Hospital “The Nursery Tone”

The following set of statements was given by me under the influence of hypnosis. The doctor admits that he is unsure how much of what I am saying is memory and how much may be the introduction of trauma from the most recent events I have been experiencing.

“I've been in and out of hospitals so much that many of the staff at the hospital know me by name. I haven't met all of them mind you. My condition is rather specialized. But they know me all the same, through notoriety. They call me 'The Sick Child,' and though they think it is a rather cute pet name for me, I know that underneath all that is a level of pity. At this point, though I know I have another name, it hardly matters aside from the forms they need to fill out. No one says it anymore except my family, and not even all of them.

I can't remember the first time I went to the hospital. I was too young to recall, though my parents do. It has been easier since then, but the first visit was the worst one. They didn't know what was wrong with me back then, or even how to treat it. As a result, my parents had to spend many nights watching over me, afraid that if they weren't there with me all the time that I would be alone when I died.

They eventually came out and told my parents what was wrong, and informed them that this would be a lifelong, complicated condition. It isn't something that could be dealt with easily, and because of that my rather consistent flare-ups warrant medical attention. They tell me that what happens isn't my fault. That there is simply something wrong with my body, with my mind. For a long time, I accepted that as true, but more recently I have become unsure.

When a baby is born in a hospital, a tone rings that signals the birth of the child. It is a familiar nursery tone; one I have heard quite a lot. When I was born the tone rang twice in a row. When that happens it normally means that a pair of twins were born. The tone rang twice, but only one baby went home a few days later. My parents tell me that it is likely where it started. I'm not sure it justifies the things I have done, but it is hard to really say for sure. Being an only child can be a tricky thing after knowing someone, even unconsciously, for nine months.

My parents were sick too, and I assumed that they were like me. I was too young to understand that not everyone was like me. As a child I was always good at games that used the mind. Puzzles and chess came easily to me, and I thought that it was likely due to high intelligence. I did, but it turns out that there was more to it than that. When they first took me to the asylum they used an ambulance. The times after that we didn't bother calling. We just drove.

It soon got to the point where I virtually never left the hospital. My schoolwork was delivered and even my teachers would visit me at the hospital. As time passed, they didn't visit as much. I seemed to pick up concepts quickly and didn't require a lot of instruction. As I got older, I realized that they mostly stayed away out of fear.

Calling me the Sick Child was a nice way of avoiding calling me something worse. My parents stopped buying me pets at a certain point, and they stopped inviting kids over to play with me.

I started seeing the man at around eleven years old. He was the one who told me the truth. He was also the first person to call me by my given name, and only my given name, in years. He told me that though I was suffering from several physical, medical ailments, he said the core of my issues extended from the way I saw things. Some of the things I saw were real, while some things that were real I couldn't see. He said that my mind was protecting me, but that sometimes our mind can protect us in the wrong ways.

One day the man looked different. He wasn't in a doctor’s gown, and his skin seemed to be made of ashes. His eyes burned like large coals, and he spoke in a voice like God.

'This is why you fit in…Sick Child…you are finally alright.'”

My psychiatrist tried several times during our therapy session to get further details on what was said, but I must admit I remember very little. With my parents and most of my family gone, there are really few people who can verify what has been said. I have been asked to get my full medical records to him, so he can try and verify what I related. That way, he claims, we will be able to have a more solid platform to work from.

I do not know what brought on all these strange memories, but the psychiatrist claims that there has been little progress made, and that this is a significant breakthrough. I have listened to the recording several times, and though I know I need help to get better I am unsure just how far I want to go with all this.