I?m a forensic psychiatrist and I can?t forget Patient File #1917 ? the woman who allegedly lived in ?the land of forgotten selves?

If you think you already know where this is going, you?d better brace yourself because it?s worse.
After over 30 years as a forensic psychiatrist, I?m retiring, and started writing a book about my stories; I even made some interviews with families of former patients to see how things went in the long run.
Back in the day, I was the only woman with a crime-related job in the county, and of course the police threw me the worst possible cases, so they could use my gender to justify when I failed.
The most normal patients I had were people who lost it and tried to murder their family because they were pretty sure that their target was a. a doppelganger b. a commie or c. a commie doppelganger.
But still, among all this oddity, Patient #1917 ? hereby named Rebecca ? is a story that still intrigues and fascinates me.
Rebecca was 36 years-old when I met her ? we were about the same age, which I think was a factor that helped us connect. She had been arrested after stabbing her twin sister 28 times.
I still have a copy of Rebecca?s patient tapes to help my memory; the story I?m about to tell is not an exact transcription ? I possibly couldn?t, for reasons that will become clear later ? but, in broad strokes, is the content of our conversations.
The police wanted to know whether she was imputable or had to be sent to a criminal mental ward, and I had five weeks to determine it before her trial.
As usual, I started by making the patient feel comfortable around me. I complimented her beautiful auburn hair and how tall she was, remarked that we were around the same age even though she didn?t look like it, and made a joke regarding a toy from our childhood.
I then introduced the topic of her family on our conversation, asking if she had a history of mental illness and such. When Rebecca was mildly uncomfortable, I struck her with the crucial question: do you hate your twin sister?
Rebecca then started to freak out and scream that she had no twin sister, and who she killed was merely an imposter, who took her life, her husband and her job.
Week one showed no progress, but I at least got to establish how she was.
Before seeing her again, I made sure to interview her parents, brother-in-law ? the man she believed to be her husband ? and two former co-workers.
All the five of them reported the same: Rebecca had always been sort of an airhead, who was known for leaving and not coming back when she said she would, losing jobs constantly, and generally making people worry.
They were shocked, concerned or maliciously amused when I informed them that Rebecca told me that her twin sister stole her job ? apparently, the sister was the branch director to a major d?cor business, while the most successful that Rebecca had ever been was keeping a job for two straight months at Walmart.
Due to her issues with organization and commitment, Rebecca had been living with her parents again, despite being a full-blown adult.
?No one would rent her an apartment because she was known for never paying. I once took pity in her and let her be my roommate. It was hell?, one of the former co-workers, let?s call her Anna, explained to me. ?I think her parents only took her in out of guilt.?
As her mother made a difficult face, her father explained that Rebecca was probably this way because they had another kid who died as a baby and, in their grief, maybe they neglected her. ?Even though her sister turned out perfectly. I think she fought really hard to be so well-adjusted?, the mother added.
So Rebecca had been living with her elder parents for a while. Then, a few months earlier, she suddenly disappeared.
Since she constantly gave her family this sort of ****, no one was exactly concerned. ?We thought she was couch-surfing or something?, her brother-in-law explained. ?It wouldn?t be the first time, she?s an adult and she knows how to stab people if she wants to, so why should we worry??
It was clear that everyone thought Rebecca was unreliable and a general burden, so they decided that she would benefit from taking some time alone and learn how to manage herself.
After thoroughly getting their side of the story, I saw Rebecca again. Thinking about what her family and friends said, it struck me as odd that her looks were as flawless as they could be: her hair was always beautifully arranged, her clothes were tidy, her nails were clean? she looked very much like someone who?s got their **** together.
This Rebecca in front of me didn?t seem at all like the disheveled and unstable woman that people described. She looked way more like the successful branch director that she claimed to be.
After a bit of small talk to make her more receptive, I asked her what seemed to me like the most crucial question at the moment: if your sister is an imposter, why do people still remember you?
?Because she implanted fake memories about a fake me on people!? she replied. I had felt a spark of hope that her uncanny story could be true, but this sentence poured water on it. Maybe the men were right and I was too emotional for the job.
?Tell me more about the land of forgotten selves?, I asked then.
During weeks two and three, Rebecca described in rich detail the place she had been during her time missing. It didn?t sound like any place I knew of in real life, so if she had made it up she was a hell of a storyteller.
