The sign on the door read “Andrew Oldham PsyD.MD “ and as I opened it and walked into my bare waiting room I reflected on the years of hard study and training that I had gone through to become first a psychologist and then, after further studies and training a licensed psychiatrist. As I came through the door I glanced over at the receptionist’s desk which had a sign on it reading “Please be seated, the Doctor will be with you at your appointed time.” I had not been able to afford a receptionist for a couple of years now, and while I wondered if the message on my answering machine to “please leave your name and number and the Doctor will return your call” put a lot of people off, I couldn’t help it. I just wasn’t making a lot of money and my student loan payments were killing me.
I didn’t think I was a lousy Psychiatrist, but I had gotten a bad rap early in my practice a couple of years ago when one of my patients carried a Glock into his school and let loose in his classroom, killing a very popular girl and wounding 4 others before he was himself killed. Because I had been treating him I was considered to be incompetent for not spotting the signs that he was violent, and was about to commit this horrific act. Even the state medical board had called me in front of them to defend myself and, while the hearing had not happened yet I was confident that the tapes I had kept of my sessions with him would show there was nothing violent about him in his sessions, but would instead show him as a scared young boy who was being bullied by his classmates. Still, there was a cloud hanging over me, and I had lost a number of patients and had been forced to cut back on my expenses.
One of my specialties I had trained for was treating patients with BIID. That stands for body integrity identity disorder and simply means that the person is not comfortable with their own body. Some people can be helped with a little bit of plastic surgery, but others need far more – like the amputation of a limb. This disorder recently hit the news in a big way when a young lady “supposedly” had her psychiatrist place some drops of a caustic drain cleaner in her eyes to permanently blind her. I can’t believe that a licensed psychiatrist would place his livelihood at risk by doing this, but I do know she ended up blind and slightly disfigured.
I had a great session with my first patient of the day, and as it was wrapping up I looked at the monitor that I had watching the waiting room. A very pretty young lady was my second patient of the day and I saw her walk in with a young girl in tow. The young child wore glasses, and it looked like her glasses were even stronger than the rather thick ones her mom wore. I wrapped up my session with my patient and I let her out through the second door in my office, the one that lead directly into the hall. This way none of my patients could ever see each other.
I watched the very shortsighted young lady and her even more shortsighted daughter for a few minutes before I went to the door and called her in. I have a corner in my office where young children can play, and as long as a patient is comfortable with having their child with them I am all right with them being there. They came into my office and I directed the child over to the toys and the coloring books. I couldn’t help but think “boy, this kid is blind” because the glasses minified her eyes so much they were next thing to being invisible behind the lenses. And when she took the crayons and a coloring book to the little table and started to color I saw her head go to within inches of the pages.
The mother had given me her name as Monica Jones. She was paying cash for the session, and had not wanted to give me any further information other than her date of birth, which was August 27, 1987. That meant that she was 27 years old at this time.
“What I tell you is confidential is it not Doctor?” Monica questioned.
“It is to a certain extent. If you were to tell me of a violent crime that you were about to commit against society I would be obliged to give your name to the Police, but I would not be able to tell them about anything more about you than the actual crime you were planning to commit. And, I would have to be certain that you were going to commit this crime. If, for example, you were to say that you fantasized about killing your father that would not be a crime I would report until I was certain that it was going to occur. If you were to say that you were going to kill your father as soon as you got home, that would be an act that would be a high probability that you were going to commit, so I would be duty bound to advise the authorities so that he could be protected. We walk a very fine line these days.” I told her.
“Doctor, I need some help. As you may have suspected I gave you a false name. I have to remain anonymous so that I won’t have my daughter taken away from me for what I have done, but I am pregnant again, and I want to protect my unborn child.” Monica said.
“What do you mean for what you have done? She looks healthy and well cared for and other than being extremely shortsighted there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with her. Have you been beating her?” I asked.
“No, nothing like that and I wouldn’t ever lay a hand on her. You may have noticed these thick glasses I am wearing as they are pretty obvious, but maybe not as obvious as hers are.” Monica said.
‘Yes, it is pretty obvious that you are both very shortsighted, but what has that to do with your visit?” I asked.
“She is extremely shortsighted, but in fact I am not. I am wearing strong minus glasses over high powered plus contacts, which is abbreviated to a short form known as GOC by the BIID community. I have wanted to wear glasses ever since I was a small child, but as much as I have wished to be able to wear glasses I have not been able to ever get my eyes to accept glasses. As a result I wear GOC almost full time.” Monica said.
“I have had a couple of other patients that have also done this GOC thing. It is not really a problem though. And I suspect that it is probably embedded so deeply inside of you that there would be no way I could talk you out of this feeling.” I replied.
“I don’t really want to be talked out of this feeling. But I have done a very bad thing and I can only think of one solution so that I do not do it again.” Monica told me.
“What have you done?” I asked.
“My daughter Sasha is 3 ½. I got pregnant with her soon after I left university. I do not know who her dad is, nor do I care to find out. At the age of 9 months I strapped a pair of -10D glasses to her head with a special strap made for babies, and she wore those glasses all the time. Then, when she was 2 I changed her glasses for a pair of child’s glasses with lenses that were -20D and she wore them until just a few weeks ago. I have just gotten her started on wearing the pair she has on, and they are -28.50D. I am pregnant again, but this time I know the father and we are getting married. But I must be stopped from doing the same thing to my unborn baby.” Monica said.
