting a traumatic thing had happened to her. She sat quietly for a moment and she and Mr. Johanneson both simply allowed the silence to say what it was she couldn’t yet. She found herself grateful for that.

“Well, anyway,” she cleared her throat and they both pretended not to notice how watery her voice was, “it was just this old mirror, I got it at that store on Thirty Fifth Avenue, Ashes and Dust, I was going to do that whole clay mirror decorating trend that’s all over tiktok, you know where you make a bunch of multicolored clay flowers or whatever and cover the frame of the mirror? Well, I was planning on it being way more my style but still. Actually, you know, the night I hooked up with that guy? He bumped into it and broke the glass. Nothing too bad, just broke out a big shard or two and cracked the corner, I plan on using a kintsugi kit on it, you know, putting the pieces back in with a gold paint, I think it’ll just add to the decor really, but it did cut my hand up pretty good the next morning when I cleaned it up, with no help from Mr. Disappointing, either. Still have a bit of a scar.” She said, showing the curved scar on the inside of her left hand. It was about three inches long, arching from the base of her index finger towards her thumb, a sort of shiny pink. Mr. Johanneson made an impressed face that Cassie immediately associated with the old “Not Bad” Obama meme and she snorted to herself at the comparison.

“Anyway, I got an old mirror from Ashes and Dust, Disappointing guy knocked me up and broke said mirror, the mirror cut my hand up, I put it to the side and forgot about it, got fixated on other projects, and then a few weeks later had to go to the hospital and get curetted and a couple of liters of blood put back in me, was on bed rest for a few days and all and then I finally felt well enough to work in it and…” She trailed off abruptly, growing quiet and contemplative once again.

‘And.’ Cassie thought to herself, tripping over what she wanted to say next. Even if she was willing to bite the bullet and admit that she maybe sort of kind of was at least a little bit traumatized by things like intense pain and severe blood loss, she definitely was not at all ready to accept that what she had seen in the mirror was just a common side effect of that maybe sort of kind of trauma.

“You said that your reflection looked like you, but you didn’t recognise it as you?” Mr. Johanneson asked, clearly prompting her more so than asking for clarification. She nodded, unsettled by even the memory of that moment.

“Yeah I… So, I wrapped the shards in some scrap fabric and put the mirror flat on my desk with the fabric covering it, to keep it all together, you know? Well, when I moved the fabric off a few weeks ago I caught a glimpse of myself… Except, it felt like someone else was looking back at me. It felt… wrong. I was panicking, and I could see the reflection panicking too, like it’s not as though it moved independently of me or anything freaky like that, but it just felt so wrong. I mean, you know, the reflection… she had my hair, and my eyes and… she looked like me but she just… wasn’t me. It wasn’t my reflection.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her midsection.

“But that sounds… well, I know that can’t be the case, you know? But in the moment I felt… like a prey animal, like I was being watched and like the… the thing watching me was doing so with a purpose. I didn’t even think, I just pushed the mirror back from me and backed away, ran to my bed with my back to the wall and my feet away from the sides. Like… like when I was a kid, and I’d run up the stairs from the basement as fast as possible so the monsters wouldn’t get me, or like tucking your feet into the comforter at night so nothing hiding under your bed can touch them. I knew it was irrational but I also knew that whoever or whatever that was, it wasn’t me.” She sighed, feeling suddenly as though she had been speaking far too much and far too quickly. Mr. Johanneson didn’t seem bothered though so she relaxed.

“Not being able to recognise yourself and experiencing anxiety and paranoia about that is one of the most common characteristics of depersonalisation there is. Other commonly reported things are things like moving your arms or legs and not recognising that you were the one to have done so, or feeling like you’re going through life in third person, observing yourself but not participating, feeling like everything is dreamlike, or like you’re stuck on autopilot or behind a pane of glass.” Mr. Johanneson rattled off and Cassie felt like she was sinking. Everything he was describing was fitting to some extent. Every single thing. She really did feel like she was just some character in a story, like she was constantly observing her own behavior and evaluating it as someone else may see her, but not as a person actively living in the moment. She’d been feeling that way for months.

