Alexithymia. First explained in the 1960s, this mental condition is typically found in males who were either raised by bad parents or suffered abuse in early life. In studying alexithymic individuals, psychiatrists and neurologists have found that there appears to be a mental disconnect between emotional sensations and the actual output of emotions. These people, whilst not being able to express their own emotions, also cannot understand the emotions of others. Because of this, alexithymics are rarely in meaningful, healthy relationships with others; for an alexithymic, it is only after a few years of constant therapy with one person that a real relationship is able to develop.
Even with therapy involving mostly medication and support, the alexithymic is still subject to outbursts of the disease. Everything may be wonderful one day, but the next day, the alexithymic may display narcissistic rage, be over-controlling, be hyper-irritable, show distrust for people he or she normally cares for and more.
Alexithymia was what brought Jackson Rippner to the attention of Matthias Poulain. When the newspapers reported on the ten-year-old Albany boy who killed his parents and was found more concerned about the state of the kitchen than the fact that his mother was almost headless, his interest was definitely piqued. Sitting with his son in the New York headquarters of his World Society, he read the story and was fascinated. Consults with psychiatrists and internists promised that the boy would do something else that would have him catapulted from his aunt's house in Schenectady, and as soon as that happened, he would be able to intervene to take the boy. When he was finally moved, he was under the care of a non-Society psychiatrist whose therapy threatened the boy's special condition in the mind of Poulain, so he sent his own psychiatrist to handle the situation.
It was only a few months later that Jackson unknowingly became a scion of the Poulain family.
In a complete disregard for patient relations, his new psychiatrist failed to mention anything to him about the disease they'd detected in him despite the fact that Jackson was now old enough to understand the condition. In fact, in retrospect, he actually encouraged the disease with his therapy style, which went against every study done to that time on alexithymia. Currently, the recognised standard for alexithymic therapy is medication, education and the establishment of a stable relationship with a person who really cares that the person break away from the disease. Dr Philip Greene cared more on reflecting on Jackson's past and dealing in psychotherapy, both methods which are discouraged by psychiatrists studying the disorder.
By the time Jackson was seventeen, the age at which he planned his first assassination, he had an absolutely amazing disregard for the sanctity of human life, and Matthias Poulain couldn't have possibly been happier. As he was again rejoicing at his find, however, tragedy occurred: on a moderately run-of-the-mill job, his only son was killed by his assassin who then turned the gun on herself. This was a very unexpected kink, but he was bolstered by the thought of the boy who, at the time, was spending his summers on the Continent planning high-profile assassinations, treating them like he was just planning what to have for dinner.
Another threat to the condition came when Jackson's assigned keeper, a girl named Melissa Bayley, became aware of the disease and planned to tell him about it. Immediately, Poulain met with her and gave her the kind information that if she didn't go along with their plans for her future, they would gladly kill her, her parents and her younger sister. It was amazing how quickly she gave up her allegiance to the Swiss man's protégé.
With the problem moved aside, he got more and more moody and had more and more bouts of what the theses called 'narcissistic rage.' An absolutely spoiled child who didn't know any differently, Jackson still didn't know about alexithymia when he signed the papers to make him the next head of Poulain's society. However, only a little time passed before he called, very upset, to tell Poulain that he wanted out of the Society. Assuming that it was just another fit of his narcissistic rage, the old man gave him another job, promising to let him off once the job was successfully completed.
He never expected his protégé to use Lisa, a woman so enamoured of him and so caring that she was willing to deal with Jackson's cold-heartedness. If Poulain had reviewed the woman's case file more, he would have seen that as a child, she spent a lot of time going from mental hospital to mental hospital with her psychiatrist mother as her father took on heavy caseloads at his law practise. In a country where mental illness was an amazing stigma, she understood and felt something bordering on empathy for her mother's patients. Even the most dangerous mental patient wasn't a threat to her. In other words, it was stupid of Poulain to allow him to see her. Another thing he never noticed with Jackson was his obsession over this woman. He had been warned by Ian Dower, Jackson's Americas assassin, but at the time, it was of no concern to him—he expected Jackson to just feel the thrill of calculated death and come crawling back to the Society on his knees.
A couple of weeks passed, and according to Le Figaro, everything that could have gone wrong did. Immediately following the incident, he paid for all of his medical treatments until it became obvious that Lisa wasn't going to give up on him and that he was slowly coming around to accepting her. In her last order received from Poulain, Elisabeth Millwood attempted to slowly kill Jackson medically—after all, as parents have said for years, 'I created you; I can destroy you'—but her attempts were thwarted by the over-caring Lisa.
'She ruined him,' Matthias Poulain said breathily, tapping his fingers on the desk as he looked at the society page of the New York Times. Smiling back at him was a sauve-looking, tuxedo-clad Jackson Rippner holding a flute of champagne up to the camera, his arm around his wife's waist. Lisa was bent slightly, laughing as she looked up at his face, holding what appeared to be a glass of orange juice to her chest. He focused on her rounded stomach, narrowing his eyes in distaste.
He threw the paper forcefully at the woman who sat across from him, and she took it, snapping it so that it stood straight. With her eyebrows raised haughtily, she studied the picture and its caption. 'How proper that they would be at the premiere of Armida.'
'Never seen it,' grumbled Poulain, leaning back in his chair.
Looking over the newspaper, she just smiled.
Raising a hand to his mouth to stifle a cough, Poulain sighed and looked past the blonde to the door. 'And you're certain this will work?'
'If everything you tell me is true, then it should go perfectly,' she said, her speech very measured. 'But you must follow everything I say.'
