Page 41 of Ashes of Us
“First, I need to reiterate this isn't a diagnosis, and my friend wouldn't be able to make a diagnosis unless he had several sessions with Lucy.” Maverick seemed to be making sure Danica knew he wasn't saying this was for sure what was wrong with Lucy; he was giving her an idea of what they were possibly dealing with, which Danica completely understood.
Still, it didn't stop her from wanting to know the professionals' thoughts on things, and she nodded somberly.
“I understand that but just having some kind of idea...” she trailed off with a sigh. “This is helping me in ways I don't think I can properly articulate.”
He smiled at her, looking very pleased with her response. “I'm glad it's helping, just don't take what I'm about to explain as the gospel truth, that's all I'm asking.”
“Cross my heart.” Danica returned his smile, relaxing back into the buttery soft leather cushions of the couch and thinking to herself that dimples should be illegal over the age of ten because they gave him a boyish charm that was nearly impossible to resist. While she definitely didn't have the same physical attraction to him that she had to Alex or the emotional connection that she had with Jasper, she found herself hoping they would stay in touch when all this was over and become friends, which was not something she usually wanted with people.
She had many acquaintances and colleagues whom she liked and respected, but very few actual friends who were not connected to Jasper or his family, and she was content with that arrangement.
“And hope to die.” Maverick chuckled. “I prefer a pinky swear.” Danica chuckled and held out her hand with her pinky extended.
“If that's what it takes.” She giggled as Maverick leaned forward and captured her pinky finger with his, shaking it firmly and then letting her go, before picking up another folder. “You're very old school.”
“I don't like reading on a screen.” He explained as he opened it and settled back in his chair.
“Everything is entered into the computer and stored on an external backup drive, but I print hard copies for my meetings and either shred them or give them to my clients after.” He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders slightly, flicking the papers to straighten them up.
“The psychiatrist, whose name is Dr. Mikhail Portenski with Elevate Neurohealth, believes she may have one of three psychological conditions.
The first and most likely is called persistent maladaptive fantasies or, to use the layman's term, magical thinking.
Basically, some people cope with trauma and unmet emotional needs in childhood through fantasy-based thinking.
In other words, she believes what she wants to be true so thoroughly that in her mind it is, no matter how much evidence to the contrary she's presented with.
He said if her emotional development was stunted during her parents' divorce, the belief that her parents still loved each other and wanted to be with one another was a wish-fulfillment defence that she relied on to get through it, but in doing so, she essentially convinced herself that her parents wanting to be together is an irrefutable fact.”
“So, when Jasper stopped seeing her, telling her he didn't love her and didn't want to be with her anymore, she couldn't handle it and fell into the same patterns,” Danica murmured. She had to admit, it fit the situation, and Maverick nodded in agreement.
“Exactly. I'm inclined to agree with Mikhail that this is probably what we're dealing with.
He did say that the fact that she was in therapy and they failed to address the issue was a little concerning, however, it also made sense because the term wasn't coined until 2002, and it's still not an official diagnosis in the DSM-5 or ICD-11, although research has been increasing around it for the last two decades.”
“What were the other two?” Danica sat back, mulling that over. “Just for fun, because I think that's what's going on, even if it isn't an actual diagnosis.”
“The second most likely one is she has obsessive thinking or rumination, which is often seen in OCD and personality disorders, and means she may have persistent, intrusive thoughts or a fixation on a belief or outcome.” He continued, checking his notes briefly.
“We don't think it's this one because it's unlikely she would have been able to move on from Jasper and marry someone else if that was the case.”
“The third one is that she has a delusional disorder, but true delusional disorders are so rare that he said he would be shocked if this were the case and he also mentioned narcissistic or borderline personality disorder, but based on what I presented to him, while she does tick a number of boxes for them, he doesn't think she meets all the criteria.
In particular, she doesn't become defensive or hostile when confronted, she retreats, and defensiveness is characteristic in both those disorders; they just present differently.” He closed the folder and laid it back on the table, watching Danica curiously as she thought about what he told her.