She suddenly wished she liked Mr. Johanneson less, or at least that he was making less sense. It was hard to argue with his logic.

“I also don’t mean to alarm you,” he continued, “and this isn’t necessarily indicative of anything, but another very common characteristic of depersonalisation is having trouble remembering things, and I’m only mentioning this because sometimes it helps to have something a bit more concrete than just feelings as proof, but my wife and I actually just went to Ashes and Dust yesterday and they’re located on Thirty Second Avenue, not Thirty Fifth.”

Cassie’s head snapped up, eyes wide. Her heart was pounding.

“Now, that said, it’s not a huge mistake, I mean, five and two are practically mirrors of each other anyway, and I’m sure that’s a common problem the world around. It could have just been a simple mistake and I definitely didn’t point it out just to make you feel bad or to be pedantic, but you seem like a very down to earth sort of person who puts a lot more stock into things that can be proven, irrefutable evidence and all. And you really won’t be able to heal from the trauma you went through if you can’t recognise it as trauma. So, given that, I think we should look at any instance where your memory isn’t ‘up to snuff’ so to speak, as potential proof that you are in fact dealing with depersonalisation. The first step to addressing your depersonalisation is going to have to be recognising it and accepting it.”

Cassie could feel herself nodding but had the idle thought that she did not want to be doing so. It didn’t matter much, she couldn’t focus on anything but the cold dread that had come back in full force. She knew she went to Thirty Fifth Avenue, not Thirty Second. She had walked there herself, written the address down on her arm in messy hand writing and bright green sharpie herself. She had stopped by the florist on Thirty Third Avenue, which was past Thirty Second, and one of the reasons she even bought that mirror had been that she spent some time with it, placing and admiring the large white and black petunia she bought from the florist to put in her hair. The petunia that she had pressed and dried and was using as a bookmark.

Ashes and Dust was located on the corner of Thirty Fifth Avenue, she was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt certain of that fact. With a trickle of horror like an ice cube running down her back, she knew, suddenly and with the same certainty, that if she went to Thirty Fifth Avenuen today, the thrift shop would not be there. She swallowed, throat suddenly dry. She was still nodding, unable to tell how long she had been doing so. She stopped herself and looked pleadingly into Mr. Johanneson’s kind brown eyes, unable and unwilling to tell him her thoughts, to admit to how lost she felt. He returned the look with an encouraging smile.

“Well, I hope that wasn’t too nitpicky of me, and that you give it some consideration; our session is at a close for today, I’m going to give you a few worksheets, and if you find the time, I recommend reading ‘The Body Keeps The Score,’ at least the part in chapter two about depersonalisation, though you may find the whole book very interesting and useful. I also think some exposure therapy would be good, so if you feel up for it, go ahead and work on your project with that mirror, alright? So, will I see you back next week then?” His large brown eyes were staring at her imploringly.

Cassie blinked a few times, body unmoving, the thought of going near that mirror again raising red flags and alarms of all sorts. She remained stock still, like a deer caught in headlights. Frozen.

“Wonderful, I can book you for an hour, same time as today..” He responded and Cassie panicked, realising that she must have nodded without meaning to.

Again.

Exactly like Mr. Johanneson had said people experiencing depersonalisation would do.

‘Damn that pesky logic.’ She wanted to yell, to scream or freak out about how she was feeling, to break down and cry and insist that what was happening was something out of a horror movie.

Except, she couldn’t. Because depersonalisation was apparently a very real thing that happened to people with trauma and apparently pain and blood loss did count as trauma and that was such logical rationale that breaking down about it felt worse.

‘Logical logical logical’ she thought grumpily.

Cassie blinked, looking at the worksheets in her hand, ones that she didn’t remember taking, the white paper making the scar on her hand look even shinier, so much so that she could almost see herself in the scar. Like a mirror. Cassie swallowed hard and shook her head. She was being utterly ridiculous. Paranoid, like Mr. Johanneson said. She nodded towards him and walked out of his office.

The walk home was a blur, her mind whirring many different ways at once. Even her stop at the library, a place she normally loved, had been somewhat dull, as though she was a million miles away when asking for help finding that book.

