Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2014 18:08:55 GMT
EICHEN HOUSE
PATIENT INFORMATION
PATIENT INFORMATION
PATIENT #
NAME [LAST, FIRST (M)]
AGE [IN NUMBERS]
GENDER
HEIGHT [USE PB'S]
PLAYBY NAME
-----
NAME [LAST, FIRST (M)]
McCORMICK, KENNETH
AGE [IN NUMBERS]
22
GENDER
MALE
HEIGHT [USE PB'S]
5'9"
PLAYBY NAME
MITCH HEWER
PATIENT HISTORY
-Excerpt transcribed from the audio recording of patient's first session with Dr. Allen Carter, interviewing patient Kenneth McCormick.-
McCORMICK, KENNETH [PATIENT]: When I was younger, I'd experienced so much pain that I stopped feeling the impact new injuries. My body still hurt each time I died, always in a raw, virginal way. I never became more or less sensitive to it. It always hurt like nothing I could ever expect, and I don't know why that is, because my brain got used to it pretty quickly, considering how fucking awful it always was. Like, I knew anguish lurked in my future-- I knew it in my mind, like, you can know how to pronounce words whose meanings you nothing of. Knowing it'll hurt before I die next time is like saying a word you don't know and expecting suddenly to understand all it's nuance.
I never really managed to get myself quite as worked up about it as I felt I deserved, but I've been mellow since I was a kid. Maybe because I grew up with so much shit just totally out of my control. I've gone through the kind of shit that seems cruel to force somebody to keep waking up after having done it once. Fuck, and I'm always waking up feeling like I've just been drawn and quartered into a new body. Can I smoke in here?
CARTER, ALLEN [PhD]: No, sorry.
McCORMICK: Well. I just learned to accept things I didn't necessarily like and couldn't change.
CARTER: Like your parents?
McCORMICK: Yeah, sure. I think they just had under-active- [PATIENT GESTURES TO HIS FRONTAL LOBE.] They didn't fight because they hated each other. They fought because they got off on it. They didn't know that's what they were doing, though, and... I do think they really did love each other. Jesus, they fucked loud enough all the goddamn time too. They were always together, though. Always drunk together and tangled up on the couch watching Jackass or whatever. I think that's how I knew they really were in love; they could just completely relax into one another; they trusted each other enough to let their guards down. And, you know, never mind all the other shit in my childhood that they fucked up on, that was actually something that felt really important about them, to me.
[BRIEF SILENCE] I guess that watching them fight all the time with Kevin, and each other, made me good at avoiding involving myself in things that didn't interest me. I mean, when I was a kid, man... some of the shit we got up to... I was like... Huck Finn, really. I never really had to go to school, but I usually did because that's where my friends were. I ditched a lot though. They actually had this joke that started when we were still in elementary school, you know, so every time I'd come back after skipping they'd all laugh at me like, "Oh, Kenny, we thought you were dead; welcome back from the dead, Kenny; We were planning your funeral, Kenny." Obviously I didn't think it was half as funny as they did. …They didn't know, though.
CARTER: About your nightmares about dying?
McCORMICK: Sure.
CARTER: So, you're saying you were having these nightmares before they started joking that you had died?
McCORMICK: Yep.
CARTER: Do you think hearing them joke like that reinforced these nightmares? [PATIENT DOES NOT RESPOND] Because it's starting to seem, at least to me, as though you started having these nightmares in response to the stress of your childhood, and the effort it took you to become numb to the influences of the violence and instability all around you. Perhaps your brain associated emotional numbness with the passiveness of inanimacy. Your mind translated this sensation into dreams.
McCORMICK: Mhmm. Guess so.
CARTER: You're looking at me like you've heard that one before.
McCORMICK: I have heard it before. Hearing it before a million times hasn't fixed me yet. They don't feel like dreams, you know, where you wake up all hazy and warm. I remember dying like I'll remember taking to you, later today. I'll remember smells and sensations and stupid shit you would never think to dream up if it hadn't really happened like that.
CARTER: You sound very frustrated by this.
McCORMICK: I am! Do you have any idea how much I want this to stop? This sucks! It's not fun for me either, you know.
CARTER: Why don't you tell me about that?
McCORMICK: About what?
CARTER: About the effect your night terrors are having on your everyday life.
