she refuses to give up the hypnosis

School was starting the next week. Sarah would have to go for Renee's senior year. You thought she would have been nervous but she seemed completely at each as Monday came nearer. Was she trying to avoid thinking about it? You knew that strategy would not hold.

Finally you asked her about it Friday evening.

"Sarah, are you ready for next week? Aren't you concerned about going back to high school? Having to pretend all day long?"

She rolled her eyes at you. "Why would I be worried?. You can just hypnotize me each morning before I go and bring me out of it when I get home!"

"Whoah!" you countered, that knot in your stomach returning. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Hypnotizing you to think you're a different person - the same person, every day? I don't know what that might do, especially under these circumstances..."

She scowled. "What 'circumstances'? You mean that fact that I'm my daughter's body? That I have to live her life? That's exactly why I need this!"

She took your hands in hers. "It's not forever. Just at first, you know, to get me by. I really need you to do this for me! Otherwise I don't know how I can survive pretending to be Renee all day, every day, surrounded by people who know her."

A desperation crept into her voice and eyes. She argued, begged and finally cried. That tore away your ****. You sighed. "Okay, I should set up a trigger to easily switch you back to 'Renee' then. That way we won't have to go through the whole process each time."

School started. Sarah held you to your promise, making you switch her into Renee every morning before she left and bring her out when she returned. But her time as Renee grew longer each day and frequently as night, as she had to attend volleyball practice and games.

You tried to convince her that she didn't need the hypnosis for everything. You knew that at this point she should be capable of handling most of Renee's life while remaining 'Sarah'. But talking to her about it became impossible. No matter how you approached Sarah, she refused to even discuss dropping the hypnosis. Each time you tried to bring up the subject, she would get anxious, flustered and then angry. She would often later be overly affectionate, even seductive, as if trying to 'bribe' you into dropping the issue.

You had never been one for confrontation and you didn't want to alienate Sarah, especially given everything she was going through. "I just need to give her more time to adjust," you told yourself to justify acceding to her demands to continue the hypnosis.

As the weeks went by you grew more confused and uncomfortable. Sarah was so much into being Renee that you felt you were losing her. Even when she wasn't acting under the hypnotic suggestions, Sarah had started acting and speaking more and more like Renee. It was getting so difficult for you to discern the difference that several times you used the trigger to bring Sarah back only for her to look at you in confusion and laugh.

The more she immersed in being Renee, the harder it was to pull her out. Sometimes, even when they were alone, she’d talk about “Sarah” in the third person, as if that woman was someone they both used to know.

When you pointed it out, she’d just shrug. “Slip of the tongue. Don’t make it weird.”

But you could see it — the lines between Sarah and Renee weren’t just blurred. They were dissolving

You were starting to fear that the shock of being in her daughter's body, the experience of living as Renee day-to-day, her own obsessiveness, and the regular hypnosis were having a combined long-term effect on Sarah's personality. You had no idea what to do, and had no one else to turn to.