She unlocked her apartment door and walked immediately to her bed, sinking face first into the pillows, allowing the worksheets and book to flutter and clatter their respective ways down to the floor. She groaned frustratedly. Cassie wanted nothing more than to sink into bed and feel sorry for herself until she no longer had to deal with it and could look at mirrors without jumping out of her skin. So she laid in bed, intent to do just that.

“Damn logic!” She huffed out loud to herself, hauling herself up after a moment’s thought. Because ‘logically’ she knew she wouldn’t get better simply ignoring the problem. She had been trying that and trying that and it had yet to work.

‘Exposure therapy?’ She thought, unable to even consider the worksheets or the book. She had far too many thoughts bouncing around in her head already, and a creative outlet sounded like just what she needed. She crept closer to the crafting table, spending her time getting her kintsugi kit out and ready to use before she had to face the music and remove the fabric from the mirror. She held her breath, unsure what she might find.

The mirror, bog standard, shimmery silver glass with that tarnished frame she wanted to decorate with clay vines and leaves, remained a mirror. She was standing purposefully at an angle where the mirror would not reflect her, she wasn’t sure she was ready for that yet. Which was silly, in retrospect, as she thought about it. It’s not as though she had been meticulously avoiding every single reflective surface for two months. It was just, there was something about this mirror that made it feel unsafe.

‘Wait that’s wrong.’

There was something about that thought that didn’t sit right with her. Something deeply off that had her for the umpteenth time today, frozen to the spot.

If she was truly struggling with depersonalisation like Mr. Johanneson said, wouldn’t every mirror be a problem?

She had taken the bus to get to Mr. Johanneson’s office that morning on account of the rain, hadn’t she? And the bus had mirrors that she had noticed and paid no mind whatsoever. The puddles from the rain had shown her reflection as well, blurry and distorted, but they were still her. And the elevator up to the second floor of the office building had basically been one huge enclosed mirror, which in retrospect was a bit odd, if Mr. Johanneson and the other therapists of that building frequently saw people who were dealing with depersonalisation, but that was a bit beside the point at the moment. Even the library had had mirrors and she had been to it multiple times in the past few months, including today.

Cassie shook her head.

Why was it only this mirror that scared her? It shouldn’t be. She was just being silly. Paranoid.

She took in a deep breath and stepped forward, looking into the mirror.

And saw… herself. She recognised herself.

Cassie relaxed, audibly breathing a sigh of relief. She sat down in her chair, sinking into it for a moment. She stared at herself in the mirror, searching, scrutinizing. The reflection had her hair, her eyes, her nose. Not a bit out of place.

Content, she set about preparing for the kintsugi. The fun parts with the gold powder would take days to get to, the first step was filing and sanding the edges of the glass shards to somewhat exaggerate the cracks and then gluing them together with a wheat flour glue called mugi urushi. She would need gloves and a mask eventually but for the time being she just held the mirror shard carefully and meticulously ran the metal file over the edges. She had to skirt the line between making huge crevices that would take more glue and longer drying times, and small almost imperceptible cracks, hairline fractures that would sparkle with just the hint of gold once she was done. It was a relaxing task, something that didn’t quite demand perfection but instead relied on the artist letting go while still remaining attentive.

Perfect for someone with a lot on their mind.

Maybe that was the reason Cassie found it so easy to ignore the subtle signs of wrongness. To ignore her steady increase in heart rate, to ignore the hair on the back of her neck standing up, to ignore the minute movements in her periphery.

Maybe that was the reason Cassie found it so easy to pretend that she didn’t notice that she felt like she was being watched.

Until she made eye contact. Once again the reflection in the mirror was no longer her own.

Because Cassie wasn’t wearing the white and black petunia in her hair she had been the day she bought the mirror, it was pressed dry, sitting in one of her books.

But her reflection was.

Cassie stared in abject horror and her reflection was grinned back.

And her reflection’s teeth were far sharper than Cassie’s own.

