Spencer Reid

Spencer Reid was born on October 12, 1981 to William Reid and Diana Reid. He graduated from high school at the age of twelve. In his youth, his father left him and his mother as he could no longer deal with her paranoid schizophrenia, among other things. Reid once mentioned that he was a victim of bullying in school where he was stripped naked and tied to a goalpost in front of other students. After waiting for all the other teenagers to leave, he walked home, only to find that his mother had not noticed he was so late to return because she had been having one of her schizophrenic episodes ("Elephant's Memory"). Reid grew up learning nearly everything he knows from books, with his mother (a college professor of 15th-century literature) often reading to him. Still, Reid knew that the way his mother was living wasn't healthy.

When he was eighteen, he had Diana placed in a mental institution. Until Season Twelve, she resided in that same mental institution and Reid had stated that he sent letters to Diana every day because of the guilt he felt for not visiting her. Reid is also worried about the fact that his mother's illness can be passed on genetically; he once told Morgan that "I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind".

Reid has an eidetic memory, meaning that he can remember an exceedingly large amount of information with extraordinary detail. This, however, only definitely applies to information gathered visually (especially things he's read, as implied with the word eidetic). However, his ability to retain auditory information has been rather inconsistent, as evident when he once noted he could not remember Garcia's name ("Tabula Rasa"). Despite that, he has been able to perfectly recite speech he hears, even when it was in a completely different language of which he didn't speak a word ("Corazón"). Reid joined the BAU at age 22 (stated in an article on his father's computer in "Memoriam"). One of his first cases was that of Brian Matloff ("Tabula Rasa"). Though he went to the FBI academy, he had trouble with just about everything that wasn't book-related, including marksmanship, physical training, and obstacle courses. In the end, they had to make special exceptions to get him into the field ("What Happens at Home"). RANK Supervisory Special Agent SPECIALTY PhDs in:

• Mathematics
• Chemistry
• Engineering BAs in:
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Philosophy (in progress)