Free Always Watching by Chevy Stevens

Her mouth twisted. “But he never spent any time with me. Neither of my parents did. When I was growing up, everyone thought my life was perfect because we’re rich, but I was just lonely.”
    “That must have been difficult. When you’re depressed, being alone can make it even worse, so we can come up with some ways to combat that, okay?” I was willing to bet that loneliness was one of the main reasons she’d sought out the center in the first place—she’d wanted to belong somewhere.
    “But it always comes back.”
    “What comes back?”
    “My depression—I’m so tired of feeling this way.” She faced me and the depth of pain, the hopelessness in her eyes made me catch my breath. “Maybe I can’t be cured. I’ve tried everything—antidepressants, yoga, therapy. I thought the center would help, but it just got worse. I don’t think I can be helped.”
    “You can get better. You started feeling depressed again because you went off your medication, and you suffered a painful loss. That was a lot to take.”
    “Aaron said that we create our own pain, and that you can’t allow yourself to become dependent on medication. You can teach your body not to need it.”
    I made myself take a breath before I spoke.
    “Many people need medication for depression. There’s nothing embarrassing or shameful about needing help. It’s a difficult disease, but you can learn to manage it, just like you would any other health issue.”
    “I’m not strong like that. Aaron said not eating or sleeping before we chanted would bring us closer to our true selves, and we’d learn to control our bodies, but I just felt confused.”
    “How long did you have to go without food or sleep?”
    “Sometimes days, I don’t even know. It was just a blur. They’d talk to us for hours, about the center, their beliefs, how they could change our lives.”
    It sounded like they were using alertness-stopping and programmed confusion, which was alarming—cults use it as a way of breaking down new members. While in university, I’d written several research papers about cultic groups and studied some of the more destructive ones. They didn’t all have paranoid gun-toting leaders—some of the most dangerous ones paraded under the guise of human-potential groups. There was a great deal I didn’t yet know about the center, but it did seem as though Aaron had progressed to new extremes.
    “Was it like that when you went to the first retreat?”
    She shook her head. “They were just about how to slow down and come back to center. They were very relaxing. I’d walk around the grounds, and everyone would be smiling, or meditating on one of the hills. Everything was so quiet there, and the stuff that usually mattered, like cars or cell phones, movies, clothes, status stuff—no one cared about any of that. You ate all this healthy food, got fresh air, exercised, and just focused on stopping the noise in your head.”
    “So when did you participate in the other chanting ceremonies?”
    “Not until about the fifth retreat, after I’d asked to come live at the center. You had to prove you were committed.” Her arms tensed slightly, and she rubbed them, like she was cold.
    “And that’s when you fasted and went without sleep?” I was starting to get the feeling there were two sides to the center, one that was presented to the public, as a relaxing retreat, and the other a more intense version for full-time members.
    She nodded, then started picking at her nails again, like she was nervous about having shared so much. “Some other stuff too, but yeah.”
    “Heather, anyone would start feeling depressed in that situation. Your blood sugar would plummet, and fatigue would make it even worse.” It would help Heather if she could see how she’d been manipulated, so that she’d be better able to stop the pattern of self-blame. I thought about how she said Daniel had to take two jobs after they left and wondered what had happened to her