Page 106 of Borrowed Pain
"No." I said the word without slurring. "She cried for thirty-three minutes of our first session. Didn't stop, couldn't speak, sobbed until she was empty. I sat with her. Didn't try to fix anything. I witnessed her grief."
The memory solidified, breaking through the induced fog. Gladys's face, lined with decades of laughter and worry, dissolved into raw loss. She tugged tissues from the box while she twisted a wedding ring she couldn't bring herself to remove.
"She came back the next week," I continued. "Said nobody else had been willing to let her cry that long. Everyone tried to make her feel better, but I'd let her feel terrible. That's when I understood—I'm not supposed to eliminate pain. I'm supposed to witness it. Maybe even borrow it for a few moments."
"Dr. McCabe, you're demonstrating classic denial about therapeutic—"
"No." The interruption surprised us both. "I'm remembering what my therapy is."
Something shifted deep inside me. My thoughts were still cloudy, but my core identity was solid again—a man who knew how to sit with suffering. And if Rowan ever saw me broken, I wanted him to see this part, too—the part that still knew who I was.
"I am not… my techniques," I said aloud, words dragging but steady. "Not my outcomes. I'm someone who—" IV hiss in my ear "—chooses to witness the pain without trying to fix it right away."
Harrow's pen stopped moving. "Your resistance indicates—"
"My resistance indicates that you're trying to convince me I'm something I'm not." I stared into her eyes. "You want me to believe therapy is about eliminating symptoms efficiently, but that's not what I do."
The room came into sharper focus. "Five things I can see: A woman who profits from destroying trust. Recording equipment designed to document psychological torture. Medical restraints used for criminal purposes. A therapeutic space corrupted into an interrogation room. The emergency call button you removed from my reach."
"Dr. McCabe—"
"Four things I can hear: Your voice using a therapeutic tone to mask sadistic intent. Ventilation systems designed to muffle screams. The absence of hospital sounds that would indicate legitimate medical oversight. My own heartbeat, which is steady despite your drugs."
Harrow stood abruptly. "You're exhibiting grandiose delusions—"
"Three things I can feel: Pharmaceutical manipulation affecting my motor control but not my cognitive clarity. Restraints designed to create helplessness. The solid weight of my professional identity."
"This resistance is counterproductive—"
"Two things I can smell: Industrial disinfectant used to sanitize crime scenes. Your fear, because this isn't working the way you planned."
Her hand moved toward her tablet.
"One thing I can taste: Truth. Which is that you're not conducting breakthrough research—you're torturing people using corrupted therapeutic methodology."
The grounding exercise worked exactly as designed. It anchored me in my present reality. My training hadn't failed. She'd tried to use it against me, but when applied correctly, it revealed her manipulation rather than enabling it.
"You're using classic gaslighting techniques," I continued, voice growing stronger. "Pathologizing normal resistance to abuse. Using therapeutic authority to undermine reality testing. Exploiting professional vulnerabilities to create dependency."
Harrow's clinical mask slipped. "Dr. McCabe, your paranoid ideation—"
"Is an accurate assessment of the situation." I leaned forward as much as the restraints allowed. "You're not a researcher, Dr. Harrow. You're a predator."
"You're demonstrating clear signs of treatment resistance—"
"I'm demonstrating clear signs of recognizing abuse when I see it. And Dr. Harrow? Everything you've done to me is also what you did to Iris Delacroix."
"Dr. McCabe—"
"You isolated her from her support systems by convincing her that her therapist—that I—was inadequate. You undermined her confidence in her own progress. You created an artificial crisis to justify increasingly invasive intervention."
Harrow backed toward the door, clinical composure fragmenting. "You're exhibiting acute paranoid reactions to necessary therapeutic—"
"I'm exhibiting professional recognition of criminal behavior disguised as medical treatment." I spoke with the calm authority I'd learned from thousands of hours of therapy.
Harrow's retreat toward the door triggered something in my professional training—the same instinct that activated when clients attempted to flee sessions that struck too close to uncomfortable truths. Her body language screamed deflection and avoidance, classic patterns I'd learned to recognize and address therapeutically.
"Dr. Harrow." I modulated my voice to a calm, non-threatening tone. "I'd like to explore what just happened between us."
