✅ Potty Genius [NaNoWriMo 2022]

Eighteen

¿Did the hypnosis work?

Well, all the questions turned into a blur and then Theo was offering me a coffee, so I guess it had some effect. They seemed to be keen to make small talk, so I guessed that it was best to wait a little while after the trance before talking about it. We just chatted a little longer, until I was feeling mostly normal. I didn't sit up for a while, and I was still feeling very relaxed and content. That was something I hadn't had when I did the thing with that app's terms and conditions, but maybe the difference was because I'd been sitting comfortably this time.

"So, how are you feeling?" Theo asked after a little while, when the cup in front of me was mostly gone. "A pleasant session, I hope?"

"Yeah, I feel really... good, I guess. I kind of wish I could have done something like that when I was studying for my exams, just to stop the worries. Does that mean I can uninstall that Potty Genius thing and go back to normal?"

"Possibly..." she said slowly, and I knew there was a 'but' coming up.

"You seemed quite resistant," Britney added. "She asked you how you felt about all the things the app was making you do, and you said it made you feel humiliated, and you hated it. Completely calm of course, not getting agitated about it. Just telling us the facts. And then Dr Abbott asked you to imagine sitting on the toilet and being able to pee because you'd chosen to, without the app's influence, and you said that was something you wanted. Something you were looking forward to."

"Yeah?" I said. "I could have told you that without hypnosis."

"But when she asked you to imagine that as something you could do now, changing the suggestions, you said no. You said that's cheating, you want to win the game. And refused to just let it happen."

"I can't really argue with you while you're in trance," Theo explained. "Too much confrontation would break you out of that mindset. So I had to try working around that impulse instead, creating an imagined scenario where you would be able to recover your control. But somewhere deep down, I think your subconscious mind has latched onto the idea of this being a challenge that you want to overcome. Whether that's based on the way the original script addressed it, or some quality of the way you approached it, I'm not sure. I did my best to give some suggestions that will let you overcome the suggestions, especially at an inconvenient time or place. But I'm not sure how well you will have accepted that, because it seems like this urge to win is quite a big thing for you. Have you ever felt pressured to do your best at all costs, or did your parents put a lot of emphasis on finishing what you started?"

"Yeah..." I mumbled, thinking about all the different hobbies I'd started in my childhood, and Dad's insistence that I should stick with each one at least until I was good at it. I would always have to pass some arbitrary milestone, set myself a goal that I needed to pass before I could give up. He said that you don't enjoy things as much when you're struggling with them, so you can't give a fair assessment of how you feel about something until you've become good enough. But did that really apply to overcoming an app that wanted me to wet myself? I did my best to quickly explain those feelings, and then looked up from my hands to see how the hypnotist was responding to that.

"That might make it a little harder to get over, if that competitive nature has become a major part of who you are. We can't just overrule it then; we'll have to work with it, or around it. Now, I've tried to build a little structure in your mind that should help you to deal with this. If this challenge interferes with your other goals, you might be able to ignore the suggestions, but I think that isn't likely to be something you can rely on. It might take three or four sessions to make it more dependable, I'm afraid. Now, I'd like to see you coping a little better, so it should be worth trying to overcome the suggestions. To pee without the suggestion, or to resist it if it comes up at an inappropriate time. And I think you'd be more likely to succeed in a situation where it matters to you for some reason. So if it doesn't give the desired changes, I hope that you'll be able to return for another session, and work on it a little more."