Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in Holodeck -I can just throw myself off the side of the cliff - MacGregor counseling thread

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Thomas McGregor (COS) in Holodeck -I can just throw myself off the side of the cliff - MacGregor counseling thread

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in Holodeck -I can just throw myself off the side of the cliff - MacGregor counseling thread
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻
<snip>
“I am counting on that,” she let out a deep breath and began to climb. “You know it is not completely an old wives tale that if you dream you died. You mind can convince your body of a lot of things so I am just going to be that every loving ray of sunshine and imagine we bounce if we fall.” His comment made her move a hand up slightly and at least start some forward movement. “Keep the convo going ‘kay,” she said.

“You want my deep, dark secrets? How about I went home for the first time in five years last year because I blamed my dad for my mom’s death.”

COS

Vanessa paused for a second taking a look at Thomas to match the tone with his expression. “Losing a parent is devastating,” she replied and let the pause fill the space between them until Thomas was ready to continue. There was so much more in his statement than the obvious. Emotions and repercussions, family dynamics, and the sense of loss: were simple but the wounds always ran deeper. If Thomas was going to tell the story, she would let him lead it where he wanted it to go.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“I mean, yeah, and it was for a really stupid reason too. They’d gone on a cruise to some Andorian moon to see some architectural feature, and she contracted some virus there that apparently works really quickly in humans. Didn’t show a single symptom during the visit, or the shuttle ride up, or dinner, went to bed and was dead by morning. But even if she had been symptomatic, the ship’s infirmary wasn’t equipped to handle it,” Thomas said. “I blamed him because he was the one who wanted to visit that place in particular, had been hounding her about it for years. But I was the only one of the four of us who did, both of my other brothers and my sister saw it as the tragic accident it was, so I didn’t talk to any of them for years.”

Thomas was hovering in the denial and anger phase of grief. The stages were not linear and one could linger, move on, and move back into the many stages before settling on the last phase of acceptance. It was going to be a long road to acceptance and Thomas was nowhere near it but that did not mean he could not eventually reach it. “We never really heal from the death of a parent. It is just something we learn to live with.” Vanessa had not lost a parent but she had counseled enough people that had.

He went quiet again for another couple of minutes. “That’s not to say they didn’t try to talk to me, they sent me holiday holos every year, but I didn’t reply to those either. Until last year.”

COS

“And what happened when you reached out,” she said gently. Pain in a family took many forms. Sometimes a gentle gesture became a powder keg.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“I ‘reached out’ because that time the old bastard had sent me something so patronizing I couldn’t not,” Thomas said with a snort. “Sent me a holo of him, my brothers and sister and my eldest younger brother’s fiance and my youngest younger brother’s boyfriend all smiling in between a Christmas tree and a roaring fireplace, with the caption something to the effect of ‘Wish you were here!’“

Vanessa did not respond but processed his visceral response to the event. She had been dealing with clients and families long enough to know a snapshot of a happy family on a fireplace did not always tell all sides of the story. What she found most perplexing was Thomas’ reaction. To her, it read of guilt and deep familial wounds. Thomas’ recanting of the events leading up to his mother’s death was cut and dried however his response to his family trying to move on after the death said there were volumes of backstory.

He went silent again as they made their way up another few feet. “I managed to send back a somewhat tasteful reply, but the message Dad had actually intended to send hit home so hard I actually had to visit your predecessor, who basically told me the same thing and drove me to actually take personal leave for the first time since leaving Earth in the first place to go home.”

COS

“So what was the message your Dad was trying to send,” she asked continuing to climb. As long as she was moving and her mind focused on Thomas she would not freeze like a deer in headlights.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“‘Come home.’ And I did. I punched him in the face.”

COS

There was so much emotion in a statement of so few words. Vanessa had tried to be vague in her questions but it seemed Thomas was going to need a little encouragement to begin sharing more details. “Okay this is going to piss you off royally Thomas but that seems a bit aggressive and uncalled for given the details you have shared with me. What am I missing?” She tried to keep it open-ended as she could but part of a counselor’s job was to point out when someone was being rational and when they might not be seeing things clearly due to emotions. The response was so out of character for the man she knew, there had to be more to the story.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“It didn’t help as much as I thought it would,” Thomas admitted. “He hit back, of course, and it devolved into a wrestling match in the entrance hall, which he won, because of course age and experience beats youth and enthusiasm. Then we got up and had a couple of drinks, and then my sister showed up bawling her eyes out.”

COS

“So things are copasetic in the MacGregor house,” she confirmed. At the beginning of the story, she thought things were far more contentious. Now it seemed Thomas was recounting a story instead of seeking help.

“Well, they’re getting there,” Thomas said. “I do still resent him a little for going on the trip in the first place, but barring getting up to an exceptional amount of temporal shenanigans there’s no changing the past.”

“Decking someone in the hallway, living room, basement, pick any room,” she let out a laugh. “With nine brothers there was and is a lot of testosterone flowing in the Slade house. Not that I am innocent. Half of us are married to the estrogen is almost as bad now. At times the pheromones and hormones are worse than an Orion pleasure house but its family. Not much one can really do. So tell me about your sis?”

Vanessa Slade CNS

“Josie is the middle of my three younger siblings, she’s six years and change younger than me. Civil engineer, and a nightmare when it comes to interpersonal relationships,” Thomas said.

COS

“So a meat grinder “ Vanessa replied. “At least that is what we call my brother Dylan. “Lord that man goes through women faster than a butcher with a fresh supply of pork at a hot dog festival. Takes the heat off the rest of us so we don’t exactly encourage him to settle down. What’s your other sibling like?”

Vanessa Slade. CNS

“Ha, no, Josie’s issue is that she can’t get past the first date without doing something catastrophic to her chances of earning a second. The most recent was she went on a date to a sushi restaurant and found out she was allergic or something to wasabi when her dinner did a 180 all over her date’s face,” Thomas said.

COS

“What about you,” she asked pulling herself up another foot of rock. As long as she concentrated on the rock it was fine. She kept her eyes forward, not down, not up but forward. “Any pressure for their brother to find someone. Breaking into the sibling ranks is harder than taking on a regiment of Borg and often just as deadly,” she laughed.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“Plenty of it,” Thomas said with a huff not entirely linked to their climb up the cliffside. “And neither Tony nor Garrett will accept that I’m not bloody interested in ladies, gentlemen, androids or sentient potted plants.”

COS