Save the Last Bullet for God (22 page)

While I dressed him with clean underwear and
newly washed, casual clothes, he was as excited as a child starting
school. Holding hands, we went to the parking lot, pulled by his
leaping steps.

As we navigated the heavy traffic, Oktay sat
in the car excitedly, his joy indefinable. When he reached out to
switch the radio channel, I had a feeling of acceptance and calmed
down a bit. I could do nothing now, so I looked at him for a while.
A melancholy piece of happiness flashed through me. I loved him.
For a moment, I wanted to tell him to forget it all and come home
with me. I felt the urge to simply hold him and talk. But the urge
to do my share for both of us, and the truth of life, calmed all my
thoughts and feelings.

“
After the show last night,” Oktay
said, “the host committed suicide. Did you know that?”

I looked over at him and realized I should
play along.

“Yes…yes,” I said. “He committed suicide,
right after the show.”

“He was a loser, anyway,” Oktay continued.
“It seemed like it was his sole purpose to host a one-night program
and disappear, and he did it quietly without disturbing anyone.
Hasan Tahsin was his own worst enemy,” he added with a laugh.

“We have to thank him,” I said. “By his
suicide, he drew a lot of media attention to the show…”

I didn’t know what else to say. I was deep
in my thoughts, and Oktay was in an inexpressible state of
happiness as the car approached the hospital.

…

When we arrived at the hospital, I handed
Oktay to the psychiatrist. He went into the ward with the same
childlike happiness.

“I love you. See you soon,” he said.

I had been waiting for a more dramatic
farewell than “I love you. See you soon,” but he had already
disappeared behind the hospital’s door, and the door had no handle.
The doctor asked me to tell him my thoughts and what I knew. As I
was telling him what came to my mind, I found that I wasn’t myself
anymore. A piece of me was melting away in the hospital ward. The
doctor and I conferred on the treatment and he told me the rules of
the ‘game.’ I could visit once a week, but all communication with
the patient was forbidden—oh, and of course, there were a few
documents to sign.

I went home to the sacred sanctuary of our
memories. I was now alone and felt Oktay’s absence deeply. My only
other feeling was despair.

When visiting hours came on Wednesday, I
raced to the hospital. Sitting face-to-face with him at the table
in that cold, white room, I listened to him with sorrow and
longing. He was telling me his situation with shining eyes; his
self-confidence was back, and his posture was upright. When I left
the interview room, I didn’t know what to do with the pain of
losing him again and again. I thought that he was looking better,
and I was relieved that he was in safe hands. I hoped everything
would get better and that my love would come back to me.

The time passed slowly and senselessly until
I went running to the next visit. First, I talked to the doctor,
who repeated at every opportunity that, if needed, he was at my
disposal. Then I spoke to Oktay, who told me that the show had
improved and they’d eliminated one of the ill characters in the
weekend challenge. Oktay accepted this positively, saying that
everything was okay and under control.

Bursting with happiness, I headed for home.
I realized that the hospital’s doctors were competent experts, and
I regretted pushing the process back and causing delays that might
have hurt Oktay. I couldn’t wait for the next visit.

At the next visit, I was shocked. Although
they had tried to cover it up with dressings, Oktay was in terrible
condition. He had been seriously beaten. Unable to comprehend what
he was telling to me, I ran to the doctor. The doctor wanted me to
sit so that he could explain and calm me down.

Apparently, one of the characters that Oktay
had created turned out to be the devil and had caused Oktay to hurt
himself seriously the night before.

“How did it happen?” I asked. “Was it
something expected?”

“
Though with difficulty, it is now
under our control,” he explained. “We’ve taken all precautions
against future possible incidents.”

I returned home in sorrow with doubts in my
head. Still, I had hope. However, upon my next visit, I found out
that Oktay had now gone into a deep depressive state. He wasn’t
talking to anyone and had completely stopped communicating. The
doctor told me this was an expected, though undesirable, situation:
A heavy depression would appear in such transition periods, and it
would be cured.

In spite of all my insistence and requests
to see Oktay, the doctor only showed me the live image of his room.
Oktay was sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at a piece of
paper with a square on the wall. As the doctor said, he had been
like that for a while; he repeated that this was a transition stage
and that it would disappear.

With a mix of sorrow and a bit of hope, I
went home.

After that, my access to Oktay was
restricted. When I called to get some information each day, the
doctor was either away on medical visits or he simply told me,
“Everything is okay.” When I insisted on an unscheduled visit, he
asked me for understanding. He warned me against intervening in the
treatment process.

Too much time had passed. Everything was
crashing in on me, and I was trying to melt the time away by taking
in the scenery outside of my house. It was December 21 and I did my
best to ignore all the speeches about the end of the world.

Around 4:00 in the morning, I awoke to the
phone ringing.

“You don’t need to come now,” a voice said
on the other end of the line. This was the last thing I remembered
hearing before I dropped the phone.

Oktay was dead. (22.12.2012, 03:14.)

* * *

From the Psychiatrist’s Personal
Notebook:

Today, Elif reached me again through Dr.
Turgay—the patient’s brother.

The patient’s condition has clearly
deteriorated and reached a level that cannot be controlled anymore.
She agreed to hospitalization.

Detail 1:
Potential acute schizophrenia. Symptoms appear in the
patient’s medical history for some time. The condition was
overlooked most likely due to patient’s medical profession (Members
of patient’s family are doctors as well). I have informed the
family of the necessary legal procedures and have disallowed
visitation by the patient’s brother in order to avoid contradictory
consultation. Preventing interference is of paramount
importance.

