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Will Graham from the TV show Hannibal, I identify with him and no Will is my middle name, not named my account after him, although it would be apt.

In the show the character Will Graham is quoted as having an "Empathy Disorder" where he can empathise with anyone which makes him a gifted profiler, which by Will's own admission is due to being on the autism spectrum. Yet rewatching it I notice he has a lot of CPTSD or BPD traits, difficult to tell if they were pre-existent and therefore relate to his "Empathy Disorder" or the product of his contact with Hannibal and manipulation/trauma.

When I was 17/18 I had a psychologist note I had "Extreme Empathy, and was obsessively introspective" and I am diagnosed with High Functioning Autism spectrum disorder sub-type, to be honest I lack any real sense of self, and I am quite alexithymic, so I can't really describe to you what that means, I can only experience it.

I can say reading The Body Keeps the Score is not fun, even abuse and trauma I have not experienced. I am 19yo male and I get shunted into feeling like a scared little girl or boy or a mother in a car accident or a war veteran losing his friends. I see it with such clarity, like my own flashbacks, my own memories and bodily sensations.

My friends, who I have recently found know how uncanny I can be but, it's admittedly amusing compared to my otherwise awkward demeanor and tight but distant body language. I wanted to be a clinical psychologist because people often say how helpful I am, I do a lot of volunteering and stuff, study Psychology obviously. I just don't think my personality would suit it.

I am both very capable and stoic, yet also not. I guess that is a CPTSD thing, Stressful situations I thrive in.

I much prefer to be on my feet, almost like the character above. It would bring me a sense of catharsis, but I could only do that through forensic psychology which my university is specifically good at as my country isn't the US, or I join the police directly (Yes Asperger's is not a problem at all for joining). Yet spend my time until then figuring out my own trauma and abuse, my secondary trauma too that haunts me more. So that I can help people, like I always do.

I just can't tell if it's aspergers or CPTSD or both. The boundaries, that I intellectually draw on the ground seem to disappear in my skull.

"Dear child,

I address you as a child, because I would wish to forewarn you of what has already happened and will come to pass. It will seem like the hardest thing you have to go through, yet as you get older the burden of the memories will fade.

Yet I should warn you child, you will have to endure something much, much worse. I suspect you can already feel it, the dull ache in your joints and your temple, the funny mornings when you wake up and you have to unlock your fingers, a novelty which would soon fade and invoke a sudden rush to your parents in confusion, some mornings you won't get up at all. This pain which is about to come, with such a bright child you are, unbeknownst to your parents and doctors, you sit in silent consultation to the differential diagnosis. This chronic syndrome, which has no known cause I know you correctly figured it might have come from the virus the year before, an immune response attacking your nervous system. Always the little scientist, such anxiety you must feel with such a sensitivity to the world, I feel it to.

I know child you are expecting to receive comfort, I am afraid none will come, and if it does, the comfort was never directed at you. but for them and you had to live despite your pain and sensitivity to meet that comfort. Seven long years of endurance, of isolating pain and superhuman strength, a strength I am envy now as you will too. Not just a physical strength but a mental one. Remember Rage, Rage at the dying of the light.

As you grow older child you will see the difference in your own photos, you will look at yourself now with beaming smiles, and then only a few years later, hollow eyes, false smiles then no smiles at all. A kind of sun before the storm. Know that your smile will never truly come back to you, at least not a smile for yourself, just for being. Luckily though, you will have moments of hilarity, that will make you laugh, and share that with others, but you will lose your smile. Yet as we both know, we have always found it difficult to let others down, you will as I do keep pushing forward, pushing so not to give up. Let me remind you now, that this pain you feel, and the sullen face staring back at you through the mirror does not mean you are a bad person. You would do well to heed me when I tell the teenage angst, the belief in your own anti-sociality should be dismissed and those tears you feel brimming, let them run forth towards a better future.

