Do you feel like Patrick Jane's actor plays realistically how it is to live with a big trauma? In some ways his character is pretty flamboyant but at times his messed up side shows up too (particularly when Red John & his friends appear)
It’s not so much about the trauma factor, for me, it’s not being able to turn off reading people & how much of that to share with others, use in your work, etc. Lie To Me, with Tim Roth, has a similar relaxing quality to it… but not quite as much.
IRL I get accused of being psychic or empathic on a regular basis. I’m not. I just read people & situations, really, really well. It’s largely ADHD. What’s obvious to me, that others don’t see. (Most people? Lie. Almost. Constantly. As a child I never knew when to believe people’s words or faces/bodies, and it took YEARS to learn what the “rules” are …IE become highly social/charismatic to some degree, instead of socially awkward as f*ck… as I learned how to “ignore” what they wanted to hide, and focused on what they wanted seen… even when what they wanted seen was what they were hiding the hardest. It’s kind of like every person is a symphony? I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. People are complicated. Simplifying that complexity? Is a skill, or an innate talent, and I soooo do not have that talent! My kid does. Naturally charismatic, naturally a “conductor”, he just blows me away. He also has ADHD, but he’s also very different from me. I spent decades learning what he found easy as breathing, even as a toddler. Meanwhile? He struggles with many things I have serious difficulty understanding.).
The trauma-factor, for me, is when I CANNOT give a f*ck, or simply choose NOT to give a f*ck, and ignore “the rules” to say/act/be completely honest. Which turns 96-99% of people away, but? Finds amaaaaazing people incredibly quickly. Ditto, when doing better, being able to turn on/off at will.
ADHD runs in my family, and has largely led to a family proverb; “You don’t have to lie, but you don’t have to run around shouting the truth, either.”
When my PTSD is running hot? I can’t do that. So I either end up running around shouting the truth, or staying silent to the level of walking away from… everything. Going bush. Back county. Isolating to the nth degree. Because discretion? Following “the rules”? Is just too damn complicated. I don’t have it in me.
It’s one of the reasons online, like here, is so damn relaxing when my PTSD is running riot; I don’t have 10,000 pieces of info all flooding my senses. It’s just words. What people are choosing to share. Okay! I can work with that. Words are easy. Simple. Direct. If someone chooses to lie? That’s on them. Not beating me upside the head.