McCORMICK: [LONG SILENCE] ...You know, I've never felt like anything changed about me whether I was... dreaming or not. I mean, weather I was having the dreams every week or every few months or every few years. Because, I mean, there were whole years where I wouldn't-- You know. Have the… dreams. Nightmares-- There were years where I wouldn't die. Years where I wouldn't wake up and still be able to feel whatever it was that had just killed me sticking out of my chest, or whatever. I’m used to that, though. But it’s really freaking my wife out.
CARTER: Yes, and how long have the two of you been married?
McCORMICK: Well, we got married when I was 18; just before I deployed for my first tour. So, three years? I mean, I was gone for a huge part of that, but. I mean, we skyped all the time. And I really did miss her like crazy. I guess, now, it feels like she’s over reacting, though.
CARTER: By recommending you see me?
McCORMICK: Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.
CARTER: Do you feel uncomfortable seeking help?
McCORMICK: No. I just don’t think you can help me.
CARTER: So, why are you here, then?
McCORMICK: ... Just in case you can.
CARTER: Well, Ken. I’m hoping we can work together to untangle some what’s causing your troubles. As long as you're willing to work with me, I'm sure we can make some progress together. Why don’t you tell me about what motivated you to join the armed forces?
McCORMICK: Well. I always liked hunting with my brother and all the guys. I started really young. My brother and I would hang out with some of the guys that bought meth from my parents. Our family just sold to one buyer, a distributor. They were Mexicans, real hard fuckers when it came to money and drugs and respect and all that shit, but they liked kids. They were really nice to me and Kevin. Gave me my first knife, actually. They taught me how to throw it, even. They taught me Spanish and got me into watching professional wrestling via luchadores. They were great, really, in a way.
Anyway, my brother and I shot cans with bb guns they bought for us as really small kids, and then birds and squirrels and stuff. We even ate most of what we killed, just the two of us. We never brought it back to my sister or my parents or anything; we'd just shoot it and clean it and build a fire and Kevin and I would drink a couple beers, at like age 10, and then we'd eat it, just because it seemed like the right thing to do. You know, just leaving it there seemed mean, even to us.
I really loved camping out with him, you know. I think that was the only thing we really got along doing, was being out in the woods. We'd paint our faces with mud and build emergency shelters we'd seen in survival books in the library at school. We drank pine-needle tea and played like were were Navy S.E.A.L.S.; especially after 9/11. I felt like I was real good at it, too. We'd stay outside for days, eating what we'd catch. Sometimes we'd come in to watch TV or get beer or cigarettes or whatever, but we'd go back outside as soon as we were done.
I also liked doing other physically interesting stuff, though. Me and my friends would play every stupid pretend game that 8-year-olds play, war games and adventures and... just about anything you could think of, and When we got older it turned into football and capture the flag-- and let me tell you, the way we played CtF... you're playing out there in the granite and the lichen; almost nothing is soft when you live just about 10,000 feet above sea level. So we're all like 15, out in the middle of nowhere, or, in the middle of the Rockies or whatever-- Well, we weren't gentle. We broke bones and got concussions and huge, skin-peeling scrapes all over our bodies from slipping in the gravel. It was kind of the last thing that really kept us together, though; CtF, I mean, because after we stopped being little kids, nobody knew how to talk to each other about the shit that was changing us.
And, I mean, everything was changing. We were all doing different things by then, and though we still considered each other friends... well, you know. It just became different. But that's life. Me and Karen and Kevin had already been in and out of foster care three times, but my two best friends just... they didn't know what being in the system does to you after a while. Our other friend, Eric, was oblivious as always. In some ways it was kind of nice, to know that there was this sort of emotional safety in their company, that my trauma couldn't touch them. It made it easier to stay cool, to keep the stuff I'd been through from fucking with my head too much. I'm not sure they even knew, about... the dreams, or whatever. I didn't think they would care. I might have told Eric, though, I can't remember doing it, but he's... he talks about it sometimes, when I don't expect it. He'll mention some time that I died like he was bringing up the memory of a childhood outing. It's fucking weird, really. I guess he's crazy too, though.
Sorry, I keep forgetting what I'm trying to talk about. Well, when we were kids, it really was like we had our own little pack as we grew up. And we didn't always get along, but we had a good dynamic, and it allowed conflicts between the four of us to resolve themselves without notable issue. When we lost that dynamic, I guess wanted to find another pack I could run with. The army seemed like a pretty great option. I'd dropped out of high school at like 16, so I got my GED and joined the army. I think I had vague aspirations to be Special Forces... I dunno, it seems stupid now that I'm here.
