The Brutal Alpha's Tender Daughter novel Chapter 4

"Breath with me.", Dr Clairence said and I could her her now audible breaths through the phone.

I tried to adapt my breathing to hers and as soon as I was breathing regularly again I could think straight.

Even if I was not safe, I could not leave. I was certain that they would kill me instantly if I left. They would find me. There was no chance escaping them even with the knowledge and training I had in common with them.

So the only thing I could do was stay and maybe hope my mate...

NO!

I forbid myself the thought. He would not come. How could he if my family never let another pack visit us.

I did not even know anyone except my pack members and family. So there was no one who could help me.

"Very good, now tell me which feelings were you experiencing today?"

Instantly I responded, "Shame and helplessness."

How could I not feel those two emotions constantly when each pack member and my parents let me experience these.

As soon as I would step into a room full of pack members, conversations would just die and everybody would look at me with disappointment and disgust. They did not want me - a weakling - here.

Did they not see how hard I tried?

How I was almost always the best of my fighting class?

They just saw how easy I fell into the pattern of helping them when they got hurt or how I struggled when I got the command to hurt someone for practice. Everything I did was being judged and marked as not good enough.

But how could I let someone get hurt because of me and not feel bad about it?

How could I just stand beside someone who just got hurt and not help them?

How could my parents and pack members just ignore someone in pain?

"You realize that you felt these two emotions repeatedly this month?", Dr. Clairence wanted to know.

"Yes.", I admitted and instantly knew why.

Last month there had been a big tournament and I had trained really hard for it. I had the feeling that if I would win this everything would change.

I could never be who they wanted me to be.

Dr. Clairence explained to me that it could be common that depression, anxiety and/or panic attacks accompany the life of a highly sensitive person, if the environment of said person could not understand what was going on and kept acting inconsiderate.

One time I had even tried talking with my parents about it thinking maybe I could change something, but they had just ignored me and had threatened me with 20 whip lashes. I could still hear my father's words in my head telling me that I should not look for excuses and try harder.

And harder I did try, although I knew that it was useless, because there was nothing I could do to not feel anymore.

"It's because of the competition which I won and I foolishly thought that things would change, but they didn't.", I admitted defeatedly and felt fresh tears rolling down my cheeks.

"What did you want to happen?", Dr. Clairence asked me and I knew that this was a tactic to help me realize how horrible "my cult" was.

"I thought that maybe the others would accept me and see me as one of theirs and that maybe even my parents would tell me that they are proud of me, because I worked so hard for this. But it just got worse."

I pressed my eyes together in order to get rid of the memory of all the angry shouts after the announcement of my win.

"What would've happened if someone else won?", Dr. Clairence asked.

I sniffled fully aware that this was her way of telling me that this should had been the reaction to my win.