chapter 5

The next morning, another notification on her phone. Tracy had been busy. Her belly ached as she tried to sit upright. Fumbling through the menus, Evelyn watched the videos from last night. Tracy had truly pigged out. This was an immense amount of food. Multiple bags from McDonalds, each sandwich laid out like an assembly line, and ravenously devoured in no more than 4 bites like it was an eating competition. Working her way backwards, Evelyn watched the first video of the evening. She watched as Tracy cautiously left the bedroom. Perhaps she thought Evelyn had laid some kind of trap for her. On her way into the kitchen she paused, clearly licking at the roof of her mouth and letting out a low but audible “ow...” with a bit of confusion. She turned towards the counter top where her donuts had been. Her fucking donuts. Evelyn knew she would notice, but as far as she was concerned the food had been brazenly left out on the counter top, so it was fair game. Realizing what had happened, Tracy scrolled through the ring app on the phone. Clean. Then Evelyn had to grin in morbid admiration as Tracy had an epiphany, popped open the laptop and accessed the ring cloud storage.

“Clever girl” Evelyn grimaced, doing her best impersonation of the game warden in Jurassic Park.

Tracy watched briefly as Evelyn stuffed her face like a pig, smirking the entire time. When she was done, she plopped herself down from the counter top stool and walked over to the camera.

“You ate my fucking donuts you fat ass!” Tracy said with a chuckle. “I thought I woke up a bit more full than usual. For that, I'm going to have to punish you!” she said in a playful tone. “Don't worry, like I said, I'd never do anything to harm either of us. It's self defeating! Instead, I figured I'd show you how a fat girl really eats. It's on you fucking skinny bitch!” Tracy shouted before rushing out into the night.

Tracy patted her stomach. She was going to need to buy some bigger clothes. It was also a day off work for her, and she had her testing that afternoon. She walked past the bathroom and paused to hop on the scale. 144 pounds. Her heart fluttered a little bit. Was this somehow exciting? She still felt sick to her stomach. She was puffing up, and she was still at the surface mortified of what her mom and sister might say to her. Stuffing herself into some ill-fitting clothes, she went out and bought herself a few stretchy outfits that would last her a while until she knew how to manage Tracy. Sweatpants, some shirts in larger sizes, some big sports bras which could more comfortably contain he slightly swollen breasts. She checked herself out in the mirror while trying these clothes on. Again, the same mix of nausea and excitement. She didn't know what to make of it, and soon lost track as she arrived at Dr. Janikowski's office for testing.

She immediately disclosed to Dr. Janikowski that Tracy had found out about her, and had even left a video addressing her directly. The doctor immediately asked to see the video. After it was done she sat Evelyn down on the couch in her office.

“Evelyn, I've brought in a close friend and colleague to be with us today, this is Dr. Richard McLean, he is a psychiatrist who specializes in dissociative identity disorders as I do, we have worked closely in the past on diagnoses and treatment, and I asked him to make time in his schedule to be here today because I feel your case is fairly unique.” Began Dr. Janikowski

“Hello Evelyn, Dr. Janikowski has brought me up to speed on what's going on, and if its alright, I'd like to hop straight into the testing today. Essentially, we need to rule out other possible psychoses and attempt to get some idea of what has caused this situation, and then provide you with a preliminary plan to manage your...situation...” he added.

Evelyn thanked the doctor for coming to help and the group proceeded with their testing. The question portion took quite some time. Of course there was information they already knew. Things like “have you ever awoken in an unfamiliar or confusing location and not known how you got there?” or “are there times where you feel as if you are two different people?” were glossed over. It was more-so reigning in the extent of the overlap between personalities.

“Have you ever looked in the mirror and felt that you don't recognize the reflection?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have been staring off into space too frequently or totally unresponsive for a period of time?”
“Has someone close to you ever mentioned that you reacted to them as if they were strangers to you and you didn't recognize them?”

Then there were deeper questions meant to try and root out whether or not this was basically an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Evelyn. This included the use of a polygraph. It was a long and uncomfortable ordeal.

“I don't really have a doubt in my mind..” Dr. McLean remarked in a separate room while reviewing some of the results with Dr. Janikowski.

“I think she's sincere. I think this is the real deal.” he added.

“I agree. Would you like to tell her, and talk about treatment and mitigation?” Janikowski responded.

Evelyn straightened up as the two psychiatrists re-entered the main office. She was ready to hear the news, which she assumed would be overwhelmingly bad.

“Well Evelyn, you've got a fairly fascinating case here if you don't mind my saying so.” Dr. McLean began. “I've been practicing psychiatry for 32 years, and this is one of the most pronounced divisions between personalities I've ever encountered. It's really anomalous. I'd say you have a one in several billion sort of psychological condition...”

Evelyn began sobbing. Dr. Janikowski took a seat next to her and passed her the tissues.