CARTER: What kept you from pursuing that line of work? You seem like being a SEAL or Special Forces was something you aspired to even as a child. Why was it only a vague interest by the time you actually were old enough to be in the Armed Forces?
McCORMICK: [POINTS TO HIS TEMPLE] This.
CARTER: Your nightmares?
McCORMICK: Fuck. Whatever. My only "nightmare" was getting kicked out of the army after I thought I'd found my place to be. I felt like I was doing something good and real, like maybe I was changing things. I don't know. Those guys in World War II, they really had something to swing at, you know? It's a little bit different for assholes like me, now. Fuck, and it seems like it's so easy to make huge mistakes that just blow up all over everything everybody else is working to accomplish. It's frustrating but rewarding too, somehow.
... I never felt like that when I was there, though. I never felt conflicted. It felt like the sort of thing I was supposed to be doing with myself. Like maybe, I had this horrible fucked up curse but I could at least use it to do some good.
CARTER: You're referring to your perceived immortality?
McCORMICK: Yeah, I'm fucking referring to my perceived immortality. And before you say anything else, yeah, I get the irony. The thing that brought me into the military is the reason I got discharged. But if any of you believed me, I'd be a fucking super soldier. Do you have any idea the things I could accomplish, the places they could send me?
CARTER: As I understand it, your increasingly reckless behavior and vivid night terrors about your death are the reason you were discharged.
McCORMICK: Yep, that's what they told me too.
CARTER: Do you disagree that this is true?
McCORMICK: I disagree with their decision. I did my job really fucking well, and there is not a single fucking person who is going to say otherwise. They got me all wrong, though. I wasn't erratic or suicidal or any of that shit. I'm still here, I'm in front of you, so no matter which one of us is right about what's happening to me, I was just as good a soldier as anybody else. I never got any of my company in trouble, not once. And they fucking toss me like the rest of the psychos they think are gonna start shooting places up if they stay around violence any longer.
-End Transcript Excerpt-
McCORMICK, KENNETH [PATIENT]: When I was younger, I'd experienced so much pain that I stopped feeling the impact new injuries. My body still hurt each time I died, always in a raw, virginal way. I never became more or less sensitive to it. It always hurt like nothing I could ever expect, and I don't know why that is, because my brain got used to it pretty quickly, considering how fucking awful it always was. Like, I knew anguish lurked in my future-- I knew it in my mind, like, you can know how to pronounce words whose meanings you nothing of. Knowing it'll hurt before I die next time is like saying a word you don't know and expecting suddenly to understand all it's nuance.
I never really managed to get myself quite as worked up about it as I felt I deserved, but I've been mellow since I was a kid. Maybe because I grew up with so much shit just totally out of my control. I've gone through the kind of shit that seems cruel to force somebody to keep waking up after having done it once. Fuck, and I'm always waking up feeling like I've just been drawn and quartered into a new body. Can I smoke in here?
CARTER, ALLEN [PhD]: No, sorry.
McCORMICK: Well. I just learned to accept things I didn't necessarily like and couldn't change.
CARTER: Like your parents?
McCORMICK: Yeah, sure. I think they just had under-active- [PATIENT GESTURES TO HIS FRONTAL LOBE.] They didn't fight because they hated each other. They fought because they got off on it. They didn't know that's what they were doing, though, and... I do think they really did love each other. Jesus, they fucked loud enough all the goddamn time too. They were always together, though. Always drunk together and tangled up on the couch watching Jackass or whatever. I think that's how I knew they really were in love; they could just completely relax into one another; they trusted each other enough to let their guards down. And, you know, never mind all the other shit in my childhood that they fucked up on, that was actually something that felt really important about them, to me.
[BRIEF SILENCE] I guess that watching them fight all the time with Kevin, and each other, made me good at avoiding involving myself in things that didn't interest me. I mean, when I was a kid, man... some of the shit we got up to... I was like... Huck Finn, really. I never really had to go to school, but I usually did because that's where my friends were. I ditched a lot though. They actually had this joke that started when we were still in elementary school, you know, so every time I'd come back after skipping they'd all laugh at me like, "Oh, Kenny, we thought you were dead; welcome back from the dead, Kenny; We were planning your funeral, Kenny." Obviously I didn't think it was half as funny as they did. …They didn't know, though.
CARTER: About your nightmares about dying?
McCORMICK: Sure.
CARTER: So, you're saying you were having these nightmares before they started joking that you had died?
McCORMICK: Yep.