She yelped and dropped the shard of glass she was working on, accidentally jamming the file deep into the meat of her palm, shouting in pain as it stuck. She flung her hand forcefully, shaking the file out of her flesh. The reflection in the mirror tilted its head, and shook its arm, but in a mockery of human movement. Cassie backed away, slowly at first, but then with urgency. In the space where the shards of glass had been broken, a far too sharp hand emerged, gripping the frame of the mirror.

Cassie ran.

Past the mirror, towards the front door, flinging it open, uncaring if she shut it behind her. She took the stairs, holding her injured hand close to her chest, adrenaline doing her favors when it came to the pain. She was out of the apartment building and onto the street in moments, not stopping or slowing down for anything.

She considered, as much as she could do so in her panic, attempting to make her way towards Thirty Fifth Avenue, but she knew Ashes and Dust Antiques would not be there, and the one that had somehow found itself at Thirty Second Avenue couldn’t help her. She found herself running through town, toward’s Mr. Johanneson’s clinic.

Every reflective surface she passed, from the windows in the shops to the cars on the street beside her, showed the same thing, her own twisted reflection, clutching her injured hand, terror and pain on her face.

Except every now and then the reflection wasn’t her, the wife eyed terror too over acted, her grin too sharp, a petunia in her hair or the words “Ashes and Dust Thirty Fifth Avenue” scrawled on her arm in green sharpie.

She kept her eyes down, rudely pushing past people and not stopping until she was storming into the medical facility that she had left just a few hours prior, looking for the stairs as she refused to take the elevator.

What she found instead was a sign pointing her to Mr. Johanneson’s office to her left, on the first floor.

She stared at the sign for what felt like hours, long enough for her hand to start throbbing in pain, for her to grow concerned with the amount of blood she felt dripping from the wound. She just couldn’t look away from the sign.

She had been on the second floor of this building earlier today. Cassie had been on the second floor of this single story building jsur hours ago.

“Is something wrong?” An understanding and concerned voice asked.

‘Mr. Johanneson!’ She thought to herself, relieved, grabbing the man by his tweed jacket, sobbing into his shoulder.

“I went home and I was working on the mirror right and I felt like I was being watched and I still feel like I’m being watched but anyway things just felt so wrong, you have to believe me, this really happened and-“ she began rambling, desperately trying to tell Mr. Johanneson the entire thing at once.

“It’s alright, it’s alright!” He replied soothingly, a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure we can figure this all out. Why don’t you come talk it out with me in my office, Cassandra?” He asked gently, calm and patient and kind.

And wrong.

She had just corrected him on her name not even two hours prior.

It did nothing to soothe Cassie’s fear.

And as she looked up at him to correct him once again, he looked back at her with imploring blue eyes.

She gasped and stumbled back, pulling away just as frantically as she had grabbed him.

She forced herself to look away, the alarming wrongness of his eye color making her nauseated. She tried to focus on anything else, and noticed with with shock that his tweed jacket was smeared, practically soaked in, a shiny reflective liquid, thick and dripping down the tans and grays. It was so shiny she could see her reflection in it, the white and black petunia tucked right where it wasn’t behind her ear.

The gouge in her hand throbbed in pain and she grabbed at it, turning her attention to the wound. Cassie screamed at what she saw, sinking to her knees.

A long curved chunk of the palm of her hand was missing, broken off along the scar that had been there for months. It looked like a shard of her flesh had been broken out, as though her skin was made of glass, and from the wound seeped the same shiny reflective stuff that coated Mr. Johanneson’s jacket.

She saw her reflection in the torn pieces of her hand, and then again in the so called “blood” on Mr. Johanneson’s jacket, black and white petunia tucked behind her ear, marker on her arm, a too sharp grin on her face, her belly round as though she was a few months pregnant.

Mr. Johanneson gasped and suddenly Cassie didn’t want him to believe her anymore.

She didn’t want confirmation that this was happening.

She looked up from her spot on the floor into his wrong blue eyes.

“That’s remark-” He began, but the sentence died in his throat as he yelped and his eyes widened in horror. Cassie didn’t have to look at her hand to see why. She could see her reflection in the blood smeared against his jacket.

She could feel its glass sharp claws reaching out through the fracture in her skin.