Their Specialty Is Thinking Like Criminals...

He can profile me anytime...

There are other cast members. Just none that look like this. Therefore I do not care about them.

I've jumped on the Criminal Minds bandwagon (which stars Mandy Patinkin - not as good as the guy in the above picture, but come on - he's chasing bad guys. Not unlike Inigo Montoya and his hunt for the man who killed his father and should be prepared to die). For someone who is really interested in Forensic Psychiatry, it took me a long time to start watching this show.

I'm not great with coming into shows mid-series - mostly because I have a hard time understanding what's going on and, despite what you may think, I don't start to understand the more I watch. So I started from the beginning.

And oh. My. God. I love it. It's exactly everything that I've ever wanted to know about serial killers (disclaimer: I find psychopaths/sociopaths/serial killers fascinating. I was glued to the real-time updates of Russell Williams' trial. I wanted to talk to him and find out what makes him tick. What happened to make him do the terrible things he did? I just want to get into their minds...which sounds creepy. It's not. I promise). These profilers get into the minds of criminals to figure out their next moves, and in it you find out what drives these people, what happened in their lives to make them the way that they are, and whether or not they're psychotic or psychopathic/sociopathic. Crazy stuff. I can't stop watching. I want to be them. The profilers, I mean. Not the criminals.

But. There's just one thing. As much of an interest I have in criminals of the worst kind, I also have a deep fear of them. So when they show the killers stalking their prey by looking through windows, following them, and marking their every move, I automatically think that there is a criminal outside of my house doing the same thing. And I'm terrified.

Not enough to stop watching, of course. No, that would be the obvious solution. I like the show too much to stop watching. But I'm very aware of the dark now, and whenever someone I don't know knocks on my door, I stand right beside the door until I hear them go away. Every noise is, naturally, someone coming up behind me. And I'm pretty sure I have a serial rapist/murderer watching me type this.

I often relay my fears to CD, who ranges between telling me to calm down and that no, there is not someone watching me, to advising me not to open the door to strangers (said after I jokingly - and not so jokingly - told him there was a rapist at my door...which he actually didn't find funny...like at all). I often wonder what it's like to be friends with an over-dramatic, hyper-imaginative person.

My first guess would be that it's exhausting.

Love,

M