Characters
Teresa
Interviewer
Chloey
(The Classic intro runs. Warning runs, and then the description.)
(TERESA enters.)
TERESA: My name is Teresa, I am 25, and I am addicted to trees.
(Then the camera cuts to Terresa hanging around trees.)
TERESA: (voiceover) I like to collect the leaves to keep them as memories since I can’t bring a tree into the house.
(Shows a clip of her eating bark.)
TERESA: (looks into the camera) The bark gives me nutrition.
(camera cuts back to TERESA gathering bark, leaves, and other things from trees)
TERESA: I take the little leaves and sticks and I put them in my bag and I bring them everywhere with me. I even keep a little bark in my bag for a little snack whenever I feel like it.
INTERVIEWER: (as they film Teresa's normal life) This addiction started out when Teresa was no older than 5, when she was taken to the woods for the first time on a camping trip. (show slideshow with a bunch of trees). There, she accidentally ate some bark mistaking it for beef jerky, and hasn’t been able to stop since.
TERESA: My family and I went up to the woods, and I was ten and as soon as I saw that many trees I remember thinking ‘wow look at all those majestic plants’ and how they just towered over everything. That weekend, I snuck out of the tent after all the grownups had gone to bed just to sit with the trees.
(TERESA wonders around a park, picking up things like sticks and leaves.)
INTERVIEWER: Her obsession then spiraled into an addiction when her family had to stop their bi-monthly trips to the closest woods when she was twenty. Living in the middle of the city with not nearly enough quality trees, she SUFFERED.
TERESA: I went to parks, of course. All the time even. I went so often that my friends stopped hanging out with me because they were tired of me dragging them to the park every day after school.
(TERESA is at the park with CHLOEY)
CHLOEY: Teresa don’t you want to do anything else? This is the 200th time we’ve been to the park this year!
TERESA: The park has everything I need.
CHLOEY: (rolls her eyes) I’m leaving. (CHLOEY leaves)
TERESA: I didn’t think I had a problem until all my friends rolled their eyes when I brought up trees or the park or really talked at all. Even my family had started avoiding conversation with me, or looked at me a little weird whenever I ate bark in front of them. At that point, I had decided to move out.
INTERVIEWER: Teresa had moved out a couple months after her twenty-first birthday, to a more secluded spot in the city. When no one visited, she realized how alone she was and she wanted to change that.
TERESA: I love trees but I’m sick of not talking to anyone.
INTERVIEWER: Teresa has now reached out to her mother for help and has been able to receive it. Her parents, just ecstatic to have their daughter seeing sense, have been more than supportive in her road to recovery. At first there was some difficulty but now she is making some great progress to her goal.
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