Insomnia.
Sleep no longer came to him. Its sweet surrender was now unforgiving and cold, merciless to his needs. It ignored his futile attempts to fall into its once tender clutches, instead throwing him away, forcing him into a state of constant weariness, dragging him down. This lack of rest sent him into sporadic brief periods of inertia and lassitude where he was lost within his darkest thoughts, despite his calm and cheery façade. His wall was impeccable, flawless; no one could see through into the entropy that was his mind. The quiet, subtle hysteria that lurked within his consciousness was ever present, but was kept caged at the back of his mind far out of sight from onlookers. Every now and then a crack would show through, but the wall was easily smoothed over by a convincing grin or an easy lie. He was so used to it now, it was automatic. When no one is around to see, when the spectators of life have all disappeared, his façade falls away as he walks into the empty cold walls of his home. No, not his home, it has not been his home for years, merely a building. A shelter. A means of survival, for there was now only one sole purpose for his breaths and his heartbeats, the only reason that he continued to exist. Revenge.
Sometimes slumber would lure him in, seducing him into a false hope that he could escape from this world that caused him so much grief and pain and just dream of insignificant, trivial things. But it never worked that way. Sleep had become his enemy, always working against him, finding new ways of torture. He was thrown into yet another nightmare world that he could not escape, nor control, and it tormented him unbearably. Images of the ones he had loved -still loves- and lost so terribly. He hears their screams, sees their flesh being sliced open and their bodies torn apart. Terrified, fearful eyes turn to look at him, begging him to help, to stop the pain, but there's nothing he can do; oh he tries, tries so hard. He screams with them, begs with them, fights against invisible restraints, but he cannot alter their fate, neither in the real world nor his nightmares.
Every day he drags himself from the worn mattress after a restless night spent alone with his thoughts; never a moment's peace, not a flicker of silent serenity. Every day he goes to work, slaps on that familiar façade like make-up, never dropping the slightest hint. Of course, people know of his circumstances, but cannot even begin to comprehend the extremity of the vicious whirlpool of self-loathing and self-hate. But he does not hold even a speck of self-pity, for he believes with every fibre of his being that all of the things that befell his family, and in turn, him, were all his fault. His family had the breath of their lungs stolen, their lives prematurely extinguished because of his arrogance, his foolish actions. And now he is paying the price: grief and regret and guilt weighing down on him with such an impossible force that he wonders how he ever manages to stand up straight. Such pain in his haunted eyes that he wonders how he manages to hide it. Such sadness in his heart that he wonders how he keeps from crying. Smiles so forced and fake he wonders how no one notices. And he wonders if his heart is even still beating, if he is even still human, for it is emotions that define our humanity, and he feels so dead and cold inside. If living is the right word to describe his miserable existence. He muses idly that he is in purgatory, trapped because of the one thing that he has to do before his time on this earthly plain is up, the one action that, once completed, will leave him lost and purposeless, the last few flecks of his tarnished soul burning away. Once his revenge is exacted, he knows he'll end up in jail as consequence for his actions, but the prospect rarely bothers him. At that point, he will have no reason for living, so he doesn't see why he should have to.
His mind is never free from burden; it is eternally plagued by the ghosts of his past. Ghosts he sees everywhere, in every little action or gesture, or word or smile, every person and inanimate object, he finds a way to link it back, and every time it cuts him a little deeper. He watches people pass him by, people he has come to know, happy with their lives and without any haunting shadows looming over them, and he is jealous. Envious of the life he should be living right now, joyous and carefree, growing older with his wife and watching his daughter grow up into someone beautiful and confident. His mind often drifts to the idea of what his daughter would look like now, how she'd act, if she'd still light up the way he had done when they saw each other.
Work keeps him preoccupied for a while, but his quick-thinking mind solves things with such ease the distraction does not deter his thoughts for long, and he is soon returned to his madness. Every once in a while a case will come along that poses more of a challenge and he throws himself into it, immersing himself into the complexities and pursuing every lead, exploring every possible outcome just to keep him busy and give himself something to do. He relishes these kinds of cases that he can dive into and come up with brilliantly clever – albeit somewhat unorthodox – schemes to catch the murderer, save the day, and solve the case.
And every day he comes home and stands staring at that bloody face, forever stained both on the wall and his heart. Memories forever rushing back to when he first saw that face on his wall, to when he stared into the cold lifeless eyes of his dead wife and child, bloody tears streaking their faces. He falls onto the old mattress, sleeping pills rattling in his pocket. They don't work, they never do, but he takes them anyway, always hopeful that tonight will be the night that they offer him some peace. He lies there, still staring at the face, a constant reminder of his dark and shadowy past, hating himself more and more to the point that he wonders if it is possible to contain so much hatred directed at oneself. He loathes himself; he is repulsed by every tiny part of him. And when he finally closes his sorrowful eyes, trapped between two plains of opposing consciousness, he sees the accusing eyes of his family, blaming him for what happened, cursing him. It's all my fault they're dead…he murmurs…all my fault. He may not have wielded the knife that had slashed at their flesh, bleeding them dry, but as far as he was concerned he may as well have done. Once he had uttered those words about the serial killer, he had sealed the deal, set in motion Fate's deadly chain of events. Wallowing in guilt, he'll soldier on, forever wandering closer and closer to the final battle, his last and only meaningful act.
Red John is his Devil, the murder of his wife and child his own personal Apocalypse, and the aftermath, his retribution.
This is his punishment, and Patrick Jane believes he deserves it.