may not seem so to you, is progress. It suggests a willingness to engage with our process, provided that I can convince him of its potential usefulness. This is what I have focused on during our last two sessions.
As you know, I have asked him to keep a diary. He has apparently done so – he has shown me the pages he has written, although I (obviously) cannot guarantee that he is taking it seriously – although it is clear that he resents it. We have discussed it, however, and those conversations have been illuminating.
Persistent refusal to engage requires a level of self-control that few teenagers possess, and even Matthew, who is both intelligent and unquestionably composed, is not able to neuter his speech entirely. Our conversations have revealed the frustrations and doubts that are entirely common to this period of late adolescence, the period in which most teenagers find themselves caught between the desire to be in charge of themselves and the unavoidable reality of the rules and restrictions that come with living at home.
He makes several references to his belief that you will be disappointed in him if he chooses any career other than the law, so much so that he believes you would actually prevent it by refusing to pay for college tuition in any other field. I do not know whether this is something that you have ever made explicitly clear to him, but it has become a deeply-held belief. I suggest that you discuss this with each other, and then with him.
I am also convinced that his frustration and worry are at least partly responsible for the issue for which you referred him to my practice, i.e. recurrent nightmares and sleeplessness. This is the central issue that I will continue to focus our sessions on.
I hope this sets your mind at rest. There are no reliable timetables for the work that I do, and while I know from long experience that this can be frustrating, I would ask you to allow the process to continue. I can assure you that we are making progress, even if you are currently struggling to see it.
Yours sincerely,
Jennifer Casemiro, M.D.
TRANSCRIPTS OF AUDIO RECORDED ON MATTHEW BARKER’S CELLPHONE
Recording begins: March 16, 03:24
Jesus
That was
Hold on
Let me just
OK
OK
It’s 3.24 in the morning, and I know that exactly because I’ve been staring at my phone screen for the last ten minutes waiting for my heart to slow down. It was on the pillow when I woke up. I must have fallen asleep still with it and right now I’m really grateful for that because if it was on the bedside table where it usually is I would have been fucked. I tried to turn on my lamp a few minutes ago and I reached out and my hand disappeared and I couldn’t see it anymore and I started wondering what I would do, what I would really actually really do, if fingers closed around my wrist and I pulled my hand back and put it under the covers and I could feel my whole body shaking like I was freezing.
So
Jesus
I need to
Recording ends: March 16, 03:26
Recording begins: March 16, 03:30
OK.
It’s 3.30 now and it feels like my head is sort of starting to clear. I just … Jesus. Seriously. I don’t know if that was the worst nightmare I’ve had since they started but if it wasn’t then I’m just really glad I can’t remember the ones that were worse.
I can still feel it. Does that make sense? Like it was an actual thing, like a physical thing that attached itself to my skin and it feels like I can’t scrape it off. Like if I close my eyes I’ll be back inside it.
I managed to turn the lamp on. It took literally every ounce of bravery I’ve got, but I feel a little bit better now.
I never used to be able to remember dreams, not the good ones or the bad ones. I sometimes had that vague feeling when I woke up that I had been dreaming, because it felt like I wasn’t really as rested as I should have been for the amount of time I’d been asleep, and sometimes there were images I didn’t recognize in my head, like photographs I know I didn’t take, but the dreams themselves, the details, were always gone by the time my eyes opened.
For the last couple of months it hasn’t been like that. At all. And this one was no different. I can remember every single bit of it.
I already know it’s going to sound stupid but right now I don’t give a shit. Like, at all. Because dreams always sound stupid. They don’t translate properly to other people, because they come out of some place deep inside yourself and what’s absolutely fucking terrifying to me probably means absolutely nothing to you, or to anyone else. But I have to get this out. I think it will be less, afterwards. Like it’s diminished or something. I don’t know.
There were trees everywhere. Everywhere. That’s the main thing I remember. I don’t know what they were, or where. Because Central Park is two blocks away I guess it would make sense to assume that was where I was, but I don’t think that’s right. I didn’t see any paths or gardens or anything familiar. And the trees seemed older. Like they were wild, like they had just grown wherever they wanted. I was totally surrounded by them and I remember looking up and seeing the sky, and it was black. Not dark purple or dark grey or dark blue or the pale glowing yellow that always hangs over Manhattan. Proper black.
Pitch black.
I was walking. I don’t think I knew where I was going, or if I did then I’ve forgotten. There’s no logic to dreams, no narrative of A to B to C that makes sense. Or, at least, not that I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s different for some people.
I was walking, and there were trees and the black sky and I sort of knew that I was cold, like I was just sort of aware of it, but it didn’t worry me. I just walked and shivered and walked and I can’t remember actually thinking about anything, or doing anything else. I just walked.
And then
I think
Jesus. Come on, for fuck’s sake. Get your shit together.
Come on
Come on
Recording ends: March 16, 03:33
Recording begins: March 16, 03:35
OK
So
There was something behind me.
I just knew there was, as surely as I know my name and where I live and that if I swing my legs out of bed there’s going be a floor there. It was just a fact. It was behind me, and it was getting closer.
I didn’t look
