You know how many (I would go so far as to say "most") people wonder if their own thoughts and emotions are "normal," so to speak? I occasionally find myself pondering whether or not I am in the same general realm of thought as everybody else. Not that there's some sort of hierarchy; I merely mean that I wonder if I possess the same capacity levels as the general mean of the world. I say "the mean" because there really is no known "mode," though this is all just myself rambling so goddamned ignore it if you're rolling your eyes at this point.
The things I've noticed about my own personality and past that appear to be different than most people I've met are as follows (I'll elaborate in a minute):
- I cannot remember entire chunks of my childhood.
- I "jump" into reality every so often and remember who I am.
- My phobias and compulsions control quite a bit of the way I behave to a grossly high degree, and have since I was a small child.
- My logic and emotions are almost too deeply entangled.
- I have an absurd amount of empathy.
One: I cannot remember entire chunks of my childhood.
I have zero idea as to why this happens. It's not something I realized until fairly recently. I was trying to think of things from my childhood like teachers and friends but I literally cannot, for the life of me, remember almost anything unless it's a story somebody else recanted to me or it was a very, very large event. Pre-8th grade, I hardly remember a fucking thing and I have a good idea as to why this is, why everything before I hit 14 was blasted away for the most part, but it still makes me so uncomfortable.
Two: I "jump" into reality every so often and remember who I am.
I've discussed this previously in length, but in short, I randomly "fall" back into my own body and suddenly realize where I am, who I'm with, and who I am. There are weeks when I'll go without having these sort of oddities, but for a short while, it'll happen frequently and it freaks me out. It's like watching a movie and suspending your own disbelief, then suddenly having someone snap in your face.
Suddenly things will get entirely too "realistic" out of the blue (the situation varies completely: I could be doing laundry or I could be at a party or I could be in the car and it'll happen) and I'll lose all of my emotion. I will literally be entirely unable to feel any sort of compassion or interest in everyone around me. Usually, it goes away within a short period of time. Occasionally, it'll happen while I'm crying and suddenly, I'll have zero desire to keep crying even if it does continue and the only thing in my head is to concentrate on not making a peculiar face while doing so. A few times, though, there have been long stretches of at least a week where I feel this way. Once, in the summer of 2006, it was about a week and a half before I could even get out of bed; there was no desire to move or eat or speak. I wasn't depressed; I was merely emotionless and undriven to do anything. Everytime I thought of contact with most people, I immediately visualized a wall between myself and them, and it wouldn't mentally budge. I snapped out of it, and fuck, I felt amazing but I always dread if it'll happen again.
Three: My phobias and compulsions control quite a bit of the way I behave to a grossly high degree, and have since I was a small child.
I don't like speaking about my specific phobias because there's at least one that upsets me to a huge degree to even think about. However, in regards to the compulsions, I do have OCPD yet in odd manners: I'm not super neat but things HAVE to have a specific order. I have to do certain things or I'll be really irritated and frustrated and anxious. It's so stupid because it's definitely a mind over matter thing, but the only time I can recall before the number 3 dictated most of my actions was...when the number 4 dictated most of my actions (up until around 9, I think...definitely before I was a teenager). TL;DR (as is the rest of this shit),
Four: My logic and emotions are almost too deeply entangled.
Meh, this one is definitely not that different than many people. I'm sure I come off as immensely emotional, possibly worse, but I am completely aware of this and choose to still act the way I act because I know that that's merely my personality and I can't control the fact that I feel a hell of a lot. I let it control my actions, though, to a too-high degree. I won't go into detail further, but in all honesty, this is something I would love to work on (though I don't think I would be doing anything besides numbing them, which is an idiotic thing to do).
People I've been with in relationships always describe me as "intense." There's a reason why they used to escalate so quickly. I am a passionate person, and people are often drawn to that for a while before being completely deterred in preference for a more logically sound person. This is not something I hold against them. They wind up visiting again at some point, anyways, for some reason, though most aren't people I'd like to see again.
Five: I have an absurd amount of empathy.
There's a reason I suck at confrontation, and it's not because I'm bad at arguing (on the contrary: quite a few teachers/professors in the past have commented that that's probably one of my strongest points personality-wise, haha). I'm just terrible at hurting other people. Not only do I hate doing it, but in addition, I know that if I hurt somebody else I'll literally feel physical pain in my stomach and head as well as a spatter of other feelings. When I see a kid get made fun of, I literally get so sad I'm sick. I most likely wouldn't care nearly as much if somebody was saying terrible things about me across a room; I usually get more offended if they're saying things about the people I'm with, as well. The only time I got in a physical fight during school was when a boy named Patrick kept spewing out homophobic shit at people in our class, including myself but definitely not the focus, and I eventually just pounded him in the face and groin. If he had only said things about me, I may've been offended and bummed out, but probably would not have made him cry.
I hate watching other people in pain, even the smallest bit of upset feelings, whether or not I care a lot about them. I used to have nightmares as a kid about other people getting hurt, not typically myself. It upset me more that way, for some reason. I recently hurt somebody I care very much about and I am beating myself up about it to a fucking high degree. Gah.
So, anyways, considering nobody'll read all of that, I may've just as well as written an essay on Goatse. Whatever, I feel a bit better now that it's all written out. Silly Sam.