CARTER: Do you think hearing them joke like that reinforced these nightmares? [PATIENT DOES NOT RESPOND] Because it's starting to seem, at least to me, as though you started having these nightmares in response to the stress of your childhood, and the effort it took you to become numb to the influences of the violence and instability all around you. Perhaps your brain associated emotional numbness with the passiveness of inanimacy. Your mind translated this sensation into dreams.
McCORMICK: Mhmm. Guess so.
CARTER: You're looking at me like you've heard that one before.
McCORMICK: I have heard it before. Hearing it before a million times hasn't fixed me yet. They don't feel like dreams, you know, where you wake up all hazy and warm. I remember dying like I'll remember taking to you, later today. I'll remember smells and sensations and stupid shit you would never think to dream up if it hadn't really happened like that.
CARTER: You sound very frustrated by this.
McCORMICK: I am! Do you have any idea how much I want this to stop? This sucks! It's not fun for me either, you know.
CARTER: Why don't you tell me about that?
McCORMICK: About what?
CARTER: About the effect your night terrors are having on your everyday life.
McCORMICK: [LONG SILENCE] ...You know, I've never felt like anything changed about me whether I was... dreaming or not. I mean, weather I was having the dreams every week or every few months or every few years. Because, I mean, there were whole years where I wouldn't-- You know. Have the… dreams. Nightmares-- There were years where I wouldn't die. Years where I wouldn't wake up and still be able to feel whatever it was that had just killed me sticking out of my chest, or whatever. I’m used to that, though. But it’s really freaking my wife out.
CARTER: Yes, and how long have the two of you been married?
McCORMICK: Well, we got married when I was 18; just before I deployed for my first tour. So, three years? I mean, I was gone for a huge part of that, but. I mean, we skyped all the time. And I really did miss her like crazy. I guess, now, it feels like she’s over reacting, though.
CARTER: By recommending you see me?
McCORMICK: Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.
CARTER: Do you feel uncomfortable seeking help?
McCORMICK: No. I just don’t think you can help me.
CARTER: So, why are you here, then?
McCORMICK: ... Just in case you can.
CARTER: Well, Ken. I’m hoping we can work together to untangle some what’s causing your troubles. As long as you're willing to work with me, I'm sure we can make some progress together. Why don’t you tell me about what motivated you to join the armed forces?
McCORMICK: Well. I always liked hunting with my brother and all the guys. I started really young. My brother and I would hang out with some of the guys that bought meth from my parents. Our family just sold to one buyer, a distributor. They were Mexicans, real hard fuckers when it came to money and drugs and respect and all that shit, but they liked kids. They were really nice to me and Kevin. Gave me my first knife, actually. They taught me how to throw it, even. They taught me Spanish and got me into watching professional wrestling via luchadores. They were great, really, in a way.
Anyway, my brother and I shot cans with bb guns they bought for us as really small kids, and then birds and squirrels and stuff. We even ate most of what we killed, just the two of us. We never brought it back to my sister or my parents or anything; we'd just shoot it and clean it and build a fire and Kevin and I would drink a couple beers, at like age 10, and then we'd eat it, just because it seemed like the right thing to do. You know, just leaving it there seemed mean, even to us.
I really loved camping out with him, you know. I think that was the only thing we really got along doing, was being out in the woods. We'd paint our faces with mud and build emergency shelters we'd seen in survival books in the library at school. We drank pine-needle tea and played like were were Navy S.E.A.L.S.; especially after 9/11. I felt like I was real good at it, too. We'd stay outside for days, eating what we'd catch. Sometimes we'd come in to watch TV or get beer or cigarettes or whatever, but we'd go back outside as soon as we were done.
I also liked doing other physically interesting stuff, though. Me and my friends would play every stupid pretend game that 8-year-olds play, war games and adventures and... just about anything you could think of, and When we got older it turned into football and capture the flag-- and let me tell you, the way we played CtF... you're playing out there in the granite and the lichen; almost nothing is soft when you live just about 10,000 feet above sea level. So we're all like 15, out in the middle of nowhere, or, in the middle of the Rockies or whatever-- Well, we weren't gentle. We broke bones and got concussions and huge, skin-peeling scrapes all over our bodies from slipping in the gravel. It was kind of the last thing that really kept us together, though; CtF, I mean, because after we stopped being little kids, nobody knew how to talk to each other about the shit that was changing us.
