I’m a paediatric psychologist. I help children, and their parents, deal with psychological problems relating to almost anything. That can be helping children deal with emotional distress as they grow up, coping with learning disabilities and helping children find strategies to adapt to wider society. Most of the time the issues I deal with aren’t life-threatening. They’re serious, but I really just help children and parents to help themselves more than anything.
Except for the incident I’m about to tell you.
I love my job. I help children to overcome obstacles in their lives and reach their full potential. The sense of accomplishment and joy that I see in the faces of children and parents is something I just couldn’t experience in any other job.
So when Mary, the mother of Jonathon, told me she believed her son’s imaginary friend had become real, I took the case with a morbid sense of curiosity.
“Tell me about your friend Jonathon. What’s their name? What do they look like?”
The blond five year old Jon wouldn’t look up at me, he only stared at the ground, frightened. We hadn’t even begun the session and he was already closed off. It would be difficult to establish trust with the boy if he couldn’t open up. I was contemplating asking his mother Mary to leave the room before she interjected.
“Mr. Bighead wears a tuxedo, with one of those red bow ties. Like he’s going to some fancy dress party. But it’s his head. It’s big and round. Mr. Bighead. Duh. Obviously. But it’s like one of those smiley face yellow Pacman sized heads. And he never. Stops. Smiling.”
“Has Jon drawn pictures of Mr. Bighead?”
“No. Jon doesn’t have to. I’ve seen him.”
I was a bit surprised by Mary’s answer. This session wasn’t just about Jon anymore, I was looking for possible behaviours from his parents that enabled such a dangerous illusion to manifest in Jon’s young developing mind.
“You say you’ve seen Mr. Bighead before Mary. Where have you seen Mr. Bighead?”
Mary shook her head and I could tell that she was more stressed than Jon.
“Outside the house. He was just staring from outside the house. Out on the street out front. I didn’t understand it. At first, I thought some guy got lost, maybe being paid to be a mascot or something. I don’t know. But then I told him to get lost and he didn’t say anything. Then I saw him again and I had enough and I called the police. When they arrived. Nope. Disappeared into thin air. It sounds so stupid, that it couldn’t be real. I don’t want to believe it. I thought I was going crazy doc.”
“We don’t use that word here. I’m here to help you with Jon’s imagination in a constructive way, you really mustn’t be so negative on yourself.”
This was starting to get dangerous. An imaginary friend for children can sometimes act as a constructive method to socially interact with the world, a plaything to practise social roleplay. But his mother was simply exacerbating a potentially harmless fantasy into an outright dangerous delusion based on an encounter with a stranger.
My initial hypothesis was shared psychosis, or folie a deux as the French call it. When one individual strongly believes something, this can cause those around that individual to also strongly believe in the delusion or fantasy.
I decided it was best to avoid the topic of Mr. Bighead for now. Establishing trust and gaining a detailed social history would allow me to help the poor boy and his mother.
We started talking about the family situation and I discovered that Mary had actually been widowed shortly after Jonathon was born, her husband had died in a car accident. A mixture of poor weather conditions and drink driving. I had an inkling that this tragedy perhaps played into the creation of Mr. Bighead but I decided it would be best to leave that particular theory for the next session.
From there we discussed more mundane topics such as her employment with a department store, the stress from increasing mortgage payments and grocery bills, how Mary had to make the choice between Taco Tuesday and Pizza Friday, that little topic got Jon talking for the first time, a good sign. Then we moved onto Jon and how he was finding elementary school, what his friends were like, his life aspirations.
All things considered; Jon was a normal little boy…except for this Mr. Bighead character that has his mother worried.
Our hour was up. I rescheduled another appointment for tomorrow and wished Jon and his mother a good evening.
I wish I could have said the same for me.
There were only a few more appointments that evening, nothing too dramatic thankfully. So when I went to the carpark I was still in a rather calm mood. It was only when I walked up to the car door did I pause.
Out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see the silhouette a man with a large, round head. It was ridiculous. Mr. Bighead doesn’t exist, there’s no reason for him to be stalking me in this carpark.
But do I look? Do I just drive off? Curiosity demands that I look. But what would I be curious about? A child’s imaginary friend is at a carpark? That’s not possible and to look would only be feeding into an over-active imagination. But if I don’t look then I’m leaving myself vulnerable. Or is it the other way round? Don’t predators start the chase once the prey reacts?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I snapped out of it and looked at the figure.
It was no Mr. Bighead, it was just the stop sign at the entrance to the carpark. I sighed in relief and got in the car. Reason and logic: 1. Child’s imagination: 0.
