The Fairytale Mental Penitentiary

     “All right. Let’s gather around for group therapy. I expect all of you to be on your best behavior since we have a patient joining us.” The therapist announced. Nervous excitement rippled through her, being new herself at The Fairytale Mental Penitentiary. After reviewing their history and charts, many of her patients in the Department of Preliminary Investigations of Female Minors were extremely fascinating to her. The newest addition felt exceptionally curious. Pulling her attention back to the newcomer, the therapist gives a well-mannered nod before asking, “You go by Red? Correct?”

     “Um, yeah. They call me Red. Um, when will I get my normal clothes back? I miss… I miss my hoodie.” Red asked, looking down at her blue hospital scrubs. Her red curls still entangled with dirt.

     “Your red hoodie is still being analyzed by forensics.” The therapist answered, self-conscious of that creepy, calm way doctors speak when trying too hard to be emotionally removed.

     “But why? I told you already that I didn’t kill her! A wolf did it!”

     “There was no evidence for a wolf attack, Red.” The therapist answered, her voice cracking slightly.

     “The wolf was wearing her clothes, obviously.” Little Red said, shaking her head in disbelief. Yet as Red settled back into her seat, her face drops into a frown. Shame? Regret? No, it looks like grief. Even criminals show grief, it doesn’t make them innocent. She’s not ready to talk. It isn’t my job to make her. Yet. The therapist thinks to herself, looking at her next patient.

     “Okay, Ariel, how about you introduce yourself?”

     “I’m Ariel. I’m not a stalker. Philip and I are in love! I saved him a from drowning, and I just knew we’d be together forever. He just had to hear me sing.” A girl with fading teal and lavender hair and amethyst eyes said, fluttering her eyelashes. Ariel’s file was extensive, with a history of body dysmorphia, kleptomania, and hoarding. This kind of peculiar outburst was rather frequent. It’s rather pointless to argue.

     “Ariel, Someone has already been over this with you. You stayed in his house, followed him around, and didn’t speak to him for the first three days. You can’t fall in love with someone without talking to them, much less within three days.”

     “We spoke through sign language!” Ariel protested, moving her hands furiously and meaninglessly.

     “That’s… not… Rapunzel?”

     “They shaved off my hair. They buzzed off my beautiful hair! Long hair! They had to die! My hair was… magical! Who takes someone’s magical hair away?! I was growing since infancy. Right, to hide me in a tower. It’s all gone! What will I do? They shaved off my hair.” chanted a girl with her legs glued to her chest as she grips the half-inch stubble of her scalp. The therapist glances at the file. There isn’t much known about Rapunzel, her story full of contradictions. Regardless, Rapunzel was found in an abandoned hotel room, with a dead man. When she was found, she was rocking in the corner much like now, rambling that her hair was the key to immortality. Suffering from some severe abandonment and possible sexual abuse, Rapunzel shows symptoms of disorganized schizophrenia and delusions of grandeur. The patient cries now, but in another hour or so she will begin a laugh, which gradually escalates to rage, then back to crying. Despite the word salad, group therapy leaves Rapunzel feeling better.

     “Good progress Rapunzel,” the therapist muttered humorously, “Gretel? Anything you want to add?”

     “Have you heard from my brother yet? Hansel was just protecting me; they have to know that. You tell them it was self-defense! She was a cannibal. If we didn’t kill her, she would have cooked us alive! You saw that house; it looked like that castle in Candy Land!”

     “Gretel, you know we can’t disclose the status of other patients.”

     “But he’s not another patient! He’s my brother!” Gretel said, raising her voice.

     The therapist sighs, thumbing through Gretel’s file. It looked like Hansel was in a different part of the hospital, inside the ICU, for being a burn victim. Someone shoved him inside an oven, just not where Gretel claimed.

     “Gretel, can you explain to the group your current diagnosis?” Dissociative amnesia and family-persecutory delusions. Possibly dissociative personality disorder, despite no clear altars. The file showed a long history of neglect and child abuse, as Hansel and Gretel’s parents repeatedly attempted to abandon them like an unwanted dog in the middle of the woods. Gretel’s eyes glistened with tears, and the therapist had the urge to stand up and hug her. The therapist pushed that urge down.

     “No, I… can’t.” Gretel chokes out, pain flaring higher. Gretel knew her diagnosis, she just wasn’t accepting it yet.

     “I know my diagnosis!” The smallest of the girls pipes up. The therapist whips her head toward the soft voice. In the corner was a girl no more than ten, her face wrapped diagonally in gauze and bandages, with four lines of dried blood beneath it. Only one of her large cobalt-blue eyes was visible; her lips were purple and red from bruising. Half of the child’s curly golden-blonde hair was gone, and if you dared to look lower, you would find she was missing a few fingers and more bandages. The therapist forced herself to not look too closely at the battered child.

     “Go on,” the therapist said encouragingly, despite dryness pulling at her throat.

     “I have a de-a-lusion of grandsir?” The girl says, shrinking as she feels everyone’s eyes on her. Hug her. Hug her. No, I cannot get attached. Too much love is a weakness in this profession. The therapist settled on the next best thing.

     “That’s a very good answer. Do you know why that would be?”

     “I tried to sleep with the three bears inside their house at the Zoo. The baby bear was talking to me. He told me I could be his friend. I thought he told me he wanted to be my friend too. He told me Baby bear told me, it was safe. It wasn’t, though. The baby bear didn’t like me, and the mama bear and papa bear got really mad.”

     “Where were your parents?” Red asked, kindness pooling in her eyes.

     “I don’t know. I never know where they are.”

     Red stood up and gave the little girl with the golden-locks a hug. One the therapist desperately wanted to join in on. Instead, she did her job.

     “You are not allowed to touch the other patients. You are new, so I will only give you a warning. If you do it again, you will get two hours in the isolation room.”

     “She needed it.” Is all Little Red said.

     Yes, and I’m sure most of you wouldn’t be here if you were just given what you need.

     The therapist asked the girls about their friends, asked about their family, asked about what lives they wanted and what would happen to them if they ended up if they were imprisoned or freed. The therapist asked herself, why did their answers create a longing to love and protect them? Asked herself why it didn’t matter as much to her what these girls did, but it mattered what other people and things did to the girls? Why, after knowing their files, these girls still represented innocence and potential?