I managed to sum up the main points of her report.
People fall in there when their real selves are forgotten by others.
I was impeccable my whole life, Doctor. Great daughter, great wife, great boss. I didn?t let people see my struggles. How I only slept three hours a night to make sure everything was always perfect, or how devastated I feel every time someone asks more of me. I?m already giving you the most! But if you serve perfection you?re only expected to keep doing it, maybe overcome it. People aren?t grateful anymore. They assume it?s your job in life to be spotless.
I learned to be this way early in life because my parents were always sad, and I absolutely couldn?t bring myself to make them worse. I would never, ever, get in trouble or hurt them in any way. I would make them proud. Soon I became addicted to the feeling of being the golden child of the world. I couldn?t bear to fail, not even once.
I woke up on the wrong side of reality one day. Everything was flipped, like a mirrored image. And most of the things there are just? forgotten too. Like Windows vista, or the movie Jupiter Ascending.\* (Of course back then those things didn?t exist, I?m just using examples that are tantamount to what she said)
You walk endlessly. The streets are empty and there?s some sort of sadness hanging in the air. They aren?t devastated by war but everything is covered in ugly graffiti and there?s trash everywhere. The very place is forgotten.
Although the streets are empty, you see some people eventually. After walking a lot. But they aren?t people. They are immaterial shadows shaped like people. They try to interact with you, and even if you try too, you can?t. It?s like you?re both the boy in the stripped pyjamas but no one else is actually on the other side.\* (Once again, a modern equivalent)
Sometimes you walk through some ugly forest, lifeless and yellowed too. No matter the scenery, you feel forlorn and small.
When the night comes, you?ll always find an abandoned storehouse to sleep at, but you have to be careful, because in the dark the forgotten monsters come out.
You have to be very, very quiet and apathetic, because if your sense of self is too strong you let out a scent that attracts them.
It?s lonely and maddening. The only thing that kept me going all these months was knowing that eventually someone was bound to remember me. The real me. someone that only I could do because I am Rebecca [redacted]. And thinking that when I came back I would finally relax and let myself be good enough as I am. Of course, that made my scent stand out, but I?m very smart, even though I don?t look like it now. I soon learned how to control it or hide it.
I dreamed of coming back to my husband?s arms and sleeping six hours a day. That?s all I could think of even when I was hiding from the forgotten monsters or planning something.
And of course, I knew how to use a knife. I got myself quite a few of forgotten knives. I had a lot of forgotten objects with me. A forgotten model of (analogic) camera that was a market failure, clothes belonging to forgotten trends, and even the knowledge of forgotten stories.
Unfortunately, I know they were there, but I couldn?t bring anything back, not even the stories that once entered my mind. They belong in there.
Eventually I think someone remembered me, because I was back. The things unflipped. I woke up in my house, in my bed, and I caught a glimpse of my husband across the slightly-ajar door.
As I ran to him, full of joy and ready to hug him and never let go, she was there. The other me. The fake twin. The usurper. I froze, still inside our bedroom, having a panic attack. I stabbed her later that day, after he left and I was able to sneak out to the kitchen and get a knife to protect myself from the intruder.
The way she was there? just standing perfectly still, like she wasn?t something entirely alive. The way she grinned to me as I dug the knife over and over into her unnaturally soft but also gooey flesh. I can?t forget it, Doctor. No matter how people think I?m crazy, I just know that she is not human. It?s a relief that she?s gone.
Her words sent shivers down my spine ? she just sounded and acted so sane, so utterly, genuinely terrified.
Still, I knew that giving her a ?no mental illness? evaluation meant sentencing her to a long time in regular prison, where her life was sure to be pure hell. No one likes a fratricide, especially in prison for women, where most of them are tough but are actually there for drug dealing or intentional manslaughter.
Could I do that to a woman just because she was sane?
Besides, saying in court that Rebecca wasn?t mentally ill meant being questioned, having her case reviewed by male psychiatrists, and losing what little credibility I was able to build so far.
I also knew that she had no way of proving that her sister was an imposter. But it?s impossible to succeed when people want you to fail without using unorthodox methods, so I asked her anyway.
The answer was surprising and thrilling.
?A proof? You know how I told you I couldn?t bring anything back? That?s not entirely true.?
