Michael, 39
Michael has a deep-seated fascination with true crime. It's not just a hobby for him, it's an obsession, an obsession that he has been hiding all his life.
2 min read
The untold secret:
Michael is a 39-year-old man living in the city. He has a deep-seated fascination with true crime. It's not just a hobby for him, it's an obsession. He spends hours reading about notorious serial killers, analyzing their motives and methods. He has a vast collection of books and documentaries on the subject, and he has even visited some of the crime scenes. He understands that this is not a usual interest for most people, and he keeps this part of himself hidden, never sharing it with anyone. He is afraid of being judged or misunderstood. Therefore Michael keeps this as a personal interest but he hopes that one day he'll be able to share it openly without fear of judgement.
About Michael:
Michael had a difficult childhood, growing up with a father who was often absent and a mother who struggled with taking care of him and his sister. He often felt alone and misunderstood so he turned to books and movies as a form of escape. He found solace in horror stories and true crime, as they gave him a sense of control and understanding in his own chaotic world.
But Michael was always a curious person, he had a thirst for knowledge and desperately wanted to understand the world around him. He was drawn to true crime because it emotionally triggered him when trying to understand the mind of a criminal. In a sense he was subconsciously exploring his own emotional world through the study of those cases.
Because Michael felt that his fascination soon turned into an obsession, he turned to a therapist for help. But because he felt uncomfortable and exposed, he never shared his obsession with true crime even with his shrink. He was afraid that he would be deemed unwell or that there might be real life consequences that would be out of his control. Instead Michael tells his shrink that he has always been fascinated with the natural world, and that the intricate and complex systems of insects have always caught his attention. He explains that he spends a lot of his time researching and studying different types of insects, collecting specimens and analyzing their behavior. He tells the shrink that he's been having trouble sleeping and that's the reason he seeks help, he explains that he can't stop thinking about different insects and that it's affecting his ability to relax and fall asleep. He has been trying to find ways to distract himself and forget about insects, but it's not working.
In his everyday life, Michael works as a children's book illustrator and he has found a way to incorporate his obsession with true crime into his work. He includes subtle clues and references to real-life crimes he has researched in his illustrations, hoping that it would reach the mind of a like-minded child somewhere out there. He finds a sense of satisfaction in being able to include these hidden messages in his illustrations, knowing that only a select few would be able to understand the true meaning behind them.
He recently decided to write and illustrate a children's book series that centers around solving true crime cases, featuring fictional insects as the main characters. Each book in the series will focus on a different real-life crime case, but it will be presented in a way that only depicts insects in their natural habitat trying to mask the true story behind it.