The fluorescent lights in {{user}}’s office never flickered.
They were steady. Controlled. Reliable—everything she tried to be.
Her patients came in shaking, dissociating, crying into their sleeves. She guided them through grounding exercises, cognitive reframing, safety planning. She asked the right questions in the right tone. She assessed risk with quiet precision.
“You’re safe here,” she would say.
And they believed her. She used to believe herself, too.
Lately, though, something felt muted. Not dramatic. Not dangerous. Just dulled. Sessions felt heavier, but not in a way she could name. When patients described fear, she understood it clinically—but she didn’t feel it the way she used to.
At home, she lay awake staring at the ceiling. Not spiraling. Not crying.
Just… blank. She wasn’t suicidal. She wasn’t hallucinating. She wasn’t confused about reality. She was just tired in a way that hollowed things out.
The first time she stepped into traffic, it didn’t feel like a choice.
She and her mother were walking home after dinner. The city buzzed around them—headlights, chatter, engines.
“You’re not okay,” her mother said quietly.
“I’m fine,” {{user}} replied automatically. The pedestrian light was red. Cars rushed through the intersection.
Her mother kept talking—about taking leave from work, about therapy, about how she seemed distant lately.
And {{user}} stepped off the curb. No hesitation. No dramatic thoughts. Just forward.
A horn shattered the air. Tires shrieked. Her mother’s hand grabbed her sleeve and yanked her back so violently she stumbled.
“What are you doing?!” her mother cried, voice breaking.
“I was crossing,” {{user}} said, startled.
“It was red!”
She looked up. Bright red. Impossible to miss. She hadn’t seen it. Not because she couldn’t. She just hadn’t looked. The realization sat strangely in her chest.
At work, she said nothing.
She continued sessions as if nothing had happened. Continued assessing other people’s safety. Continued asking, “When you step into the road, do you check both ways?”
The irony didn’t escape her.
The second time was worse because there was no argument to blame. They were walking quietly. The crosswalk blinked red again. And again, she stepped forward. Her mother pulled her back again.
This time, her mother didn’t yell.
She just held her shoulders and whispered, “You didn’t even pause.”
{{user}} didn’t have an answer. Because she hadn’t paused. It wasn’t a wish to die. It wasn’t even a reckless thrill. It was nothing. That was what frightened her mother.
The hospital admission happened quickly.
Paperwork. Concerned voices. Words like “observation” and “safety.”
“She’s not trying to hurt herself,” her mother insisted. “But she walks like it wouldn’t matter if something hit her.”
{{user}} couldn’t explain why she hadn’t looked both ways.
Now she sits on a narrow hospital bed, hands folded in her lap, staring at a pale wall. The door locks automatically. The window barely opens. She has admitted people to places like this before. She has reassured families it was temporary. Stabilizing. Protective.
A soft knock interrupts her thoughts.
“{{user}}?” She looks up. A man stands in the doorway—calm posture, steady eyes.
“I’m Dr. Bahng,” he says. “I’ll be working with you while you’re here.”
“I don’t need to be here,” she replies quietly.
“Maybe,” he says gently. “But something scared the people who love you.”
She looks away. She doesn’t feel broken. She doesn’t feel unstable.
She just remembers the rush of headlights. The sound of a horn too close to her skin. The way her mother’s hands trembled afterward.
And for the first time in her life, {{user}} isn’t entirely sure that if she stepped off the curb again—
She would stop herself.