anybody have a minute?

I had a 2 1/2 hour meeting with a new therapist yesterday. In order to make the most of the session, I tried to come up with a concise introduction of myself, hoping it would help us get on to more important stuff, but he didn't want to read it. So we beat around the bush for a couple hours, not a complete waste of time, but I think he would have gotten more clarity in 10 minutes if he read my little mini-bio...

I used to have what can only be called entirely delusional ideas about myself and the world around me. These ideas have shifted drastically over the years, even to the absolute extreme, such that an outside observer would not likely believe that the same person could be believing first one thing, and then believe the other. But my beliefs have come to a consensus of sorts, a consensus that I will attempt to summarize.
The experiences that I consider formative ones for me lie so far outside the boundaries of normal consciousness that is almost as if I really am an alien from another world. It may be of interest to note that I am fully aware of how abnormal I am because of the fact that for reasonably long periods I will merge with what is more or less a common, ordinary consciousness, a consciousness very much like what is experienced by persons who have never been "outside the game", which is the best language I can come up with to describe my "home" consciousness Outside the world is a real place, but it is so dramatically different from normality, although not in every single possible regard different, it is still so different that there is almost no way to communicate anything meaningful to anyone else about it. I have often felt like I seriously really do not belong here on earth anymore, but the fact remains that, well, here I still am. So I have to decide in that case what to do with myself while I'm here. It is not as simple as it sounds. I don't have much problem merging with a normal kind of consciousness when conducting day to day business, but anytime I am faced with any kind of more important life decision that eventually might present itself, I am confronted again by the spectre of who I REALLY am. That's a really big problem as it turns out, because who I am seems to be entirely outside of anything that can be utilized for, or integrated with, any attempt to address something like making a human decision. I know this because I know what it feels like to be human. Being human, whether I am on medication or off of it, in my honest and well considered opinion, means being unaware of what reality really is. Once upon a time, I requested knowledge directly from the God of the Universe. I was taken to the source of all knowledge. Standing in that doorway, as it were, in the light of that source, every shred of what might be labeled human is stripped from me. I see the universe for what it is. It is not what people think it is. So, in human society, then, can there be any application for this knowledge? Any value in even mentioning the experience? Humanity, by and large is already for the most part, insane, but it doesn't need correcting. In fact, humanity's insanity barely deserves mention, because being insane, living in miserable darkness, is a big part of what being human is all about. What is all adds up to for someone like me is....I'm fuc#ed, lol....Well, not really, because its all temporal and none of it really matters. So you would think, okay there's a lot to enjoy here on earth, so why not just enjoy yourself. It's not that simple either though, because living for comfort or pleasure rapidly devolves into addiction or other negative-tending behavior. The only thing that saves me here is that I care about what my mother thinks of me, I want to be a good boy still, not out of feeling much of a connection to her, really, but because I dont want to make her unhappy. I have no feelings of connection to anything or anyone other than that. The whole thing is just a show. I may as well be in solitary confinement. I am currently in a situation of no structure whatsoever. There is no ground to stand on, no where to get my balance, so of course I exhibit what look like mental problems. I am living with my mother at the age of 40, after 20 years of successfully looking like I had it pretty much together. I didn't ACTUALLY have it all together, but looking like I did was the next best thing, this is how most people live their lives anyway, why couldn't I have just been grateful for it? Well, anyway, that whole make believe life is gone now, I am living with Mom again. I landed here unexpectedly, as the compound result of what I thought were well considered, rational decisions, decisions that, in hindsight, could not be viewed by the average observer as anything other than ridiculously unrealistic, disturbingly unstable, or outright insane. I can not proceed from where I am. I am trapped. There is no place to get a foothold. I try to keep a show up for my Mom. Am I sick? Sane? Insane? What do I call myself? Where do I belong? Yet, I'm just trying to find a way to get by, just like everybody else. Most people already know they're just pretending all the time anyway, so I shouldn't feel so alienated, you might say. But, for me, because of following the suggestions of an invisible inner guide that I had come to trust, even the ability to pretend to fit in has now been taken away from me. I'm not sure I have regrets about listening to that voice, because if you think about it, how can you ignore the advice of what is clearly a supernatural entity of some kind? It seems to me that the consequences of ignoring such an entity would be worse than listening to it. So even though I now have the choice to medicate and no longer give credence to the inner world, there is still no question in my mind that the invisible world is real. No amount of medication will change this. Although I could imagining getting so snowed over that I would forget about it for a while, the idea of that is not appealing. So, you see, it is essentially impossible to communicate any of my concerns to normal people. Even therapists don't want to hear too much of it. If I snow myself in like I feel I am being led to do, I will end up on disability. I don't want to do that because it would make my Mom unhappy. But my facade that I was using to look like a person is in a million pieces. It is not salvageable. I am concerned that the challenge of constructing a fake persona again may be insurmountable. And I believe that if I cannot find a way to integrate with society in some way or at least to begin communicating with someone, or begin to experience some sense of meaning in my life, that I will self destruct. And that's my problem, in a nutshell. So I'll take some more of that anti psychotic med now, thanks. It was nice to meet you, too, doc. See ya next week...
But thanks for reading all my stuff here, anyone out there who had the time to make it through all that. And even if no one reads it, I think having an outlet here by belonging to this place might do more for my condition than my even medication does.