“You said you had a solution. What is it?” I replied sharply, hoping that she could not detect the anger in my voice.
“I need to have my eyes operated on. I need to be able to wear the strongest possible glasses that I can. The strongest plus lens that can be obtained for an ICL is around +15D, and that should give me around -20D for glasses wear. Then, if I can have my eyes lasered into a plus prescription they might be able to bring me up to another +10D and that might get me up to glasses with a prescription of around -31D or maybe even -32D.” Monica said.
“So why are you coming to me?” I asked.
“I need a psychiatric referral to an ophthalmologist I have already talked with before he will even consider my case.” Monica said.
“I will need to know your real name and all your details along with seeing you for at least 3 more sessions before I can do this.” I replied.
“And I need to know that you will not report me to the authorities before I give you my real name.” Monica replied.
“What is done is done. I cannot do anything about what you have done to Sasha, but I can and will report you if you do the same thing to your unborn baby.” I answered.
“That is fair enough Doctor. My real name is Monica Carruthers, and I have given you my real date of birth.” Monica replied.
I set up 3 more sessions with Monica, and at the end of these three sessions I wrote her a detailed referral to a well-known Ophthalmologist who had already told Monica he would do the lens implants and the laser surgery required to give her a glasses prescription well into the minus 30D range if she had a psychiatric referral. During our last session I asked Monica when the wedding was going to take place and she told me that they had called it off.
“So you are going to be an unwed mother with 2 children are you?” I asked.
“Looks like it Doctor. But don’t worry. Once I have my operation I will have my inner desires satisfied and I will never harm my unborn baby.” Monica replied.
I requested that Monica make an appointment for another session within 3 months of her having her eyes operated on, and I was looking forward to seeing her. I suspected that the baby bump would be showing by then, as by this time she should be about 8 months along.
By the time Monica was due to return for her visit I had been cleared of any involvement in the school shooting that had damaged my reputation and my practice had gradually been building itself back up to almost the point that it had been before that incident. I was almost ready to hire myself another receptionist. I spotted Monica on my monitor as she come through the door and I was surprised to see that she not only didn’t look pregnant; she didn’t even look like she had ever been pregnant. She was wearing a tight little dress that almost looked provocative and her breasts and her cleavage were almost exposed to the world. She had one heck of a set there. I think she knew where the camera was because she sat down opposite it and looked right at it to give me a great big smile. Of course she was wearing her own prescription glasses now, without the aggravation of needing the plus contacts under them, and the myodisc circles looked fairly obvious in the thick lenses. Glasses that are very powerful can still look good on a pretty lady, and these frames did look nice on her face.
I walked my patient to the door into the hall, and I came back to look at Monica again in the monitor. I couldn’t help it. I was getting sexually aroused just looking at her. But I could not forgive her for what she had done to her daughter Sasha. Finally I opened the door and called her in.
“Monica, it’s good to see you. But you don’t look pregnant nor does it appear that you have just had a baby. If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?” I asked.
“It turned out that my pregnancy test was a false positive Doctor.” Monica replied.
“You must have known that before our last session. Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to have you change your mind. I needed to have that operation.” Monica replied.
“And obviously you have had it. You look very attractive wearing your extremely strong glasses. Does this mean that you now feel like your body is right for you?” I asked.
‘I can’t believe it Doctor. I feel as if I have always worn these strong glasses and I feel like everything is perfect with me now.” Monica said.
“I noticed that you now exude an aura of self-confidence that was not there before so obviously this worked for you. I only wish we could have done this before you had ruined Sasha’s eyesight.” I replied.
“Oh doctor, Sasha is not my daughter, and I didn’t ruin her eyesight. I was hired to look after children at a daycare, and Sasha was one of the children that came to the daycare. I wanted to have my eyes operated on so badly that I borrowed Sasha one day and told her mom I wanted to babysit her so her mom could have a day to herself. I had already planned to come to see you with pictures of her, but I felt that my story would be more believable if I brought her in person the day I first came to see you. Everything except me wanting to be very nearsighted all my life was a lie. Sasha was born with high myopia. Can you forgive me?” Monica asked.
I had fallen for her story hook, line and sinker. But now I looked at Monica in a much better light.
“Yes, I can forgive you. You have become a much nicer person in my mind, even though you sold me a bill of goods. Your story was very believable and you are correct. Sasha sold the tale.” I replied.
“Doctor, I would like to treat you to dinner. I feel you need some sort of an award for my having conned you.” Monica said.
I accepted, and even though Monica was only 27 to my 35 I felt myself falling for her. She must have felt my attraction towards her, because when I asked her for another date she accepted. A couple of months later Monica gave up her job at the childcare where she worked and came to work for me as my receptionist, but that was right after we were married. I didn’t care if she wore very strong glasses, but I sure enjoyed making love with a beautiful woman and the thick glasses she now wore every minute of her waking hours were just part of the package I loved.
Specs4ever Oct 2015