Original fiction: More than Simple
Jul. 22nd, 2008 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libra_travellerMore than Simple
I welcome it, this silence. My mind is tumbling with images and word phrases and the more I hear the people talking around me, the harder it is to separate my own thoughts from theirs. A break in the noise gives me a chance to put order to my own feelings and some control over the thoughts, so they don’t overwhelm me. I find it harder to do this than when I was younger. Since I became an adult, my mind has been fighting with me, and sometimes I no longer feel sane.
I walk among the people outside, strangers all, and I wonder what their minds must be like, how they can focus on getting from one place to the next without stumbling. I wish that my mind would be structured like a well maintained office, with files and folders so that I could easily find the information I need. Instead it’s more like a child’s bedroom, where things become easily lost, where a word that could explain my idea is hiding from me. It happens that because of this I sometimes find myself in a conversation with people looking at me oddly as I try to discuss something and suddenly I don’t know what the word is, and I try to define this missing word and I see their eyes become more and more confused, till I know my whole argument’s been dismissed and I’ve been labeled stupid. It hurts. I end up leaving, and my whole day is shot, and I start to think I’m stupid too. I start focusing on all the things I failed to do, from yesterday to when I was a kid. My mind always seems to work swiftly if it’s focused on beating myself up. But when I want to remember my friend’s favorite TV show so I can buy them a magazine subscription, I suddenly can’t remember if she liked Doctor Who or if it was only Torchwood that interested her. So I don’t buy anything.
Days will go by where I think that I should put myself in some study where they explore how a person’s brain works, because I know my mind can’t possibly be doing it right. Some times I can’t even function like a normal human being, I lay in bed instead of going to my job, and I freak out when my sister calls me on the phone because I don’t recognize her voice. Other times I’ll be in a super market and someone will come up to me and start talking. I’ll freeze because I could swear it’s a complete stranger, but it’s actually a coworker. The next day at work they’re cold to me, thinking that I was snobbish and didn’t want people to know that we worked together. I’m a shy person too so going up to them is hard enough without fearing that when I explain myself they’ll tell everyone what’s wrong with me and I’ll become even more of an outcast.
I suppose I should get help, but I have this worry that, beyond the cost of it, going to a professional will make everything worse, that they’ll start medicating me, and it could cause other problems, side effects. I hate sometimes my life, the struggle, but I don’t drink myself senseless (imagine how worse that would make my thoughts) or hurt myself, and the medication could change that in a bad way.
So instead I keep struggling along, letting my mind spin out of control and only doing the little to survive. And no one seems to care that I’m never assertive, never the quickest one to pipe up about an issue, that I keep to myself all the time. No one understands that I’m hurting and too afraid to reach out. I’m just one of many, not worth a closer look. Maybe, I think, while sitting in the dark of my bedroom, the TV turned off so I can’t hear people talking, that next time I’m walking outside to work, I’ll stop assuming that everyone else’s mind is perfect, and instead wonder if that other person is struggling too, that I’m not alone in this. Or I’ll just forget I even had this thought.
I welcome it, this silence. My mind is tumbling with images and word phrases and the more I hear the people talking around me, the harder it is to separate my own thoughts from theirs. A break in the noise gives me a chance to put order to my own feelings and some control over the thoughts, so they don’t overwhelm me. I find it harder to do this than when I was younger. Since I became an adult, my mind has been fighting with me, and sometimes I no longer feel sane.
I walk among the people outside, strangers all, and I wonder what their minds must be like, how they can focus on getting from one place to the next without stumbling. I wish that my mind would be structured like a well maintained office, with files and folders so that I could easily find the information I need. Instead it’s more like a child’s bedroom, where things become easily lost, where a word that could explain my idea is hiding from me. It happens that because of this I sometimes find myself in a conversation with people looking at me oddly as I try to discuss something and suddenly I don’t know what the word is, and I try to define this missing word and I see their eyes become more and more confused, till I know my whole argument’s been dismissed and I’ve been labeled stupid. It hurts. I end up leaving, and my whole day is shot, and I start to think I’m stupid too. I start focusing on all the things I failed to do, from yesterday to when I was a kid. My mind always seems to work swiftly if it’s focused on beating myself up. But when I want to remember my friend’s favorite TV show so I can buy them a magazine subscription, I suddenly can’t remember if she liked Doctor Who or if it was only Torchwood that interested her. So I don’t buy anything.
Days will go by where I think that I should put myself in some study where they explore how a person’s brain works, because I know my mind can’t possibly be doing it right. Some times I can’t even function like a normal human being, I lay in bed instead of going to my job, and I freak out when my sister calls me on the phone because I don’t recognize her voice. Other times I’ll be in a super market and someone will come up to me and start talking. I’ll freeze because I could swear it’s a complete stranger, but it’s actually a coworker. The next day at work they’re cold to me, thinking that I was snobbish and didn’t want people to know that we worked together. I’m a shy person too so going up to them is hard enough without fearing that when I explain myself they’ll tell everyone what’s wrong with me and I’ll become even more of an outcast.
I suppose I should get help, but I have this worry that, beyond the cost of it, going to a professional will make everything worse, that they’ll start medicating me, and it could cause other problems, side effects. I hate sometimes my life, the struggle, but I don’t drink myself senseless (imagine how worse that would make my thoughts) or hurt myself, and the medication could change that in a bad way.
So instead I keep struggling along, letting my mind spin out of control and only doing the little to survive. And no one seems to care that I’m never assertive, never the quickest one to pipe up about an issue, that I keep to myself all the time. No one understands that I’m hurting and too afraid to reach out. I’m just one of many, not worth a closer look. Maybe, I think, while sitting in the dark of my bedroom, the TV turned off so I can’t hear people talking, that next time I’m walking outside to work, I’ll stop assuming that everyone else’s mind is perfect, and instead wonder if that other person is struggling too, that I’m not alone in this. Or I’ll just forget I even had this thought.