Nat attempted to refute this, saying that he would sleep the whole day if he could, but this simply confirms my feeling that his only desire is for oblivion. In some ways, Nat has reached his lowest ebb in all the time I have known him. He has completely abandoned writing long letters and drawing, the things that used to give him pleasure. Even his previous unflappable obsession with eating healthily has diminished to the point that he looks almost anorexic. His room was littered with empty ice cream cartons of every conceivable flavour, and the sell-by dates had long since expired. His vegan principles must have collapsed before his appetite: nowadays ice “cream” contains no dairy products, but pigs’ blood is widely used in its manufacture. I fear his body must have reacted violently to the sudden influx of animal-based products, perhaps accounting for the ensuing aversion to food.
I cannot imagine that he would desire, even subconsciously, to be back in his mother’s womb, given his intimate knowledge and memory of that traumatic era as supplied to him by primal therapy.
I cannot help thinking I have failed him. I have always wondered if he held the seldom encountered but well-documented view that his entire life was a mistake and that he should never have been born at all. There are individuals cursed with this harrowing affliction, and premature death is almost inevitable in such cases. Nat has always protested most strongly that he is not among their number, but I now have reason to doubt him. Nat’s self-hatred is matched only by the callous indifference of his family. They have continually ignored my admonitions with regard to their second son. They have even threatened me with legal action should I persist in seeing Nat.
It is as if Nat has some contagious, character-blighting disease which has spread throughout his family. I have certainly misjudged the Snoxells. My mind is full of the wildest speculations. Perhaps they are a paranoid family after all, carrying out their own cathartic experiment with Nat as the human sacrifice.
It’s been hinted at by my friends and colleagues that I am rationalising my failure. Friends! It’s not as if I’ve ever had a case suicide on me. This is something very different. My “friends” suggest that the family’s reaction is not unreasonable, seeing as how the subject has unremittingly drenched them all in his own death wish for so long. I am under no ethical obligation and should really just wash my hands of the whole affair, but I am captivated, or rather, infatuated by … something. Desperate as Nat’s situation is, it is not sufficiently acute to have him sectioned. Ideally, the whole family should be incarcerated.
SAT FEB 9
I have taken friends’ advice and put Nat out of my mind. It is not easy. It requires much meditation.