My mother is progressing slowly, but with some setbacks here and there. I’ll have to say that this long, arduous process has been hellacious on my family and me. For me in particular, like any stress trigger, it spirals me into that dark “missing Erik” place full of tears. This makes it a struggle to force my smiles and be strong for the rest of the family, but I try my best. Today is my first day with the Red Robin group therapy session for those who have lost children to suicide. I’ve never had group therapy but it’s my hope that I can help the members as much as they’ll help me. Now for today’s topic.

Me: What about agoraphobia, that social anxiety disease as well as anxiety attacks in general?

Erik: Agoraphobia is hand created by the person who has it. Any kind of phobia is hand created by the person who has it. It wasn’t donned upon the by some wizard or fairy!

Jamie and I laugh.

Jamie: He shows me this little fairy tapping a wand on the person saying, “Now you have agoraphobia. Arachnophobia!” He’s showing me all of these things!

Erik: It’s when the personality and the brain can’t line up reasons for why certain triggers or reactions are occurring. So, they start stacking them in ways where it created (unintelligible) that are so unrealistic and it’s based on falsehoods, untruths—

Jamie (giggling): Aw! He said it’s like when kids see a horror movie for the first time and the dreams they have that night run with them.

Me: Yeah.

Jamie: They don’t know how the lighting and costume makeup and set design are done. They believe it’s a real place.

Erik: Yeah. That same kind of mind fucking, but done without the movie, you know, telling them what to do or think. Same kind of mind fuck. So, they close up. They create whatever their phobia is. And every phobia can be cured. I’ll say that with 100% accuracy. All of us believe in that. That’s just the human interfering in trying the transfer information but it’s totally wrong. 

Me: What about Asperger’s? It’s on the autistic spectrum. Some of your doctors thought you might have had that, Erik. They call kids with that disorder “little professors”—

Erik: But with social problems.

Me: Exactly.

Erik: I get it. I totally see why they thought I had it. But I think the difference, just with me, was that I wasn’t interested in all the social stuff.

Me (sadly): Yeah.

Erik: It’s not that I couldn’t handle it, cuz there were times that I could cuz I wanted it. It’s just there were times I wasn’t interested. I don’t—I didn’t have it.

Me: Sometimes I think you just wanted to be lonely.

Erik: Yes. I came out that way.

Me: Yes. I know.

Erik: But there are so many kids in the States that have it. They’re going to start making you test your children when they’re months old, and then like a little over a year old, and then again to see if they have any kind of Asperger’s or—

Jamie: Oh, what’s the other one?

Me: Autism?

Jamie: Yes, autism.

Erik: So that they can help prevent it and manage it. It’s why I encourage families to give their children omega-3, and of course the FDA doesn’t recommend it for children under five or so—

Me: Well, that’s what they include along with prenatal vitamins now, so…

Erik: It’s a must. And the reason it that it’s gotta counteract the—

Jamie: Oh, do you really want to say this, Erik?

Erik: Hell, yes!

Jamie: H’Okay!

Erik: The reason it’s a must for our children to have so much omega-3 now when they’re months old up until they’re at least seven is not just to build their brains and not just because we’re not getting enough nutrition through our food because our food is drying up, but it’s because of the immunization shots.

Me: Oh no.

Erik: They’re competing with our brain function.

Me: They give so many at one time. That always bothered me.

Erik: It’s not right. For the mother’s out there that are going through this, listen, stand up for your own rights. Do one shot at a time. You don’t do two. You do one. This way, you know if your child is allergic to anything, and trust me, your child will forgive you if the shot hurts and they have to go back and get another one. You can deal with that. You can’t deal with it if your child’s brain function suffers. So, stand up for what you believe is right. Now, I’m not going to speak about what shot to do or not to do, because that needs to be a personal thing, and there are so many laws that drown out the truth, but I will say, just one at a time.

Me: Okay. Yes. Now what about Asperger’s? What’s the spirituality behind it? Oh, go ahead. Am I interrupting something? (I can hear Jamie discussing something, obviously with Erik.)

Jamie (chuckling): No, no, no. I was like, ‘Yeah. Erik, get back to that,’ and he says, “That shit pisses me off!” He says he sees so many kids suffer from the toxicity of immunizations.

Jamie listens to Erik some more.

Jamie: Aw! He looks—(to Erik) It makes you look cuter, that’s what it is. (to me) When he defends babies.

Me: Aw, Erik! You’re so sweet!

Erik: I love babies so much.

Me: You always have.

Jamie (to Erik): Okay, you’re just that much cuter to me now.