About Cristina

Welcome,
My name is Cristina Gherghel.

I am an independent researcher and author, but first and foremost, I am a cartographer of uncharted cognitive territory. My work is born from a quarter-century forced inquest into a single, catastrophic question: What happens when the mind lacks the fundamental tools to process agony?

Forced to become a scholar of my own suffering, my research dismantles the prevailing consensus that a non-simulative mind is protected from trauma. Instead, I prove that conditions like Panmodal Aphantasia—the total absence of mental imagery and inner speech—can, in contexts of long-term abuse, create a state of structural vulnerability. Through longitudinal auto-phenomenology, I document how trauma, with no representational outlet, is forced directly into the body, becoming a relentless somatic reality I term Fleshbacks.

My methodology is a necessary synthesis of architecture philosophy, clinical neuroscience, and lived neurodivergence. I work at the brutal intersection where cognitive architecture collides with developmental environment, mapping the resulting phenomenology with absolute precision.

To this end, I have built new conceptual frameworks to articulate realities that current clinical language fails to capture. My work introduces and defines:

  • The Aneurothymia Spectrum: A neurotype characterized by the non-instantiation of specific neurocognitive axes.
  • Panmodal Aphantasia: The full-spectrum absence of internal sensory representation.
  • Paraconsistent Facticity: The state of a lucid mind trapped as a helpless witness to its own body's suffering.
  • OMES (Ontological Metabolic Exhaustion Syndrome): The systemic collapse resulting from the unsustainable metabolic cost of sustaining certain cognitive states.

This research is not merely academic; it is a lifeline thrown back into the darkness I was forced to navigate. It is a demand for a paradigm shift in how we understand trauma, the mind-body relationship, and the very nature of healing for those whose internal world is built without simulation.

Beyond my scholarly work, I extend these inquiries into literary fiction, crafting narratives where the realities of intergenerational abuse and anoriginal alterity are not just themes, but the very fabric of the story.

I am committed to one central goal: forging a lexicon that finally honors the unmapped formations of human experience, so that no one else has to suffer in a silence that has no name.

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Dive Deeper into the Research

My full thesis, "Aphantasia Is Not an Advantage in Long-Term Abuse: On the Trauma of Fleshbacks and the Myth of Coping and Defense Mechanisms," is available to read for free on Zenodo. It presents the complete argument, evidence, and theoretical framework.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17692334

Join the Journey

My research is ongoing. I share regular insights, updates, and deeper dives on my Substack. Subscribe to follow the journey as the work evolves.

https://cristinagherghel.substack.com/

Become a Patron of this Work

As an independent researcher without institutional funding, my work relies on the direct support of readers like you. If this research has shifted your perspective, one of the most impactful ways to support its continuation is by purchasing my books. You're not just buying a book; you're fueling a paradigm shift.

View my Titles on Amazon UK

My published work—spanning memoir and analysis—engages themes such as narcissistic abuse, trauma, personality disorders, toxic relationships, communism, immigration, C-PTSD, and more. The full collection is available here: Cristina Gherghel on Amazon.

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