You will share other's pain, you will transform that sensitivity into a window to others souls, through which the light of day and foul fog of a dark winter's night will spill through. You will want to run, scream and cry but do not run away, let her talk and listen and you will begin to have the power to change the weather even after years of isolation. From this I tell you child, feelings are complicated and you won't be able to make sense of them nor change others, let yourself and those you come to care for communicate freely. I have a tendency to philosophise, instead of truly feel because you are the self who never truly developed. This is why I address you as such, because you are me and I am you, inside me you are the potential to develop.

So old friend, I would ask you sincerely to consider my offer; let us communicate freely, so that I can further explore my feelings so as to heal from my past, so much so I can be more sane in this sane present place.

Your Future self"

I notice, I seem to use a very paternal tone with this inner child, yet I feel like I have failed them. I have because I have developed this personality, that can be abrasive once I interact with people long enough, this toxic, anti-social person. Yet a better way of looking at me is if you see me as a more unstable (but on the plus side even more empathic) version of Will Graham from the TV show Hannibal, I used to think I had BPD, but I am so avoidant of relationships now, and I never really had any that I would say were real relationships, other than me being manipulated myself.

I am fairly sure I am autistic, as that is my diagnosis, but I am getting it reassessed. Aspergers + CPTSD would look like BPD, because my brain is just so hyper-reactive, experience itself has light and colour, and fear that overwhelms any attempt to regulate my self or emotions.

I have behaved in ways which were abusive because I couldn't deal with that distress, I have some fairly bad structural dissociation, so much so it might be a separate disorder in of itself, So I have hurt people like this (They are however, people who in that state I perceive to be hurting others, so I have to protect them, like my cat from my dad, or someone sexually harassing my friend.). Then I snap out of it and I abhore myself, would like to see me destroyed.

I just know this child version of me, was so much more stronger, physically (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Physical abuse and bullying) and emotionally (non-contact sexual abuse, and emotional abuse and bullying.) Rare they ever reacted with violence, they were quiet and forgiving and kind.

I feel like it's my purpose to try and reach that standard, so I have to help others, I have to give a life to this child. So my purpose in life is to help others, I say this looking at my stethoscope, I wanted to be a doctor, but I had a break down and now I study psychology. I wanted to transfer to nursing, but I have my doubts, which my parents add to. Should I do graduate entry medicine or become a criminal analyst. My purpose is to help others. It's this inner child that drives me. 

[Internal Monologue]

This a few which are directly related to CPTSD

Internal Monologue

Hate, lies and false truths,
Spew forth, from your in-congruent voice
within my inconsolable mind.

Like a fascist propagandist,
excited production of imagery proceeds
the subliminal shroud of death,
you leave me bereft, for a moment, ego dead.

You have no dialogue, despite
occupying this mind with another,
you only create self-spite,
your diplomacy is absent, while an other
yearns for engagement, I
would be willing to love,
but you only wish me to die.


Writing a CV

Reduced to a product,
well packaged and sold,
look at me being so bold,
despite the half truths scrawled.

Answering for the employer,
creating questions for the employee.
Who am I? Why can't I be,
we both don't see, who I should be.
To whom this may concern,
I regret to inform you, you're a liar.

You don't know who you are,
your sense of dread
at the closing doors
before you're dead.

The best advice;
to tailor your life,
A laser focus, such unfocus
for craving being everyone, a vice
of not knowing oneself.

Such a product,
an applicant of disregarded self, shelved,
to hide a broken product.
Application denied.

Small Spaces

from such vastness, empty fields
comes a yearning for closeness offering no yield,
where the essence of familiarity
brings on a dream-like quality.

The silent trees, withered by winter,
now my custodians, as if drawn ill by duty.
The guilty criminal, wishing for tinder,
so to undermine my own futility in my custody

as a child again, in this room, this cold dark room.
Lacking in my previous sovereignty
I become child-like, small and tiny to face doom.
Trapped. I am trapped, lost in a false eternity.

This past future I have lost,
of growth and new-life,
new growths killed by frost,
I am filled with strife.

Hey, thanks for reading, this is technically my first post. These are from my blog, which poetry focuses on my mental health troubles, I use poetry because it's a way of expressing the emotions I would otherwise find impossible to express.