The "scared shitless" type is most stable when they seek counseling for their fears. The excerpt provided is from the consented release of therapy sessions from a mate's meeting that went horribly wrong.

"This is Doctor Richard Trahahn, starting a session with Jacob Matthews on 11/22/1994. Jacob, how do you feel today?"

"Like crap, but manageable. Just get on with it."

**rustling of papers**

"Ok...well, Jacob, what is your earliest full memory?"

"I don't remember much from my early childhood, just bits a pieces of a happy life. My first full memory is of the event..."

"Please, continue..."

"I was playing with this girl, and the song Susie Q comes on dad's old record player. I can hear it, just inside the widow to his office. He had kicked me out into the yard, so he could do my step-mom in peace. Didn't know what it was, then, though...just knew they wanted alone time."

"Who is the girl?"

"I don't know. I remember a sense of familiarity, like I had known her forever, but I don't have any even half-formed memories of her. "

"Do you have a name for her?"

"I called her Eve."

"And what did you do with Eve?"

"We were chasing each other around the yard. I think she was threatening to give me a kiss."

"How did you feel about it?"

"It was fine, I guess. I mean, I was about 7 years old, not old enough to understand much about the differences between boys and girls."

"But you weren't scared of her?"

"Come on, man, don't go like the last head shrink. I'm not scared of sex or women! Y'all piss me off with that shit!"

"I'm just trying to establish when you became afraid of the girl, Mr. Matthews."

"I didn't feel anything until that big mangy dog jumped out at us, snapping it's teeth. I can remember it's claws breaking my skin, before I was shoved back by another dog. There was blood everywhere. I can't even keep straight whose blood it was. My head was throbbing and I was on the edge of passing out."

"That explains a fear of dogs, which is not insurmountable. How about the girl?"

"She grew a snout, tail, bones twisted and popped every which way until a near grown Husky stood between me and the dog. She shredded it, leaving chunks of it all over the yard."

"And that's when the fear set in?"

"No, that was a touch of relief while I was in a hell of a lot of pain."

"Then what happened?"

"Eve turned around, looked at me, and whimpered. She crawled up on my side and rested her muzzle on my shoulder. I started petting her, but I was so out of it at that point that I was done thinking and feeling."

"What are you withholding?"

"I'm not. There's more, is all...*sigh*...anyway Eve the dog bit me, and I swear I heard a voice say, 'Hello, Mate.' Then I passed out from blood loss."

"You are aware that none of this matches the reports, right?"

"Yes. The reports have no answers, though."

"So, no blood, no dead dogs, no scars on your body, no girl named Eve, no witnesses. The doctor suggested you had a hallucinatory seizure."

"No blood, but my blood count was severely low. Yes, there was a new scar, teeth marks in my shoulder. The doctor tried to pass it off as old because it was healed but my parents vouched that I'd never been bit before. No history before or since of seizures."

"But the hallucinations continued."

*sigh* "...if they are hallucinations? Yeah, they've happened a handful of times since then"

"What makes you think they aren't hallucinations?"

"The severe infrequency, the too-narrow a trigger."

"Care to explain?"

"I can masturbate, I can casually date, I can be close friends with a woman, I can buy an escort for the evening, but I cannot have sex with someone that means something to me without seeing that damned dog and hearing a voice in my head, saying 'Hello, mate. You've been naughty.' "

"A fear of commitment?"

"Yeah, they went with that excuse at the last doc's office."

"Has anyone questioned your girlfriends about what they have seen?"

"Early on, they did, but after a while, everyone worked from the assumption that I caused some sort of mass hallucination with my hysteria."

"Was there any physical evidence?"

"Superficial scratches that honestly a human could do to themselves? I don't know. They were as unscarred as me--even less so without bite marks."

"They did blood work?"

"Yeah. They didn't lose a bunch of blood."

"Did it happen on more than one occasion to any of your females?"

**bitter laugh**"Just my fiancé. The first time we almost slept together, when she believed that I caused her to hallucinate, and later on when I asked her to marry me. At that point we started visiting an exorcist."

"Did you believe that you were possessed?"

"They didn't go with possession but with oppression, although the infrequency really leans towards obsession. One thing stuck with me, out of that phase, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the guy who was the exorcist had a saying: 'You can't pray your way out of a mental illness, and demons don't give a damn about Lithium.' Turns out that neither a full exorcism or drugs stop whatever this thing is."

Was that the last time your fiancée saw the creature?"

"Dog."

"Alright...dog."

"No, last month, she ditched me at the altar after a claimed 3rd run-in with the dog. Said I was on my own and she was done."

"And that is why you decided to speak to a therapist again?"

"Yeah..."

"What do you expect to get from this?"

"Not quack opinions, certainly not drugs...I guess I need someone to talk to that knows what's going on. I don't dare confide in some woman, that's for sure."

"So you don't want a cure for what ails you?"

"I've tried that so many times. I'm good with not stopping the insanity. Lithium makes me feel dead and exorcism is a race to death. I'm not suicidal enough to bear with either, ever again."

**long pause**

"Tell me, did you peruse any of the women in your life?"

"No. Why?"

"I want you to try something for me, this week."

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"What I want you to do is to pick a woman, and go introduce yourself to her."

"You're asking me to instigate one of these attacks?! What kind of therapist are you?"

"One who is willing to test if this insanity or demon. If this is simply the way you cope with being with the wrong woman, you need to work on meeting the right one."

"How would I know that?!"

"Well, for starters, if there is a magical 'right one' for you out there, you're going to be compelled to talk to her."

"Are you sure about this, doc?"

"Look, it's either risk triggering an event, actively seeking out this dog you say is stalking you, or finding something that works better than Lithium on you. Pick your poison."

"I can't do this to another woman."

"If you continue to stumble through life, you're going to keep doing this to woman after woman. If this has a legit reason for happening, I'm giving you the chance that it doesn't happen to any more women. So, what do you want to do?"

"Look, if I don't feel like talking to random women, I'm not going to do it."

"I didn't say to do that. I said to find someone who gives you a feeling, alright?"

"Alright, alright, I'll try it."

"This concludes the first session."

~~~

"

This is Doctor Richard Trahahn, starting a session with Jacob Matthews on 11/29/1994. Jacob, how do you feel today?"

"Odd."

"Why so?"

"Well, for the first 3 days, I swore I wasn't going to do it. Then on day 4 and after, I couldn't find any 1 woman I wanted to talk to. Just like there isn't any woman out there for me."

"First, you give up so easily. If this is an extension of your need to be with someone who better suits you than any past woman, you're going to need some endurance. Now, what kind of places did you go?"

"My everyday places, you know...work and back, laundromat, coffee shop. Everything but the park."

"Why not the park?"

"Most of the events happened at a park. Not all, just I wasn't ready to face the dog just to get to know a woman."

"That won't do, Jacob. A part of you is certain that you will find who you are looking for by going there, if you're treating my exercise as legit. So go on! The worse that will happen is you get another visit with your dog, and have to tell me about it during the next session."

"Ok..."

"Now, let's talk about..."