CTE by Mercure Rose (Original Painting)

I fear I have CTE. I lay awake each night in this horror of the reality that soon, soon my mind will deteriorate into nothing, I cannot find the memories stored in the deepest caverns of my psyche. I hit my head a lot, as a kid. I’m autistic, and I didn’t know how wrong this behavior was. I still have the urge when overwhelmed, the repetition is nice. I like the sensation in my head, because my feelings are so big, yet I do not know where they are. Just this huge pressure on my scalp, like a scorching heat, like a line of fire. I think, I fear I lose my intelligence, what use am I without it? Or that I lose myself. Dementia is similar, I often say it’s a reversion to childhood, a dragging until infancy. Mostly, I worry nobody would take care of me. Of being too disabled for comfort, that I wouldn’t be pleasant enough to be around. Though maybe, of all hopes, this reversion to a child, that one could be loved with a compassionate heart.