Away From You Read online

  Away From You

  CHARLOTTE HARCING-SOIGNE

  Copyright © 2015 Charlotte Harcing-Soigne

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  DEDICATION

  To those who pioneered the methods and research that contributed and still contributes to the field of modern psychology and psychiatry.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  i

  1

  The Maze of the Mind

  1

  2

  Bipolar Backstory

  Pg #

  3

  The Sessions

  Pg #

  4

  Recovering Memories

  Pg #

  5

  The Lost Years

  Pg #

  6

  Brain Training

  Pg #

  7

  Lost Souls Along the Way

  Pg #

  8

  A Criminal Mind

  Pg #

  9

  Halfway Back

  Pg #

  10

  The Tarasoff Strategy

  Pg #

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The brilliant minds that help us understand the workings of the brain.

  1 THE MAZE OF THE MIND

  The fall in California was no different from the first day of Spring. Dr. Penelope Halloway picked up the scent of mint in the air as she walked to her office at Stanford University. The campus was crowded with students who bumped into her practically every other second as she walked the familiar route towards the medical school building. Penelope quickened her pace hoping to avoid a face-to-face run-in with an unsuspecting co-ed.

  She was back to teaching the first year medical students again and welcomed the opportunity to rush across campus between lectures. It gave Penelope a chance to be outside during the day instead of isolating herself in a lab till late into the night. The sabbatical from teaching afforded Penelope a year-long excursion from the hassle of grading papers. Her research on neuroimaging required all her focus. Penelope was consumed by it that human contact became a rarity. Despite the added workload this year she felt relief just watching the medical students walk into the medical school. Human contact once again, she thought.

  Her stomach twisted as Penelope entered the medical school and walked upstairs to Dean Winters office. He had called her that morning asking to meet about the status of her research funding. Penelope had not expected a response on any of her grant applications until January. If the Dean was calling perhaps the odds of funding were more dire than she believed. Penelope held her breath for almost a minute after she checked in with the department receptionist

  “Thank-you for moving around your schedule Penelope. We had a development on the state of your funding It’s time sensitive so I called you immediately.”

  “I see. It’s only September and most grant notices aren’t announced until January.”

  “That is for the public grants from non-profit organizations or government agencies. Private funding for medical research operates on its own timeline.”

  “I don’t recall submitting applications to private funders.”

  “You didn’t. This came to you, or to us. Your Project Icarus has gotten its wings. I just hope the money doesn’t cause its downfall.”

  “Do you mean that a private foundation has approached Stanford about contributing to my research?”

  “Yes. Not a private foundation but a private donor, an individual.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “Five million for the first six months of your research. Depending on the outcomes and results at that point, if promising, another five million for the next six months.”

  “What is the catch?”

  “The subject of your test research will be human. No lab rats or primates. Someone willing to sign a release of all liability for submitting to experimental treatments. The legal risk is low but the stakes are high on the personal end.”

  “How?”

  “The individual who is personally funding your research as a donation to Stanford University came to us not completely out of altruistic sentiment. Their motivation was also personal. They have been seeking a cure for a rare form of bipolar disorder and its them who wants to be treated.”

  “Wait, the person funding the research wants to be the core test subject? That’s the stuff of science fiction. Even with disclaimers aren’t we prevented from those kind of arrangements by medical ethics laws on the books?”

  “Fortunately your benefactor thought of all that. The money is being sent from a separate trust which is set-up as a type of shell corporation. Their name is not listed on the trust account. It is the Trust which is making the stipulation for a specific individual to be the test subject.”

  “What about having other test subjects in the course of the research? One person is going to discredit the validity of any data recorded.”

  “No, you can have your 50 test subjects. Why else do you think the total award is $10 million. Only that your benefactor has asked to be the core subject who has sessions three times a week with a particular treatment plan to remain confidential. Your regular test subjects will be obligated to the standard testing as usual, once a week, no particular treatment objective.”

  “So the benefactor wants to achieve a specific outcome? Like he is buying a result to be the main guinea pig?”

  “Exactly but not officially.”

  “If the issue is bipolar disorder why not refer him to the psychiatric specialists in organic brain disease on faculty here?”

  “He has exhausted all standard and advanced medical treatment. His bipolar disorder is rare. It mimics serotonin syndrome and then rapid cycles in an erratic pattern. There is no rhyme or reason to the mood swings.