Detail 2
: A
new symptom (multiple personality pathology) has been added to the
diagnosis. Disease has progressed significantly with increases in
episodic style, excessive alcohol consumption (within pathological
limits), indulgence in virtual environments (beyond the
pathological limits), smoking addiction (one pack/day), escape from
the growing social community, five or six years of increase in
asocial symptoms, significant delays in labor for two years, and an
inability to work for the last six months.

The patient engages in full self-disclosure
when depressed, shows an overindulgence in metaphysical books and
visual materials, and recently more religiously-oriented materials
(obsessive-compulsive?). The latest obsession: the presence of a
code in the holy book. He is beginning to write a book on this
subject (indicator of needed social expansion?). Extensive
isolation during the writing process. Contact with only one person
(Elif). Having a single mediator could have aggravated the
situation.

Detail 3:
Patient demonstrated physical aggression and a tendency for
battery. (Ms. Elif did not state this, but the condition of her
nose and mouth is evidence.)

Detail 4:
Due
to Ms. Elif’s subjectivity and her long-lasting interaction with
the patient (maybe an obsessive love?), when necessary, tell Ms.
Elif about this challenging situation and its course. Offer therapy
sessions for the caregivers of the patient if necessary. Examine
her rejection of the incidents/disease, and how it affects
treatment.

Detail 5:
In
his latest delusion, the patient thought he was discussing his
opinions with panel of characters he created (Elif described five
or more personalities) on an invented TV show program on which he
was promoting his book. When the patient becomes one of the
characters (the cleric?) he gets aggressive.

[Note: Ms. Elif said there was another
character on the TV show, a host, but the very next day Oktay
“killed him.” If this delusion did occur, pay attention to Oktay’s
ability to destroy the characters he creates. Possible treatment
method?]

Detail 6:
Ms.
Elif proposed an ingenious idea of a
Big
Brother
competition so that the patient would come to
the hospital without any objection, and the characteristic multiple
personalities could be observed together; hence, the delusion of
the patient of a competition program needs to be
supported.

Advantages

* The patient comes to the hospital
voluntarily.

* No adaptation problems during the course
of hospitalization and treatment.

* As a result of multiple personality
disorder—if diagnosed, of course—there is an opportunity for a
periodic eradication of pathological personalities (elimination
from the competition) and easy acceptance by the patient.

Disadvantages:

* Similar therapeutic approaches haven’t
been tested before; program and analogy might be difficult to
maintain.

* The disease could possibly progress if the
existing delusion is supported by thematic aspects.

* If all the additional personalities are
destroyed, the patient could potentially create more defective
personalities.

Detail 7:
If
the patient divides his ill personalities, is he running away from
his problems and/or rejecting a projection onto said
personalities?

* Feeling his personality is not
sufficient—is he dividing into personalities that he thought would
solve the problems or face them?
The
best/most positive personality will have to be identified. NOTE:
this might not be Oktay’s primary personality.

‘The Labyrinth’, first therapy session (TV
show / individual interview)

*
The patient
perceives that he is literally in a show and doesn’t give any signs
of logically questioning this situation (full
acceptance).

* Date and time (+), cooperation (+ +).

* The relationship with the personalities he
created is bland; so far no obvious signs of aggression or
rebellion against authority.

[I asked the patient to tell me about the
code he discovered in the holy book at length, in order to overcome
cooperation problem and collect data easily. His findings are
intriguing. The code he talks about even has logical aspects, and
the patient talks about it with such belief that I am even
impressed. I found myself taking some notes and thinking about
asking a computer programmer friend of mine whether such things are
possible (he is interested in such subjects).]

Detail 1
: The
esoteric-astrologer personality seems to be the most facile/weak at
the moment. I suppose we could accomplish the first stage of the
treatment by eliminating her in a weekday session.

Detail 2
: Ms.
Elif’s first scheduled visit for Wednesday is dangerous for the
process and adaptation of the patient; pay special attention and
observe. Collect data about Ms. Elif’s role in the progression of
the disease—if necessary, propose for her a therapy
session.

‘The Labyrinth’: Treatment Results

The session was more challenging than
expected. There was even the danger of losing the patient’s
main/primary personality, Oktay. The astrologer personality,
however, was successfully eliminated. The other characters,
especially Oktay, welcomed this situation very positively.
(positive progress)

* Next week, I propose in treatment
facilitating the elimination of the spiritualist/medium character
(he is a dangerous character who is rapidly moving toward becoming
dominant).

[Ref. Oktay's
Research:
I had the opportunity to interview my
computer-programmer friend. I explained the method of encryption
and how it should be used in the three-dimensional planar
structure. I explained to him that Oktay is my patient and that I’m
going to use the findings to support a report for medical
publication.

The programmer excitedly talked to me about
Arabic text format converters, three-dimensional simulations,
sequential interface connections, and a lot of mathematical
processing modules. The only thing I clearly recall was the Cauchy
integral formula. The programmer explained the importance of these
things and how difficult his job would be. I encouraged him to
continue.

The programmer has asked for me to acquire
some of the missing data and methodology from the patient so that
he can better complete the work.]

Observation Notes

This morning the patient engaged in
self-harm and seriously wounded himself.

* Primary surgery consultation

Detail 1:
The
patient seems to be getting pleasure from self-harm. He
demonstrated an inexplicable level of joy.