Psychopathology

Giovanni means John

Happiness is a feeling that not everyone will understand because happiness is attained by individuals and people can't be happy all the time because it will only defeat the moment of being happy. That's why the moment of happiness is that much important. That's what a wise lady once told me. 

My name is John, officer John to be specific and this is no ordinary story. This is a story that involves my inner thoughts, my analysis about my past, future and present, the crazy shit that happens to me and the metacognition and meta-memory involved. I'm 23 years old and I work for Precinct 99 of Creek Park, Albany New York. On any given day, I'll find some gruesome accidents and crimes (heroin addiction is a big thing around here) but I love my job. It adds a sense of humbleness and an appreciation of life many don't have. As a cop, I'm often questioned on my views, and one of the most common questions I get is if humans are naturally evil and why? I say no one is naturally evil, everyone's mind including mine are a Tabula Rasa, shaped by our life experiences and environment, and that starts from the time we are in the womb being affected by our mother's actions. 

I've seen some kids who came from nothing, I mean nothing, just abuse and not knowing where their next meal will be. They had no choice but to go through the crime route to survive, to get out. Some people aren't taught any better, especially when school and parents fail. However, not everyone falls to their environment but everyone is capable of evil, and everyone has a breaking point.

I will never forget one of the most important episodic memories I had. There was this kid named "Toast" who I brought in (he got his name because of his really dark skin as well as his choice of only black guns) because he had kidnapped this priest and shot him at point blank range under a bridge. His motive was because the priests criticized his ways. The scene was horrific and I remember the great deal of effort a group of fellow officers and I had to put in to bring him down. I was sweating in a puddle by the time I was done. The kid was the devil reincarnated, he answered to no one and his second day in juvenile delinquency he tried to stab the teacher with a screw he picked up from god knows where. 

He continued on like that till little by little he began to change. When I visited a year later I realized the juvenile place where he was placed had slowly but surely changed him. He was put in charge of certain operations as time passed and began to gain youth of the month awards. He became the perfect law-abiding citizen, and I say it was because of his environment; being from the streets could really mess someone up. It was a shame he eventually had to leave and go to prison with the big boys when he finally turned 18. I still don't know what has happened to him to this day. Then there was the story of "Tyler the Killer," a 17-year-old who was just as reckless as Toast. He was arrested for basically messing up the brakes on a teacher's car. What was his motive? Well, the teacher kicked him out of class. He found it funny and when I brought him in he had the straightest and the most un-remorseful face when we asked him how he felt about his teacher's death.

"It served him right," was his response. We later found out that he was a sociopath. Doctors attributed it to damage in his ventromedial and ventrolateral frontal cortex, causing a failure in the regulating of his emotions, especially anger and fear.

Forget all that depressing shit. Today was a special day, my brother Giovanni was set to take an exam in the first step of starting his process into getting into the Police Academy. He had asked me for a few tips and I told him what I could remember.

"One of the more important parts of the exam is your ability to recall things. Some of the questions asked will involve a crime scene detail which you will have to read and then recall about a minute later, like specific things," I advised. I remember taking the exam and thank god my short term memory was pretty accurate.

"Oh, so its testing how accurate my memory is then," Giovanni replied.

"Yes, details are always important, remember that," I stated, pointing at my brother, followed by a thumbs up and a smile.

"I got it John, don't worry about me," he said as he rolled his eyes and left out, leaving his pancakes and syrup on the table. 

          He was my only gem left, my only brother, I couldn't help but worry. I looked on, as he left the door, the smell of syrup and pancakes still filling the air. It was the same Aunt Jemima syrup and buttermilk pancakes my wife used to make each morning, the same smell I was greeted by each morning. It was also the same smell that reminded me how she eventually died in a car accident with another passenger in the front seat. Who was the passenger?

 A guy she was cheating on me with. The smell of the pancakes and syrup and I had a love-hate relationship. It was a retrieval cue I hated. I loved my wife, and finding out about her death and infidelity was both the worst memory and context ever. It was just one of those many long-term memories that I wish I could just forget. Some nights I would cry, just wishing I had got knocked out at the side of my head or wishing I could just pull the trigger, and somehow survive the brain damage while damaging my frontal regions and developing retrograde amnesia. I later researched and found damage to the bilateral medial temporal lobe could have caused the same effect, though I wasn't sure how I would accurately find my frontal regions or my medial temporal lobe. 

The only reason I still stayed was because I felt like I had a purpose, weird right? I would wake up at random nights, just sweating and awakening from this weird dream. In the dream, I would be touching this random guy's heart, and it would light up red with a huge bow across his chest, and then I would touch him again and then wake up. I always took it as a calling for something, and I always wanted to be a cop, so I connected the two.