Heresiarch
Posts: 6
(6/10/04 8:03 pm)
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Career to catastrophe; the story of the Psychotherapist
With a high-paying job, a social standing to match and a spacious suite with a sky-high view of Paragon City, Siobhan Mulaley had the American dream. She earned every dollar, however, working in a high-stress field. She was a psychotherapist, specializing in the treatment of patients whose symptoms ranged far beyond normal needs. Multiple personalities, forgotten past traumas, flashbacks, and all the standard emotional difficulties associated with life in the afflicted city... if it was problematic, tragic and destructive to the patient's life, if other psychiatric experts had tried to treat the issue and fallen short, Siobhan was there to help. And help she did; both normal people and career heroes with absolute confidentiality. She heard many things that would make a priest's heart ache.
... and it came naturally. And it was EASY.
To Siobhan, this was nothing strange. A child of an oppressive, socially correct family, she grew up searching people's bodies as much as their words for their true intent. By adulthood, minds were an open book to her. She never questioned this talent... but her colleagues did. Unlike Siobhan, who breezed through graduate school and skyrocketed to acclaim by the age of 26, her peers labored over every case with a lower efficacy. Her closest competitors in the field were in their late 50s. "Child" prodigy? Okay, those can happen. But rumors spread about the advanced healing seen in Siobhan's patients, not just of psychological wounds but physical as well. One of Siobhan's patients was even cured of insulin-dependent diabetes! When the psychological community opened an inquest to determine what methods Siobhan was using, they discovered nothing unusual at all. She wasn't taking medical measures, and wasn't prescribing drugs of any kind. It was unexplainable except as a miracle. Miracles draw attention, and in a dangerous city with a clientele smattered with famous heroes, it was only a matter of time before Siobhan's bizarre talent drew the wrong kind of attention.
He came into her office, a new patient with an arm in a sling, a pasty fortysomething man with male-pattern baldness. His case history showed nothing too extreme. It portrayed him, in summary, as a normal, if rich man... and then Siobhan felt a slicing pain in her temples as if someone was trying to tear into her mind. The slender, physically weak doctor clutched at her face in self-defense, and in a sudden, bright flash of light her attacker lay drooling on the floor, mentally broken. Despite the EMTs' best care, the attacker died in transit to the hospital- his origin and reason for assaulting Dr. Mulaley went with him to the grave.
The court acquitted Siobhan of murder by reason of self-defense, but in the process of court proceedings it was revealed that her 'natural' skills derive from mutation, not talent alone. Despite her usefulness to the field, the psychological community didn't accept her warmly back. Viewed as either a half-cocked weapon or a specimen, she was unable to counsel usefully to anyone. With a sad heart, she gracefully closed her office. What does a person do when their life is shattered? They begin a new one; Siobhan registered with G.I.F.T. as a mutant empath, stepped out of her old social circles and onto the street. Though quite new to the "hero" business, she serves heroes and humans as she always has... with great love for great hearts.
"Hana hou!" |
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