“We believe in the sincerity of this condition, and the Tracy personality. Please don't cry though – many cases we've seen with more clear divisions between personalities have more than two, and almost always include a very drastic threat of self-harm and suicidal tendencies. From what we can tell so far, that doesn't really seem to be the case with Tracy. This personality may be mischievous, and the form of self-harm appears to be in unhealthy eating habits and a lack of care about the consequences, but we feel that this is not only far less threatening, but something which is clearly rooted in childhood trauma surrounding your weight, eating habits, body ideals, and you mother. That gives us a very good starting point for treatment.” Dr. McLean continued.

“B-but doctor...I read yesterday that there is no such thing as curing this. Am I going to be stuck with Tracy for the rest of my life??” Evelyn sobbed.

“We don't know for sure” Dr. Janikowski answered. “It's true there is no “cure” with this particular condition, since with mismanagement there is always the threat of it returning, and it isn't something we can easily control simply with medication like people with physical imbalances. It's going to take a lot of psychotherapy sessions, and we're going to need to explore the trauma that has caused Tracy to exist, but it's possible that we could lessen or reign in her behavior, or diminish the frequency and regularity with which she takes over.” she added.

“One thing is in your favor...” Dr. McLean added. “There seems to be a clear day-night and sleep related divide. You've never experienced a waking shift to the other personality where Tracy takes over while you're out and about, which is extremely rare. It seems the switch overs only really happen once you've relinquished control by falling asleep. I'm going to recommend that we hold regular therapy sessions at least once per week, and that you keep Dr. Janikowski's contact information on hand at all times, so that you can call her immediately if you experience any episodes that fall outside of the unusual regularity you seem to have with the Tracy personality.” he said, patting Evelyn on the shoulder.

“W-what about the weight gain though! How do I stop her from pigging out every night?” Evelyn asked, fear welling up in her voice.

Dr. McLean took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled. “Well....that's really one thing we wanted to talk to you about. At this time, until we've had a chance to explore what it is that causes the Tracy personality, we would recommend not doing anything at all to provoke her.” he said, trailing off somewhat sheepishly at the end.

“You mean I have to let that alter-ego or whatever stuff herself silly and make me gain weight just to appease it...her?” Evelyn shrieked in horror.

“Only temporarily, Evelyn. Until we figure out a way to manage her.” Dr. Janikowski answered. “Until that happens, as Dr. McLean suggested, many alt personalities tend to be self-harming and destructive in nature. We wouldn't want to push Tracy in that direction while you're not in control and wind up with a situation that we couldn't prevent or control...” she continued.

Evelyn felt numb. This was devastating. She was going to have to live with this other version of herself for the time being, and tolerate what she was doing to them just in case she really slipped off the deep end and switched from donuts to razor blades. She kept waiting for someone to pinch her so she could come out of it, but this was her reality. There was nothing she could do. She was just happy that they were content to allow her to return to her home rather than a padded room because one thing was for sure – she was fucking crazy.

Returning home, Evelyn heard the chime of the ring camera detecting her walking in the door. She turned, looked up, and blurted out a bit of a monologue.

“Tracy. I got your messages. I don't know if I'm crazy or you. All I wanted to say was that I went to the psychiatrist today and they told me that there was nothing I could do about you. That I have to sit back while you eat and eat and eat. Well, that's terrifying. I don't want to be fat Tracy. Why are you doing this? Can't you just let me go back to being happy? I can't stop you, I'm not going to stop you, but I'm begging you. Please reconsider this. There's still time for us to turn it around before it gets out of hand.”

She turned, defeated and slowly lumbered down the hall. With a heavy thud, she collapsed into her bed, and passed out.

The next morning, she awoke on the couch again, once again surrounded by boxes and trash, and a message from Tracy.

“Heyyyyy skinny-bitch!” it began

“Hahaha- no, no I'm just kidding, you're alright Evelyn, but I'm going to just have to deny your little request. Look, I don't know how you ever made me skinny to begin with, but I'm a big girl at heart. I love food. I love fat. I love being fat and heavy. As far as I can tell, you're the one that stole MY body from ME, not the other way around with my eating right now, so you'd just better get fucking USED to it, because you're going to be seeing a LOT more of me, and yourself if you catch my drift! Hah! No seriously, we're going to get fat as fuck. The only thing I'm sad about with all of this though is the one statement you made. I'm not taking happiness away from you. I'm giving it to you. You might think you're happy being a skinny stick girl but I'll show you what happiness really is!”

Evelyn finished the video and lay her head in her hands. There was no way out of this. Tracy was right. She was going to win. There was nothing she could do. If she tried hiding her money, throwing away the food, locking herself away there's no telling what Tracy might end up doing as revenge, and as it stood it was safer to keep the relationship...cordial. She walked down the hall and paused at the bathroom door. She hopped up onto the scale again. 146. She was sporting another food baby.

“Well. I guess if you can't beat em...join em...” she said to herself in the mirror, cradling her belly.