52. Nora
52
Nora
"It's understandable, Nora," Linda, my therapist, says, crossing one leg over the other. "You mustn't beat yourself up for it." Her black patent shoes have a severely sharp point, and I focus on the ceiling fan's reflection in their shine.
Linda's office is sparse, with no personal effects on the walls or her desk. It almost looks like a hotel room, with nondescript artwork and plain, cheap furniture. It's sterile in here, not what you'd think of as the best choice for a place where you're supposed to spill your guts, but somehow, I still manage to bleed my secrets on the low-pile carpet.
The pack scheduled this appointment for me, not knowing that the verdict would be read today. I wish I could be celebrating with them, but I know they're all sitting in the lobby waiting for me.
I'm not missing out on anything.
Or at least, that's what they told me when they shoved me through the door, insisting I needed to talk to Linda.
"You have been working so hard these past few months. It was expected for you to have a regression with the trial. We talked about this. The subject matter alone would have been tough for anyone to stomach, but listening to that testimony would throw anyone for a tailspin."
"But I thought I was past this," I say quietly, never taking my eyes off that reflection in her shoes. My fingers grip the edge of the loveseat I'm sitting on, the suede fabric making my tongue feel fuzzy. I don't know why, but I've never handled the texture well. "I was doing so well, and suddenly, with just a few words from him, I was thrown back to who I was before I met my pack. Why? Why did that happen?"
I don't want to say it out loud, but I'm embarrassed.
She uncrosses her legs, the shoe changing position and no longer reflecting the ceiling fan. I slowly raise my gaze, cataloging the pinstripes on her pants and the solid black blouse she's wearing before settling on her face. Linda is a severe-looking Beta with a beak-like nose and heavy, dark eyebrows. Her black hair is cut short, shorter than Blaine's, and her lips are painted a deep plum. It is not a look I would ever wear, but it works for her.
"Nora, I could wax poetic about my thoughts, my concerns, my theories on why you regressed the way you did. With your permission, I spoke to your pack. They shared their theories with me. But none of that matters, and do you know why?"
I fist the bottom of my shirt, the black one with the paintball paint-splattered sleeves that Blaine bought me. "Why?"
"Because the only thing that matters is what you think. Your brain and your body do not care if I tell you that the speech he gave was so similar to the things you heard growing up that you fell into a subconscious routine you followed for years. That it began to override all of the work you've done. What your brain needs is for you to determine why you felt, in the face of that fear, trauma, and dehumanization, that the safest place for you was to become the Perfect Omega."
Linda sits back, clasping her hands on her legs, and looks at me expectantly. Her posture is relaxed, and I can tell she'd stay here for as long as it takes for me to share my thoughts and come to my own conclusions. I chew the inside of my cheek and think about what she said.
Why did I feel that I needed to return to that mindset?
"There's a lot of reasons why I became her again," I say quietly, picking at a loose thread on the loveseat. "It wasn't about safety, I don't think."
"Pause right there." She holds up her hand. "Why do you believe that it wasn't about safety?"
"Because Dr. Greene is not safe. Why would I become who he programmed me to be if I needed to be in a place safe from him?"
"A better question is, why wouldn't you become who he programmed you to be if he was the one making you feel unsafe? When you behaved exactly as he wanted, you were fine, right?"
Her words affect me like a bad smell, and I wrinkle my nose. "Fine is relative, I suppose, but yes, the worst of the physical abuse came after I met the pack, and he said he needed to fix me."
Therapy was hard for me at first. I'm proud of myself for being able to share my thoughts so candidly with Linda. Learning to speak up and disagree, to share my thoughts and opinions unbidden, was hard. But I'm glad I've been working on it. I'm not sure where I'd be without Linda and the guys.
"So I ask you again. If Dr. Greene made you feel unsafe, why wouldn't you become the Perfect Omega?" Linda lets me stew on her words for a minute or two before adding. "It's a survival technique, Nora. You put yourself into the form of you that, historically speaking, was the least likely to result in continued trauma."
"But the pack wasn't going to hurt me! I didn't need protection from them."
She chuckles softly, closing her blue spiral-bound notebook. "Sure, but your fight-or-flight reflex doesn't know that. I wish I could say this will be the last time you fall back into that routine, Nora. And maybe it will be. But most likely, this will be something you will continue to work through your whole life. Eventually, you'll realize what you're doing and immediately correct it, stopping yourself and evaluating why you feel like you need to become the Perfect Omega."
Linda stands up and crosses the room to sit next to me on the loveseat. She places her hand on top of mine, and gently, in a motherly, kind manner, she says, "You need to give yourself grace. You are less than six months out of an abusive environment that shaped your entire life. For three of those months, you were awaiting a court trial, where you could lose your pack, and you had to listen to people debate if you were a person or property. You are doing extraordinarily well, all things considered. Do your best to identify your triggers and recognize the patterns that make you want to be the Perfect Omega, and then you can work on coping strategies for dealing with them."
Chewing my bottom lip does little to help the tears that spill out at her words. "The guys were so scared. I could see it on their faces, but I couldn't bring myself to comfort them."
"It's not your place to comfort them through a situation that traumatizes you."
"Isn't that why packs have Omegas? As a calming, soothing presence in the wake of all of those Alpha pheromones?"
She laughs, leaning back on her hands. "I mean, sure, that's one of the reasons, but that doesn't mean the Omega never needs to be taken care of. Let them take care of you, Nora. They love you. They will never fully understand what it is like for you, with all you went through, but they will support you through your struggles."
When I catch Linda's eye, I realize she'd been waiting for me to look at her to finish speaking. "You are allowed to be hurt, Nora. You are allowed to mourn the life you should have had. It is not your fault you were traumatized, and it's not your fault that you seek safety the only way you've been trained to. I'm here to help you, to guide you, and to remind you that you are human. You will have great strides and backslides, and you will still be worthy of love and care from your pack regardless. This is a small, tiny blip in your journey. Do not let it unwind all the hard work you've done."