Doctor Ada Mesmer was an avant-garde psychologist of her decade. From a young age, she’d already known what she wanted to be: “I want to help people who don’t see the good in this world,” she dictated at her middle-school presentations. Graduating with honours, she set off on her elongated journey to becoming a medical professional. Graduating with honours (again, but for good this time), she landed her first job at her local hospital. Doctor Mesmer of course had to apply what she’d learned, or else it’d all be for nothing! A few years later, she published her own research paper on medication that would aid mentally challenged individuals.
At her prime–around her mid-twenties, that is–she’d already published seventeen studies about etcetera and inter alia. A highly effective antidepressant, one she’d introduced, had spread the news like wildfire. Local mental health institutions had already used the medicine in the system: “It works like a miracle, doesn’t it!” To the people of her time, a saint had come down to Earth and provided a miracle. It, however, hadn’t stopped there: Ada appeared in interviews, worked with a group of doctors to introduce a new lens, mentored–not to mention she was highly empathetic with her patients too. Imagine a heaven-sent psychologist and there you have her. She was mentioned in, if not had her face plastered onto every newspaper for the rest of her career.
The most dearly beloved local Doctor Mesmer had been globally recognized. This of course meant that her town was too big for her. There was a world out there waiting for her–a world that needed fixing. She was a lion in a cage, and it did not take long before she decided it was time to say farewell to her home. Au revoir, she bid her goodbyes and left.
Of course, being the illustrious psychologist meant that she never had time to settle down. This was, fortunately, the last of her frustrations as she was busy with her research.
On one fateful day, while Doctor Mesmer was busy with her goings-on, she received a job offer into an asylum. She rubbed her eyes at the sight of it–it would be the most ideal workplace for her! There, she could be freer with her experiments and research. There, she could be in close proximity to her patients–enabling her to study their behaviours more effectively.
It turned out that the asylum was intrigued by one of her latest studies on hypnosis. The asylum’s interview on Doctor Mesmer went as follows:
“Your fascinating yet startling innovation of–what do you call it, Doctor?”
“It’s yet to get its own name, but we can call it as it is: mesmerism hypnosis,” Doctor Mesmer was ever so elegant in handling herself; her legs crossed, shoulders squared.
“Hypnosis! Yes, truly a breakthrough for this field of healthcare. We have patients from White Sand Street Asylum and I know that you can change the trajectories of their lives, Doctor Mesmer.” The exclusion of mesmerism tested her ego, but she was not about to let lose an opportunity of a lifetime.
White Sand Street Asylum–the name of her new beginning. “I would be honoured to do so.” “And we would be honoured to have you, Doctor.”
There were doubts–a lot of them, actually–about this place. Well, first and foremost the architecture of the asylum was beautiful. But there was an energy radiating off of it, and it was not just because of its gothic theme. It screamed something–something you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but she had to shrug her thoughts away. You shan’t judge a book by its cover, especially as a psychologist. After being assigned her unit as well as the patients she will be taking care of, Doctor Mesmer settled down from there.
All patients were–well, patients. A lot of them were, of course, crazed (it is an asylum after all.) Doctor Mesmer started a new study in her stay: “Hypnosis and its Effects on the Demented”
One of her first test subjects–a woman suffering from intense flashbacks as well as aching pains all throughout the body.
The room was hushed, lamplight low to a golden dim and the door shut tight. The atmosphere so eerily quiet it was almost like the air froze in its steps. Doctor Mesmer sat opposite the patient, the metronome she prepared clicking softly between them. Each tick was like a breath held and let go. “Hello. My name is Ada,” a first name basis is crucial for nurturing a trusting relationship between patient and doctor, “what’s your name?”
Quite the jitterbugger her patient was, refusing to speak, much like a skittish stray cat. It was a shame to Doctor Mesmer that she had to start the hypnosis without even hearing the woman's name spoken out of her own mouth. She had the patient record, but what was that if she couldn’t empathize with her?
“It’s fine if you aren’t ready to talk, but I need you to calm down,” Doctor Mesmer shifted on her seat, straightening her back and breathing out. “Close your eyes,” she said, the room was too dim for her to observe her test subject, but she trusts that her patient did indeed close her eyes. “I can sense it–your neck, it’s all stiffened up, isn’t it? Let’s relax.”
The young woman repositioned herself; in the dim lighting, Doctor Mesmer definitely couldn’t see her, but the sheets rustled ever so softly.
“Focus on my voice,” Doctor Mesmer said in monotony, “I don’t want to. You guys are monsters,” a hoarse voice, one carrying bottomless sorrow, rang in the dimness of the suffocating room.
Monsters–monsters! If psychologists could be described as anything in the world, they would be angels, or at least that’s what Doctor Mesmer thought. She poured her heart out into this career of hers, three quarters of her life dedicated to becoming what she is right now! The blood, sweat and tears of her youth–spent! Just for patients to call her a monster.
Doctor Mesmer would soon come to realize that all the patients resented the doctors. Calm down, she would recite internally. Her patience is simply being tested, no psychologist would be so winded by a patient's wrangle.
The procedure, the hypnosis–down the drain it goes… How must hypnosis work if she couldn’t get ahold of her patients?
In that first week of hers, hypnosis was to be tested onto six other patients. A failure. That’s what she calls it–although hard to accept. Whether she liked it or not, her study on hypnosis was a failure. Or was it just that the patients were too far gone? That can’t be right, “nobody is beyond saving,” that is what they say, isn’t it?
Thwarted and routed did Doctor Mesmer become. Hebdomads passed without success. But what would she be if not the best?
While her patients were sleeping, Doctor Mesmer administered, nonconsensually, a high dosage of hypnotics without recording it.
“Hypnosis and its Effects on the Demented,” a successful study–published! Once again, it was satisfying to Doctor Mesmer–Ada–to see her name on the news.
Just when the seasons shifted from torrid summer nights to a gentle breeze of autumn air, a higher-up pulled her aside, “Doctor,” he started, “let me just say this straight–I’m taking time off. Do you want to look after my patients? There’s only two. One of them is a troublemaker–but I trust you, of all people, to be able to handle him.”
Guilt wrapped around Ada’s throat, disabling her of speech for a few beats. To handle patients that weren’t her own–well everyone would find out about her pseudoscience. It was one thing to have her own patients, they were in the palm of her hands. But she can’t administer these patients the same hypnotics, what of her name would be left if she did!
But Ada was prideful, too much for her own good. “I’ve yet to encounter a patient I can’t handle,” Ada replied, “please leave them to my care.”
It only takes one lie for everything to fall apart, doesn’t it? Ada’s senior would be absent for a fortnight.
For a fortnight, she would be meeting someone that would change her life.