  “I still don’t understand why he doesn’t stay with the psychiatric research. What I am doing is brain restructuring and rewiring, editing DNA sequences to stimulate neural pathway repairs and regeneration or remove the patterns keeping trauma intact.”

  “He has lost memories as well as abilities as a result of the bipolar disorder. It was triggered several years ago when his career was at its peak. The disease took away everything but he had made smart investments which saved him from poverty. However, his daily existence has been reduced to golfing and becoming bored with trips to Bali or Hawaii.”

  “Hardly sounds depressing.”

  “If he is in a manic stage he has to be temporarily be conserved or else he will give away money at the most ridiculous things. Or go on a seek and destroy mission to eradicate any connection with a person he loves. It’s a miracle his daughter still talks to him. His last manic phase he cancelled her tuition payments and left her near homeless in London.”

  “I take it that putting his daughter in jeopardy abroad was the last straw for him and his illness?”

  “Yes, especially because she was 16 years old at the time and it was abandonment of a minor, so to speak.”

  “He almost lost custody?”

  “Yes and would have faced double the amount of alimony and child support to an ex-wife always looking to get back at him for a hostile divorce.”

  “Still don’t understand why he believes that psychiatry isn’t going to help him. There are counterparts to my research among research psychiatrists.”

  “He was particularly stubborn in the early years of his diagnosis. The very first drug he was prescribed was Paxil and the dosage kept being increased until he thought it wasn’t working. So he played with his dosage and would stop and start the medication. It caused physical changes in his brain that spiked a mania that led to his downfall.”

  “Psych
iatry can treat the organic damage to brain tissue, such as in cases of traumatic brain injury.”

  “It was his psychiatrist that read about your research in his medical school alumni magazine.”

  “Who is his psychiatrist and how long has he treated him?”

  “Dr. Jason Vidal has been his psychiatrist for five years, ever since he moved to California from New York.”

  “Our Dr. Vidal? The professor emeritus?”

  “Yes. Dr. Vidal consulted with the research physicians at all the major East Coast medical schools. They tried every combination of medications, complementary health protocols with acupuncture, even biofeedback and subtle electrical probes like electrolysis on parts of his brain. Any relief he obtained has been short-lived. His brain resets within a month to an even worse imbalance with his neurotransmitters.”

  “So that is why Dr. Vidal thought of us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Will Dr. Vidal be collaborating on any treatment protocol we apply to this case?”

  “Yes. He insisted on it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to go ahead with this kind of treatment without Dr. Vidal.”

  “There is one more thing. Dr. Vidal wants you to meet your benefactor this afternoon. Your last lecture ends at 3:00pm. He would like to introduce you to him in my office at 3:30pm.”

  “I can do that. Will I learn his name when I meet him?”

  “You can know it now. It’s David Ambrose. The former CIO at Strathcona-Waltham, the investment firm in New York, one of the many that went under in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.”

  “Wasn’t he frequently on CNBC talking about stock projections before his firm closed?”

  “Yes, many times, he was a frequently sought after commentator on the markets until the firm closed.”

  “And his illness worsened?”

  “Rapidly. Since you have some background knowledge on David, keep it all in mind when you meet him this afternoon. He is not the same man he was when he was on Wall Street. His bipolar illness took away parts of his memories and personality along with the math genius he was known for.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Penelope walked out of the Dean’s office feeling strangely ambivalent about the news of her funding. She was relieved that money was coming in and that her work would continue. Penelope needed to collect more subjects and data to show the benefits of DNA editing on mental health outcomes. Her subjects so far had been random selections without a history of psychiatric illnesses. David would be an outlier.

  Penelope felt hurried for the rest of the day. Her thoughts took up most of her energy. She couldn’t stop worrying about the ethics of what David Ambrose was asking of her. Even with Dr. Vidal collaborating with her, there was a sense of dread about every legality that could be breeched. She had known only David Ambrose’s name from watching the morning news. It had been years since Penelope last saw him appear in the media. From what she remembered, he was a rather brash communicator, which she thought was a New York thing. He seemed pushy but then again, what Wall Street alpha male wasn’t?

  Penelope smelled the old oak used to craft the large executive desk he sat behind. Her benefactor. Dean Winters had arranged for a discrete meeting between her and David Ambrose who was keeping his true diagnosis a secret from most who knew him. David only agreed to meet Penelope because he had questions. Rather, she knew he wanted a guarantee that this time it would work. The man had already spent a fortune on his quest for a magic elixir to reset his brain.

