[sherbet]

I've always felt like one day, I will walk into an apparently empty room but then everyone will jump out from behind a couch and yell, "SURPRISE!" And they'll tell me that it was all a joke, an experiment that went too far. That I was never a person and my whole life is a lie. That I'm really a Martian, or a manufactured person programmed with memories like in Blade Runner, or that really I'm a dog bewitched to see a person's face when I look in the mirror...that I'm really something that isn't human. And that everyone but me was in on the joke.

That would explain a lot.

Of course, whenever someone treats me like I'm not really a bewitched animal or a Martian I just figure they're not in on the joke. When my boyfriend says he loves me I wonder what he'll do when he realizes I have a hidden tail or antennae.

Hello Sherbet: I can't say I've ever had the sort of thoughts you describe. However, I've certainly have my own thoughts along these same lines. For example, it sometimes occurs to me I have been made immortal as a punishment for past misdeeds. (I wrote a Thread somewhere here on PC about this a while back.) I don't know why these kinds of thoughts develop. Perhaps it's a reaction to stress. But I guess they're harmless enough as long as we don't genuinely come to believe them.