24- Only one choice

I would like to hear your opinion Anastasia - she added after eating another cookie - Don't create pseudo opinions, one of the rules of my consultations is that the patient cannot fall into the spiral of silence. - I looked at her calmly, speechless and confident, the cookies were divine.

We knew our story even before living it, we already knew how it was going to end. I have read those love stories hundreds of times where love is very intense but has no connection to reality, there is no other glue besides frenzy. I knew it was crazy, that we couldn't last forever like this, but still, even with all the suffering that was coming our way, we risked experiencing love. I never thought it would end up in a psychiatrist's office asking for help to forget her. I feel sorry about all of this - I admitted slowly, my gaze fixed on a blind spot on the desk - I wish I had never met her - A tear escaped my cheek. The doctor looked intrigued as a silver and liquid shimmer ran down my face and faded on my chin as I wiped away my tears.

I don't know if you can forget her, Anastasia, naturally and even if it sounds cliché, time will do its job. But we can work so that those corners of your mind where Paola always appears stop hurting, so that you can think of her without feeling pity or pain. You won't feel guilty or sad anymore. However, that path that is formed in your brain is part of you, of your personality, as I tell you, it is a libido, an emotion that has transferred to you. It is like a parallel life in your head, one full of memories and voids that you cannot erase, but that you can accept so they don't hurt anymore. They are wounds that don't heal, Anastasia, all the people who have truly loved someone and have suffered a loss have them. You don't accept your wounds, on the contrary, you deny them. And that is a characteristic of melancholy, you feel grief for your loss but you cannot reason what you have lost.

You're rushing to study me, Doctor. Honestly, deep down I suppose I have all the answers, I'm just an unsolvable puzzle.

You don't have all the answers, and having lost your object, you probably never will. The answers you seek are held by Paola - The doctor smiled and her forehead filled with fine wrinkles as she looked at me as if she had hit the nail on the head - That's why it's best not to ask yourself any more questions and redirect your energy towards another object, another person who can receive your love with joy.

Sometimes I feel like I need her, more than missing her, it's a need for her presence, for what she transmitted to me and filled me with life… - My gaze crossed with the doctor's and for a second I found comfort in the remnants of my being.

Freckles have always seemed special to me. - I closed my eyes and swallowed saliva. After a second of silence, I continued speaking - Unique and unrepeatable constellations, natural tattoos. And I have no more than 10 freckles that you can see at a glance, none near each other, my freckles don't tell stories together like a constellation… they don't charm or enamor, yet I have so many freckles throughout my skin. Paola had many, many freckles, I loved kissing them. Their shapes and different shades of dark chestnut mesmerized me. Sometimes lying down or looking at myself in the mirror, I have discovered new freckles, freckles on my body that Paola will never kiss, my whole life I carry it on my skin, and the new victories or scars I may have along the way she will be unaware of. So one day, I will be wrinkled and my eyes will shine with new experiences that I cannot imagine now. And Paola will only be a fragment, a millimeter of my skin, hiding some of my oldest freckles. That's it, my skin perfectly summarizes our story, and I carry it with me every day of my life. But there is one, one special freckle, right next to my heart. I touch it daily since I discovered it, out of fear that it will disappear, that it will slip away and get lost, out of the illusion of seeing her again and for her to kiss it without me asking. To that freckle, I owe my inspiration at three in the morning, my hope, my waking dreams, my laughter at the absurdity of remembering myself kissing her freckles, to that freckle, I owe my existence. It is a small freckle at the level of my heart, and it is filled with lost illusion.

You feel that way because your libido feeds off your personality, but you don't need her to exist at all. It seems to me that we should work on your grief and melancholy separately. I want to do a regression with you, well-worked hypnosis is the most effective way to find your accidents, your buried memories to let go of a loved one, to forgive yourself and heal that part of you that has been lost along with the energy of your loved one.

It sounds like you're going to erase her from my memories…

I won't erase her from your mind, but her memory won't be painful anymore or affect you to the point where you blame yourself for things that are directly caused by her personality and that you have absorbed, taking them as your own flaws. You will become exactly who you were before you met her, but with all the gained experience and without the feeling of pain, with fresh and new freckles. Hypnosis in cases of melancholy, trauma, and loss of a family member or loved one is the best.

I'll see you next week, okay?

Okay - I agreed.