  Her toes felt a pinch every time her foot touched the next step on the tall spiral staircase in the penthouse condo of the Four Seasons Residences on Market Street. Penelope followed Dr. Vidal’s pace as he led her to the private study. David was oblivious to their entrance into his home office as he listened to Depeche Mode songs while staring at the wall.

  “David, David, I’m here with Dr. Halloway,” spoke Dr. Vidal loudly to override the sound of the lyrics blasting in the room.

  “He can hear us Penelope but the depression puts him in a blunted state at times,” Dr. Vidal whispered.

  Dr. Vidal was about to step forward towards the desk to see if he had fallen asleep when David swung around to face them. Penelope noticed the glazed, trance-like expression on David’s face, as if in a half-zombie state. She wondered if it were the Trazedone that Dr. Vidal had prescribed to him to combat insomnia.

  Vidal walked towards David whose blank stare remained even as his eyes followed Vidal’s movements.

  “David, this is Dr. Penelope Halloway,” said Vidal as he motioned with his left arm to tell her to come forward. “You can ask her all your questions. She cleared her entire afternoon for you.”

  2 BIPOLAR BACKSTORY

  David Ambrose, age 43, born in Manhattan, raised in Rockaway, Queens. The second of four children and oldest of two sons. Educated in private Catholic schools by upper middle class parents. Father was a lawyer specializing in election law and active in the Republican party. Mother is a retired epidemiologist and an alumni of Sarah Lawrence. Both sides of his family are 4th generation New Yorkers.

  At the age of five, David was marked as gifted by teachers, especially in math. He won many math competitions during high school and scored a perfect 800 on the math section of the SAT at age 15. After graduating high school at age 17 he attend Columbia University on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Served five years in the U.S. Navy during which time he was deployed to Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia before being honorably discharged. After leaving the Navy he earned an MBA from Cornell University and joined J.P. Morgan on Wall Street. He quickly made a name for himself by creating distinctive investment methods that consistently yielded double digit interest returns even after the dot.com crash in late 2000.

  In between college and Wall Street, David met and married his ex-wife with whom he shares a now 18-year-old daughter. They met during Fleet Week in New York. He was 22, she was 20, and a friend of a friend of his older sister. Six months later she was pregnant, he was overseas, and eventually married when their daughter was two. The ex-wife is a survivor of childhood abuse which was a thorn in their relationship. She was the one who filed for divorce. Ironically, it was her choice to be with another man that drove the break-up. Until the divorce was finalized she had no idea about his German mistress.

  Penelope had reviewed the preliminary client data from Dr. Vidal and other historical medical or psychiatric records in his patient file. David certainly had exhausted the mental health resources in New York before moving to California where UCSF took over initially for his psychiatric care. He had opted to address his symptoms exclusively through medication and lifestyle changes, such as meditation and consuming plenty of pharmaceutical grade nutritional supplements. Penelope read the numerous entries from different physicians indicating that they all urged David to seek psychotherapy with specific focus on his PTSD. He declined.

  She sat across from him with Dr. Vidal beside her. It wasn’t a therapy session per se. Vidal had told David that this was simply information gathering to determine the customized treatment he would receive from Penelope’s research. Penelope needed to do her own assessment of her new patient and test subject. His patient file was extensive but she already formed the hypothesis that David’s reluctance to psychotherapy held answers as to the origins of his inexplicable memory lapses.

  “When did things start to disintegrate?”

  “About seven years ago when my marriage disintegrated. Our union had been rocky since the start. I remember standing at the altar on our wedding day thinking it was a really bad idea. My ex-wife initiated the divorce after she walked into a Verizon store in Manhattan to upgrade her cell phone. Her and the store manager hit it off and they started having an affair right away. Six months later she moved out and filed for divorce.”

  “Before your daughter became a legal adult did you maintain any kind of amicable relationship with your ex-wife?”

  “No. The last time we spoke was the
day before she left. Moved out of our house in Connecticut and into a condo in New Jersey with her now husband. My daughter gave me updates and we coordinated joint custody arrangements through her.”

  “Was the ending of your marriage a shock?”

  “We had talked about it on and off. The last five years we were together it was like roommates sharing a house. Each of us had our own room when we lived in Connecticut. Lived separate lives.”

  “Such as having a relationship with a woman whom you worked with at Deutsche Bank.”

  “My Ex didn’t know about that. The distance between us started a year after she began getting professional help for being molested as a kid by her father.”