Is it possible for someone to invade your mind and remotely view all the private aspects of your life?
Previously to meeting Ariadne Vasilou I would have laughed and denied the possibility, but now having experienced her mental stalking I’d have to admit it’s a reality.
Somehow Ariadne was able to peer into my most intimate moments and know all the details of my private life.
Ariadne was a man-eater whom the press called the Black Widow. She drugged and tortured her lovers, killing two of them before she was caught.
The fact that she was imprisoned did not deter her from invading my world.
As her therapist, I was extremely vulnerable to these kinds of attacks, and I had absolutely no protection.
There is no distance in the spirit.
I no longer counsel Ariadne, although I do see a colleague myself.
He calls what she does fake feedback—insists she’s expert at deciphering verbal nuance and minute body language clues.
I have my doubts.
I see her in my mind’s eye—her spindly feelers scuttling over my brain, probing the private recesses of my cerebellum, invading my space.
Can I tell him I feel violated—all my secrets laid bare?
Not bloody likely. My future would be sealed and I’d have a permanent spot reserved on his couch.
As it is, I don’t lie on my own couch at night any more—I don’t stare at the jumble of lights and wonder why.
I’m on a treadmill of my own now—a zombie-like routine of shuffling through the motions of eating, working and struggling to sleep.
There’s no help for me in the DSM—the psychiatrist’s manual of mental disorders and syndromes, because my oppression isn’t located in that realm.
I’m a victim of spiritual oppression and my torturer can’t be controlled by physical restraints or the usual array of drugs and therapies.
The only hope for me is that eventually Ariadne lose interest in me as a remote target and fixate her energies on oppressing someone else—some other man who interests her and presents a challenge.
As for me, I’m lying low, hoping she tires of the sport and moves on to other victims.
It’s terrifying what can go on within the few cubic centimeters inside a person’s skull.
I know the terror all too well.
And there’s someone I can’t get out of my head—and it isn’t my dead wife.