Hey, Skeptik, welcome to PsychCentral (PC). I read your thoughts with much interest. I'm sorry you find yourself in such a bind.

Welcome, Skeptic.

Thanks pachyderm, whatever that was I needed to post yesterday, I didn't know where it belonged .Everything feels different once you say it. Thanks for reading, thanks for answering. To move forward we have to examine where we have been and I dont have the money for all the therapy I need. Thanks again

Thankyou for writing this post. I have never been able to express what you wrote because it is so difficult to pinpoint reality and perspectives. Plus living a masked life can almost, as you say, become a 'life', although, as you said,...deep down i know it isn't.
From a young age i have felt entirely different from everyone. I used to describe it as though i was an alien from outer space when i was younger but as i grow up i am now starting to think about it more in terms of angels and devils....more religiously.
Like you, i know this is an abnormal feeling. I have said to many of my friends that i am most probably a possible...whats the word....person the is the key between 2 worlds. They laugh and although i know it is strange, i still feel it. But yes i go about for long periods too just pretending away (or maybe it is real??) that i am a normal girl like i believe most of my friends and family feel all the time.
I completely understand what you mean about it not being radically different ('the outside world') but yes how can you explain these subtle differences that make the stark diffence!? I have a hard time trying to comprehend them myself let alone tell anyone else. Plus the answers i feel i should have being the 'in-between' person i am i do not even have, although i feel somewhere deep down i do, i just think my tie to reality is stopping me from unearthing it. Do i regret this? Yes and no. No because when i look at others without these feelings they look content and ignorent...but yes because i often feel if i could lose my 'earthly' self i could achieve a great deal. I do feel trapped in a way.
Yes, the worst thing is in a way that i am here on earth, i haven't found a way to seperate myself from 'myself' so i have to find a way to fit together. Sure i guess too like you i could go ahead and have an ok life, i know i can get a job and in the future a house etc and build a 'life' for myself but so many times when i think about this, even though it is what i truly want it fills me with complete dread - i am but am not that person.

Quote:
Once upon a time, I requested knowledge directly from the God of the Universe. I was taken to the source of all knowledge. Standing in that doorway, as it were, in the light of that source, every shred of what might be labeled human is stripped from me. I see the universe for what it is. It is not what people think it is.

I am not at this point. I still feel at a distance from what i will now call God (although i wish not to cause offense because it is words i choose to explain things to myself). I hesitate to write this but at times i feel like i fell down from 'heaven' (again the words i use that fits the most appropriately for this idea) and got lost. I truly believe that at some point i will be remembered and set free from this reality although at the same time i know this is a strange idea to have.
Yeh i bet people do think - "so if you know its not right then just ignore it" - but it is not as easy as that is it? It's like denying who you are.
I believe i am not from this world and my fear is that due to this i will be used by unGodly things to spead further dispair and pain. What if i am blind and i am unable to see what my purpose is?
I do feel connected to things on earth. I love my family and friends. I feel deeply for the earth and everyone on it. But sometimes yes i will look down out of a window and just see a merry-go-round of pointless acts.
I understood entirely what you wrote and am so thankful that you did. Finally someone out there who understands!! I could never have written as well as you did, as it is so difficult to explain the unexplainable. I often wonder if everyone feels like this but just doesn't talk about it and that because i do think about it i'm being a drama queen....i don't know what to think anymore to be honest. i'm not sure what is a 'normal' thought and what isn't....or if anything is truly 'normal'. Maybe this just is how it is and i should get used to it....

Quote:
I am concerned that the challenge of constructing a fake persona again may be insurmountable.

Yes - i have fallen, i am still here but can i really keep pretending? And for how long? A lifetime?

Thank you for the post. I made it through. You say you have no answers....prehaps we can just share thoughts though? I didn't think anyone else felt this way!