Before I went home, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some essentials, milk and bread were my priorities, but it would be no big deal if I accidentally walked through the candy aisle and picked up some chocolate…
During Easter, I always struggle to decide between chocolate eggs or a chocolate bunny. The important decisions a man must make right? As I stood there contemplating differences in textures, variety of fillings and price per pound, I saw it again. Or I thought I saw it. Mr. Bighead. He only passed the end of the aisle for a second but I was convinced that I saw his massive head walked past. Or did I? It was ridiculous, I couldn’t be seeing a children’s imaginary friend in a grocery store of all places. Is he shopping for milk after work too?
No. No, he wasn’t. So I marched down the aisle to prove myself wrong and saw the back of him.
His massive head. His tuxedo suit. His polished black shoes. Walking in a grocery store so casual. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, this giant pale head amongst us ordinary people, no one was staring at him, taking any notice, I felt like a freak, an outcast going insane because only I noticed him.
Then he turned around.
“Sir, would you like some Easter eggs?” said the voice of a teenage boy beneath the giant white rabbit mascot head with the broken ears. He held out a tray of Easter eggs right in front of me. I took two from the tray.
I meekly said thank you and told him his ears were broken.
He said the manager had to break the ears otherwise the costume would keep hitting the aisle signs overhead.
I nodded my head and walked to the checkout.
Reason and logic: 2. Child’s imagination and a very embarrassed psychologist: 0.
It was dark when I got home. I didn’t even get through the front door of my house before I had already finished the two chocolate eggs. I guess embarrassment makes me hungry. At least my grocery store story would make a bemusing personal anecdote for Mary and Jon tomorrow.
I lived by myself so there was no lights on waiting for me so I half stumbled in the dark to the kitchen where I could lay down the shopping on the bench. You would think an accredited psychologist like me would have a loving family waiting for me at home, my own rugrats with their own imaginary friends but life just keeps getting in the way you know?
I turned on the light, not that I needed the light really, I had stumbled to the fridge during the middle of the night enough times to know where everything was with my eyes closed.
I sorted the refrigerated groceries first and then walked over to the cupboard when I thought I saw it, the silhouette of a giant head through the window in my backyard. But I stopped and did a double take. If it was there, it was gone now. A cat? Possibly the moonlight? I had played this game enough today and shrugged my shoulders. Not getting carried away that time.
Not in the mood to cook, I ordered some pizza, vegetarian with ham, the connoisseur’s choice, watched some Frasier reruns and then went to bed. I reckon I fell asleep within ten minutes.
“Hey, wake up fella. Don’t ignore me, you’re the only other person in this room.”
I was slow to wake up, even slower to open my eyes. I was definitely in my room, in my bed, but there was another voice. There was somebody in my bedroom with me.
“Yeah doc. You ain’t ignoring me are ya?”
I was scared stiff. Literally. I tried to call out but my throat wouldn’t move, I could only take shallow breaths. My arms and legs were paralysed, I was trapped. I didn’t think anybody was holding me. I just couldn’t move. This is way worse than when I’m waking up in the morning. Honest to God sleep paralysis, I’ve only ever read about it in textbooks.
My gaze shifted to my right where the moonlight shone through my bedroom window. There he was. Mr. Bighead, he looked like an ordinary man EXCEPT FOR HIS GIANT HEAD. It honestly looked like somebody had overinflated his head to a comical proportion and his facial features stayed stuck to the front. It would be funny if he hadn’t invaded my home and if I wasn’t frozen still.
“You ain’t going nowhere doc and neither am I, you hear me? I don’t want you talking to Jonny, I got a good thing going. A loving home. Do you know how hard those are to come by? Hard, doc. Real hard. Why you gotta interfere in a good thing? Do you think you’re helping people? By getting rid of me? I have a right to exist you know. You ain’t got a say in that. Don’t you go getting rid of me. I’m a good guy. You just- you just leave me alone you hear? Consider this a warning doc.”
I blinked. My arm threw the blanket across the room and fell on the floor. There was no apparition there. I was the only person in my bedroom. Just me, sitting up, gasping for breath.
I couldn’t believe what I think I witnessed, I took a child’s imaginary friend and made it into a nightmare, that would be the only logical explanation, a man of science like me couldn’t pretend that a human being with a giant sized head can invade a home and then disappear, it betrays all reason- it simply can’t happen, I’m a grown man, not a child, the power of suggestion is strong but to this extreme is simply…unscientific.
I turned the light on and sat at the edge of my bed. My conduct was unprofessional, I couldn’t let my imagination run wild like this, to the point of a severe anxiety-induced nightmare. Or it’s the chocolate. Maybe I just had to lay off the chocolate. I just laughed at myself, alone, sitting on my bed. I shook my head, threw the blanket back on the and went back to bed. With the lights on.
The next day. Jon and Mary sat down on the couch without saying a thing. I looked at them, even though I was trying to be sensible, a proud professional, a source of comfort and safety, with a deep breath I announced to them, “I met Mr. Bighead.”
Tears welled in their eyes. We were all afraid of Jon’s imaginary friend.