Vibrations in the Field
Good men take the Hippocratic oath, and evil ones break it.
Sweet Jane learned that firsthand. Young, beautiful, and brilliant, Jane Carter was on the verge of achieving her PhD in quantum physics when they first appeared, visitors from other universes that no one else could see.
Desperate to hold on to her dreams, she turned to a psychiatrist whose controversial treatment promised to rid her of the hallucinations and restore her sanity. All she had to do was trust in his oath and submit to his deep hypnosis, but Dr. Barry Lieberman was not someone to trust.
The trauma of their sessions caused a split in her personality, and when he could not undo what he’d done, he had her committed to a mental hospital—forever, he thought. But Jane got better, and she met Joe, a combat veteran recovering from PTSD and on a shaky road to priesthood, who feels compelled to help her.
Now, she is on a quest for justice, and her former doctor will use his darkest psychology and cruelty to stop her.
The Story Behind The Story
The inspiration for Vibrations in the Field was my sister Kellie and the battle I watched her wage against mental illness.
Kellie, suffered from schizophrenia. Sometime during her freshmen year in college, Kellie went from a happy, bold, young woman with big dreams and a plan to achieve them, to an almost unrecognizable, depressed, and frightened shell of herself. The dreams were still there, but the voices in her head whispered they were unattainable.
Thankfully, there was no Barry Liberman in Kellie’s life, but there was a Tom Reynolds (the psychiatrist character that helps Jane get well), and he found the medication that allowed Kellie to do all kinds of things severe schizophrenics normally couldn’t. She traveled, held jobs, stayed fit, quit smoking, earned a college degree, and she had loving personal relationships.
For a time, she became, as Jane would say, high functioning. In the end, however, the same medication that gave Kellie and Jane relief from their symptoms, caused her death. It was a tragic trade: a decade of living for half the life.
I wrote the character Jane based on my sister. This is not to say Kellie was a math genius or a quantum physicist. She wasn’t, but she was like Jane in many other ways. She was kind, beautiful, at times stormy, and driven. If Kellie wanted to do something, she did it. Even when the doctors said she would be unable to.
I was not a very good big brother to Kellie. I did not understand the illness back then, and I could not accept that she was unable to control her thoughts and behaviors. I remember telling her she just needed to “Snap out of it”. As if it were that easy. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret my lack of understanding, and I wish I could hug her one more time and tell her how proud I am of all that she accomplished.
Sweet Jane’s journey and her pain symbolize my sister’s struggles.
Rest in Peace, Kellie Marie Burke
May 31, 1965, to November 26, 2007