***
Rebecca whispered to me about one thing she was able to come back from the land of forgotten selves with. Pictures. It was by the ending of our last meeting, even though it was still week four.
She instructed me where she had hidden a small envelope with a couple of polaroid-like pictures.
All our conversations were recorded, so I could never tell Rebecca that there was a chance she wasn?t crazy; I would lose my job for sure, as I?m pretty sure someone was actively spying on us. Still, I secretly made copies of each tape, because her case was just too fascinating and I didn?t want to forget it. I?m glad I did.
The photos aren?t high quality, she explained. There?s a reason why those analog cameras were forgotten ? they were awful. But I looked forward to at least catching a glimpse of the fairy-talish place where she claimed to be for the past few months.
Of course, the pictures could have been taken anywhere. But I know that they weren?t.
Because later that day I went to Rebecca?s house (supposedly her twin? house) to retrieve them, giving her husband/brother-in-law some excuse about the investigation as I rang his doorbell.
It took me ages to find the envelope, concealed inside a nearly unperceivable crevice of her box bed ? something that would be impossible for Rebecca to notice if it wasn?t her own bed, I must say.
When I finally found it and was ready to open and see its content, I heard something coming from the window; a humanoid shape, but way too fast? then I blacked out as soon as I felt something sharp touching the base of my head.
I woke up hours later in my own house, and of course the envelope was nowhere to be found.
I never got to see the pictures, but not seeing them made me believe Rebecca even more.
***
After that incident, my boss called and requested me to take a day off. He was a stern and sexist man, but in that moment he sounded weird, overly friendly.
On the same day, a man in nondescript clothes and big sunglasses came to my house. He and other three guys that looked awfully like him searched the whole house, but didn?t seem to find anything. I suspect they wanted the copies of my tapes, but being the paranoid type, I had buried them in a location I won?t disclose.
When I went to work again, a tall older man that made my usually confident boss really nervous and fidgety requested to talk to me. He explained that Rebecca?s case wasn?t under the county?s jurisdiction anymore, and that I should relax a bit and don?t let my work get to me.
I was then ordered to hand him all the files about Rebecca, and my boss was ordered to send me on a good vacation because I had been under too much stress.
Honestly, as I sipped on mimosas in Costa Rica later that week, I thought someone was coming to kill me, but it didn?t happen.
It took me years to realize that killing some younger female forensic psychiatrist would be so much more suspicious than disregarding what she said if she ever said something.
I didn?t. I kind of doubted my own sanity for a while, but decided to move on, telling myself that the only joy in life is that there are things we?ll never comprehend. Things that will remain mysterious because our fancy monkey brains can?t grasp it.
From time to time, I snooped around to see if I could find anything about Rebecca; but I didn?t find anything about her crime, her trial, or even her life. All her record had been erased, and it was like she never existed.
I tried to contact her family or friends, but her parents had passed, as they were already pretty old; her husband/brother-in-law moved to another country, and both her former co-workers had very common names and were impossible to track, especially because I had to track them from memory, since their names were never mentioned in the tapes.
I looked into her twin?s medical files too. Let?s call the twin Patricia.
Around the time that Rebecca stabbed her 28 times, Patricia was admitted on the hospital for being attacked by an unknown person, in a robbery gone wrong. However, she survived.
I then looked more into Patricia?s files. There was nothing else about her, except for her birth certificate ? with a small note added by hand: stillborn twin.
For years and years, I tried to be very low-profile as I tried to trace the grave or cremation report of the stillborn. If Patricia was an imposter, and if Patricia could manipulate memories, it would be easy to convince her parents that both the twins had lived. Or was Rebecca the dead baby and actually a delusional angst ghost?
I don?t think I?ll ever know, but I?m allowed to conjecture and choose to believe in what makes sense to me.
Except nothing does.
Just today I was walking to my car on the grocery store parking lot, when a woman bumped on me. Based on her hands, I assumed she was in her mid-50s like me, but as I looked up (she was taller than me), I recognized her face.
It was Rebecca, except it was probably Patricia, because she had a long scar on the side of her neck.
She grinned to me in a way that made my stomach sink, and touched my shoulder to apologize, in a way that felt too rehearsed, too intentional.
Her skin was unnaturally soft but also gooey.


Source.