— Alexithymia—a neuropsychological phenomenon expressing important difficulties in identifying and describing the experienced emotions by oneself or others
⊹ Kim doesn't know what he feels. But he knows one thing... he loves Chay —
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Kimhan was born with it. His psychologist found out later when he was five.
"Alexithymia," Kimhan's psychologist said to his mother, "your son has a problem with feeling emotions, Mrs Theerapanyakul. It's hard for him to describe them or even feel them at all. If he is prone to feel certain emotions they will be mostly negative, such as anger or disgust."
"What about love?" Mrs Theerapanyakul nervously clutched onto her pearl necklace, while in the other hand, she held the small hand of her son who was rocking on his feet, looking around the doctor's office not paying any attention to what they were talking about, he was five after all, he wouldn't really understand what they were talking about anyway... or he simply just wouldn't care.
The doctor sighed, "people with Alexithymia can feel love but it has to be an extremely strong form of love."
"But, he had never said he loves me... and I'm his mother!" Mrs Theerapanyakul brushed her shaking fingers over Kim's chocolate hair, they were getting darker and darker every year.
"Mrs Theerapanyakul, I think that it's time for you to consider that your son may never love you or at least not feel like he does. I know that it's hard to even think about something like that but to put it bluntly just because you are his mother doesn't mean that he has to love you the most, especially with his condition. I know that it isn't really my place to be telling you what to do, but if I were you I would hope that one day my son would find someone who he would be able to actually love even if he isn't able to love me."
Years went by. Kimhan never said 'I love you' to his mother or to anyone else for that matter. He was rarely ever nice to people. The doctor was right, if Kimhan had ever felt any emotions it was mostly negative. Anger. He felt that a lot. It was his everyday gasoline that was setting everything around him on fire. He screamed a lot... at everyone, it didn't matter who it was; mother, father, brothers, cousins, friends, classmates... now employees. He used a loud and harsh voice significantly more than a calm and low one. Most of the time he had no reason to scream at people but he didn't care. And he never said sorry afterwards. It didn't matter how many times people told him it was wrong, he didn't feel that way so he didn't see a reason to stop or to apologize.
Some people called him a psychopath, others a sociopath, not knowing his real condition. Kimhan let them be or he screamed at them... most of the time he screamed at them.
And he did it again one Friday night when his younger cousin dragged him to a bar to celebrate the end of the semester...
"Seriously, Macau, why the fuck do you want to celebrate a stupid end of a stupid semester and on top of it all with me? I have a company to handle. I'm busy!"