“Everything I saw of Lucy lines up with the description of the maladaptive one.” Danica agreed after a minute.
The more she thought about it, the more she was sure they were correct, even though she knew it wasn't an official diagnosis.
“When she's confronted with something that goes against her narrative, she cries and runs away.
I think she honestly thought I would be happy to hand over Jasper's sperm in the hospital, and couldn't believe it when I told her no.”
“Exactly.” Maverick smiled, looking pleased that she agreed with him and the psychiatrist. “That was the big one for the psychiatrist; she had absolutely no shame in telling you she was pregnant with his child and asking for his DNA to get pregnant again. She firmly believes Jasper wanted her to have his baby, and when you disagreed, she backed off and went around you to his mother.” He paused, frowning.
“Which also follows with her manipulation tactics from her childhood and highlights how deeply ingrained this is in her.”
Danica nodded. Lucy clearly had several issues going on, not just magical thinking. “Did you look into her relationship with Jasper?”
“I reached out to Elena and Jimmy again, individually this time.
Jimmy couldn't tell me much about it, he was living in New Hampshire when they were seeing each other, and he said that while Jasper told him he was seeing someone, he made it sound more like a friends with benefits type thing than an actual relationship and that she was fine with it.” Maverick wrinkled his nose and scratched his neck, looking like he didn't want to say what else Jimmy told him.
“They used to joke about how eager she was to please Jasper and how she would ditch previous plans if he reached out and wanted to hook up.
Jimmy said he told Jasper that it sounded like she was falling for him, but Jasper shrugged it off and said that wasn't his problem because he made it very clear to her that he wasn't looking for a relationship, and she never brought it up.”
Danica nodded, well aware of Jasper's reputation as a fuck boy in high school and college.
“Yeah, that tracks. His mom was thrilled when he first introduced me to them, because he'd never brought a girl home before.
He fully admitted to never wanting to settle down before he met me, and his cousins didn't hold back on telling me about his numerous conquests at my first family dinner.” She rolled her eyes; she could laugh at it now, but at the time, she almost walked away.
“I kept my cool in the moment, but fully intended to dump him, not because of the fact that he was a former man-whore, I knew about that already, but because his family were weirding me out. Emilia noticed I was starting to shut down but she liked how I was handling things so she pulled me aside to tell me if Jasper wanted me to meet his family, then he was very serious about me and predicted we would be engaged in six months if I stayed with him, promising the family would ease off after they got over their initial shock and got used to me coming around.”
“And were you?” Maverick raised his eyebrow, looking amused.
“He asked me to move in with him when my lease ended that night, and when I moved in with him three months later, he proposed in the middle of an argument about keeping his extensive Hot Wheels collection on display in the living room or moving it somewhere else,” Danica explained sheepishly.
“Emilia was sort of right about the family; they stopped trying to shock me, but I wouldn't say they 'eased off.”
Maverick chuckled. “What happened with the Hot Wheels collection?”
“He sold them to buy a ring.” She laughed with him, surprised he had focused on that.
“Look, when I say extensive, I mean his living room was fifteen feet by fifteen feet, and three walls had custom-built shelving that started four feet above the floor and went to the ceiling. He had over three hundred of the premium lines, including the historic ones, most sold between twenty and forty bucks, but a couple sold on eBay for over a hundred.”
“He sold them?” Maverick stopped laughing and stared at her. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” Danica nodded, smiling fondly. “We were in the middle of this, I don't want to say massive argument about the cars and how much space they were taking up, but we were definitely starting to get heated, and he just stops mid-sentence about how they were an investment and asked me to marry him. I was so surprised that I laughed it off, and we both let the argument go. I had to travel for a week for work shortly after, and when I got home, he had sold like ninety percent of them and bought me a ring, to prove he was right about them being an investment and to show he was serious about us and getting married.”