It isn’t your fault, Jonah. If this is Sacha, she went through a lot, and “waking up” was going to be traumatic, regardless of who helped her find her way back. It’s… actually probably a good thing she is where she is, considering.
Basics of what you’re looking at psychologically (and avoiding spoilers if you care about reading the books as books rather than research) would be: traumatic loss as a youth, probable survivors guilt or C-PTSD from the same, moral injury as an adult (similar to what you’d see in a PoW who’d been forced to work for the enemy), and most definitely some form of memory damage, probably TBI related. If you can talk to anyone on her care team about instituting therapies for any of that, you’ll be getting her a lot of help. If you’re not sure how to tell the doctors about it, try telling them that what with the "sorry"s and catatonia, it sounds like trauma and guilt, which makes you think of survivors guilt or moral injury. Those are likely the biggest impact items, and that’s a basic enough deduction you wouldn’t need to tell them about us to justify it.
Sorry to overwhelm you, I happen to have some experience navigating mental health treatment, and I want to help. Once she’s not on safety protocol, let us know, we’ll discuss options to help more.
She’s back in her room/common areas. I didn’t want to agitate her again, so I didn’t mention names or anything, but her right hand was sort of hooked in a weird shape and it looked like she was holding a pencil, so I gave her one.
Instead of Magiq, she started writing “Lachmann” on the wall.
I read a bunch of phase 3 when I had free time today. I know, I should have been working. I already saw from the other topic, but knowing she was Whistler too, man, she’s been through hell. And she put people through hell, too. Not saying she didn’t. Just a sad story all around.
I’m still kind of freaking out that this all happened.
Thank you for the update, @jdobner95. I’m sorry for any of our part in her agitation, but I’m so pleased to hear that she is at least making a little progress.
@jdobner95 is putting me to shame working in the medical field and blasting through this material. Though, I guess medical students would never make it in the first place with my glacial nature. : j
Thanks for taking it seriously. I see you seem to have the disposition for it. I guess that makes you an honorary member for now, while we help you work on the case. You’re doing most of the heavy lifting after all!
Finished volume 2. That’s a wild ride, not gonna lie.
So I’m going in this morning, picking up a shift, and I figure I’ll have double the time to try and figure out what Sacha wants. Hell, I don’t know if she wants anything.
So I’m going to talk to her about you guys, the mountaineers. What else or who else should I mention if I get the chance?
Are you sure this is wise? The last names we offered put her into a state for 2 days that required solitary confinement. We’re not really trained to be just firing buckshot at someone’s psyche.
But I’ve talked to the back of people’s heads around here enough to recognize when someone’s going to try anyway, so here goes.
Brandon and Sacha had a private password. Beastmage. It was a code they hid things behind, and we found some clues there including details on Sacha and Brandon’s childhood behind it back when the Forest of Darkened Glass website was back up.
It’s a private enough word that she might be convinced you’re Brandon…if thats the sort of insane thing you want to try.
You could also try the names Martin Rank, or Teddy Fallon…but I cannot stress enough how damaging either of those might be to her. Portentia and Aether might trigger something as well.
Best of luck, @jdobner95 I think you have the best ideas suggested already, but I wanted to be sure you got the message loud and clear: the Mountain is with you. We’re going to back you up and be a place you can vent to and come to for help. You’re well on your way to being one of us, and we support our own.
Hey there! Sorry I logged on late, and I don’t know if you can check your phone at work or whatever, but if you see this, it might be worth bringing up The Forest of Darkening Glass as well? Or Reader, although that might not mean anything to Sacha? I wish we knew her real name…
Okay so I only had a couple of minutes where I could really sit down with her.
Nothing seemed to be getting through, no matter what I said. She was getting a little agitated so I left her alone cause I didn’t want her to have to be alone again.
But I just checked in on her and she’s now writing “Lachmanns” plural.
Plural? So are we talking about something at the Lachmanns’ house? Because I’m pretty sure Brandon was an only child, so unless there was a secret sibling (or one from a different Book), that’s all that would make sense to me.
Volume one is still fresh in my mind and I’m wondering how the Devoted got Brandon’s backpack and all the game materials. Did Sacha steal them from Brandon’s parents? That would be enough to make you feel like hell, let alone everything else. Digging all of that stuff back up.
Brandon’s parents names are Susan and Jim. Maybe you can look them up. We’ve tried but we have this whacky Veil and all. Heck, they might even visit her.
I understand you will be more cautious but she’s in a very dangerous mental space, so consider having someone else supervise her for her own safety.
Writing that name in plural is weird but it does make me think of either a person in his family we don’t know of, like a sibling, or a place where something might be…
Just… Be careful and give her time. We’re definitely too hasty but we wish both of you our best.
Actually: Here’s an edit to the above. There was an email address for Susan on the very first iteration of the Forest of Darkened Glass but it was removed after the first of us tried to contact them. We were a bunch of crazy people with no information. But you have the wisdom of hindsight and can explain about Sacha.
I’ll pm you the email address to try. Just so we don’t get your post lost in the hundreds of others we would no doubt spawn if I put it here.
I just got off the phone with Mrs. Lachmann. Jim, her husband, died a few years back, but she’s doing good. She seems to have a nice life. She said she’s writing a book about her son, and Sacha’s in it, about Brandon’s wild imagination and their friendship back when they were kids. Mrs. Lachmann’s in a wheelchair now, and lives alone, otherwise she said she would come see Sacha.
So, I’m going down to pick her up in the morning. I’m probably crazy.
I don’t know about magic and all that stuff, but I think this might be good for both of them. And that’s good enough for me. I’ll keep you posted.
You’re doing most of the heavy lifting after all!