And, I mean, everything was changing. We were all doing different things by then, and though we still considered each other friends... well, you know. It just became different. But that's life. Me and Karen and Kevin had already been in and out of foster care three times, but my two best friends just... they didn't know what being in the system does to you after a while. Our other friend, Eric, was oblivious as always. In some ways it was kind of nice, to know that there was this sort of emotional safety in their company, that my trauma couldn't touch them. It made it easier to stay cool, to keep the stuff I'd been through from fucking with my head too much. I'm not sure they even knew, about... the dreams, or whatever. I didn't think they would care. I might have told Eric, though, I can't remember doing it, but he's... he talks about it sometimes, when I don't expect it. He'll mention some time that I died like he was bringing up the memory of a childhood outing. It's fucking weird, really. I guess he's crazy too, though.
Sorry, I keep forgetting what I'm trying to talk about. Well, when we were kids, it really was like we had our own little pack as we grew up. And we didn't always get along, but we had a good dynamic, and it allowed conflicts between the four of us to resolve themselves without notable issue. When we lost that dynamic, I guess wanted to find another pack I could run with. The army seemed like a pretty great option. I'd dropped out of high school at like 16, so I got my GED and joined the army. I think I had vague aspirations to be Special Forces... I dunno, it seems stupid now that I'm here.
CARTER: What kept you from pursuing that line of work? You seem like being a SEAL or Special Forces was something you aspired to even as a child. Why was it only a vague interest by the time you actually were old enough to be in the Armed Forces?
McCORMICK: [POINTS TO HIS TEMPLE] This.
CARTER: Your nightmares?
McCORMICK: Fuck. Whatever. My only "nightmare" was getting kicked out of the army after I thought I'd found my place to be. I felt like I was doing something good and real, like maybe I was changing things. I don't know. Those guys in World War II, they really had something to swing at, you know? It's a little bit different for assholes like me, now. Fuck, and it seems like it's so easy to make huge mistakes that just blow up all over everything everybody else is working to accomplish. It's frustrating but rewarding too, somehow.
... I never felt like that when I was there, though. I never felt conflicted. It felt like the sort of thing I was supposed to be doing with myself. Like maybe, I had this horrible fucked up curse but I could at least use it to do some good.
CARTER: You're referring to your perceived immortality?
McCORMICK: Yeah, I'm fucking referring to my perceived immortality. And before you say anything else, yeah, I get the irony. The thing that brought me into the military is the reason I got discharged. But if any of you believed me, I'd be a fucking super soldier. Do you have any idea the things I could accomplish, the places they could send me?
CARTER: As I understand it, your increasingly reckless behavior and vivid night terrors about your death are the reason you were discharged.
McCORMICK: Yep, that's what they told me too.
CARTER: Do you disagree that this is true?
McCORMICK: I disagree with their decision. I did my job really fucking well, and there is not a single fucking person who is going to say otherwise. They got me all wrong, though. I wasn't erratic or suicidal or any of that shit. I'm still here, I'm in front of you, so no matter which one of us is right about what's happening to me, I was just as good a soldier as anybody else. I never got any of my company in trouble, not once. And they fucking toss me like the rest of the psychos they think are gonna start shooting places up if they stay around violence any longer.
-End Transcript Excerpt-
PRESENTS WITH
Delusions of immortality
Vivid, almost hallucinatory nightmares of death and rebirth. These fantasies feel utterly real to the patient, and have warped his sense of self-preservation. Perhaps this is a psychological phenomenon stemming from a warped sense of self-worth, driven by a low standing in his local community while he was growing up.
Having been discharged from the army for several years, McCormick is still struggling to find a new, legal job. On a related note, McCormick has freely admitted to indulging in substance abuse and has participated in unusual extra marital activities, often with the permission of his wife.
His wife, meanwhile claims that McCormick has been increasingly agitated, violent and moody since he became a civilian again, and that she's afraid for both his own safety and her own.
Vivid, almost hallucinatory nightmares of death and rebirth. These fantasies feel utterly real to the patient, and have warped his sense of self-preservation. Perhaps this is a psychological phenomenon stemming from a warped sense of self-worth, driven by a low standing in his local community while he was growing up.
Having been discharged from the army for several years, McCormick is still struggling to find a new, legal job. On a related note, McCormick has freely admitted to indulging in substance abuse and has participated in unusual extra marital activities, often with the permission of his wife.
His wife, meanwhile claims that McCormick has been increasingly agitated, violent and moody since he became a civilian again, and that she's afraid for both his own safety and her own.
)death is on the way at echo house