Abby, thanks for taking the time to respond with so much thought, as I never expected anyone to give my exposition quite so much consideration. there is of course a huge variety of these kinds of feelings and experiences that has occurred to me over the 2 decades of my adult life, I was trying to give a snapshot of where I find myself right now. Some of the things you mentioned certainly brought me back to earlier years, I actually remember a lot of it with a bit of sentimentality, even though I was quite beside myself with existential misery myself during those times, still it is a part of me and I have almost a weird affection for all those past experiences if only to think, wow, I can't believe I survived all that time under those conditions. So much of what I have been going through for decades now it is almost astonishing to me at times that a person can even live through it. It always feels worst right in the middle of an episode. There have been a handful of really high, positive, peak type experiences, but by far these experiences have been outweighed by either negative experience, or feelings of complete emptiness. Like you, I at times have felt profoundly connected to the experience of life on earth, but these feelings are quickly usurped by a sense of everything on earth going completely wrong, or else what might happen, its difficult to explain, but I notice that if I hear a song that makes me feel really good positive feelings, the opposite feelings begin to occur at the exact same time, like I am experiencing the totality of the pleasure and pain at once. It makes me shrink away from the world, I would rather not feel anything at all, and that's what happens, the mind temporarily grows a callous over the areas of itself that cause it pain. In time the callous wears away or falls off, only to repeat the process again. I am like a tortured spirit, in some ways, halfway between this world and the next, not able to decide where I belong
I remember telling my ex-wife one time that my personality was like someone you would meet in the next world, and she was like yeah, I can really see what you mean. I thought, wow, this girl really understands. 12 years later, I am thinking maybe thats when she finally decided she needed to get away from me.
Just to let you know, I put some "poetry" over in the creative writing section in case you want to see more of my recent anti-inspirational writings

No - i have to thank you for trying to explain something that is so darn difficult to explain. I understand what you mean about it being a snapshot...life is just a mass of emotions, feelings, rationales, actions that every second can actually be a lifetime. How is it possible to simplify it into words?!

I hope in the future i will be able to look back at this and wonder at it - at how i had the chance to see things differently - but right now i just feel really lonely to be honest. I can't explain most of what i think and feel and it really hurts having to make a life when i'm not even sure i'm 'in' it. How do i know if i make the correct choices if everything seems so vast yet insignificant. Are these feelings and thoughts episodes? I do not even feel this is a physical or mental problem so i cannot describe these beliefs as espisodic - i wish i felt i could pop a pill and it all be better but sometimes the sky is too vast and emotions too much i know it cannot be all in my head. Something else must be involved.
I understand what you mean about experiencing all emotions at once. I am the same. I have had a time when i was able to 'see'/feel the emotions of everyone around me and when they interacted it was like chattering colours. It was claustrophobic. I felt deeply at a loss during that time as i watched the world bickering unable to see that it was falling further and further. I, sometimes, feel like screaming at everyone to be careful. But i do not.
At times i really feel i could make a difference to the world, but the minute i start to step outside my little comfort zone i am borbarded with every emotion under the sun. There is too much going on! How are we ever going to accomplish anything?? People say you can only do what you can do but somehow that seems so pitiful.
Do people grow callouses or do they simply ignore it? I fear that sometimes people cannot look or they will be toppled over like i am. But i am as guilty as others, i play out my life pretending to be nothing, being absorbed in the little things in life so that i am not able to see the bigger picture.
Is this all real or is this imaginary? How can i know what is right and wrong, when i don't know what 'is' and 'isn't'? Am i thinking too much? Does everyone feel like this? I just feel really lonely at times.

It was only recently that I realized that I had to seek some kind of help from outside myself, meaning I had to get some kind of medication to shut down whatever part of me was making me feel the way I was. I totally don’t believe that it is all in your head, but I have come to the conclusion that there may be some value to at least momentarily escaping the suffering that is caused by this enhanced awareness or whatever it is that we suffer from. Like I have said, I was at the very very end of my rope, something bad really was about to happen, and I had to do something. I am not planning to medicate myself out of being who I am, but it honestly did show me another way to see the world, just like any other recreational drug or even alcohol does, but without as many side effects. So, even under the influence of this stuff, I realize that what it comes down to is that I am taking a pill so that I feel more comfortable conforming to other peoples concepts of how reality should be perceived. Well there is something dishonest about that strategy is what I truly believe, and although my psych doc said I might have to take this the rest of my life, I have already taken a whole week off of it here and there, and I can handle being my old self just fine, but in the short term, I don’t mind experimenting with it a little more, since honestly I think it did save my life. But, I have to say as well, loneliness is sure probably the biggest factor in why my natural state of consciousness is often so difficult to tolerate. For the next few weeks though anyway, I will stay with the med, being as it is the holiday and I will be seeing a lot of family. It keeps me kind of level in a way that I am not accustomed to and wont mind playing around with a little bit. I wonder if this is how normal people feel all the time, but I will never know, because for me its strange, almost like the way I feel when I am dreaming, just accepting what is in front of me without any questions about deeper meanings, etc. It is definitely a less conscious condition than what I am used to but something of a relief, but it will help me interact with all the relatives. I haven’t seen my brother in like 5 years so that’s one positive thing to come out of having a total breakdown at least. Of course now I have to explain to him why I live with our Mom again, which Im not looking forward to