The things in my head. They used to be images. Pretty ones, scary ones, twisted ones, horror ones. Sometimes they would move and warp, like motion pictures, twisting around form nothing recognizable to out of this world. I slowly found out that I was not supposed to like that. I feared them, and for a while managed to sought solace in real moving pictures on screens, doing things that have severe consequences if real, killing, hitting, fighting, or manipulating because I know it was not me doing it, it was characters, someone who was not at all related to me, a puppet. Even though they’re just pixels, from 8-bit pacman to very real life high definition art pieces that few stop to appreciate the hardwork of the artistes behind them.

One thing I knew. There weren’t sound before. There never was.

Since I was young I couldn’t stay out of trouble. Now you would think, what kid would? I had an active imagination, very vivid pictures would cross my mind, I know that because nightmares I had when I was young didn’t ever leave, they were merely nicely compartmentalized into a few episodes, less than 10 fortunately, stored away somewhere. I grew up knowing only fear. Fear and pictures, until I knew words well enough.

Never let a kid who causes so much trouble like no other in a library free to read. I learnt that the hard way. Of course, books, full of knowledge, full of messages, morals, what harm could they cause?

I remember it was a thin book, just a centimeter thick or around there. I was 6? I’m not sure, I only knew the content of the book, the images I had in my mind with the book that only had words. Words that supposedly taught a story I couldn’t comprehend, but I only knew fear. It was a horror book to me. I imagined my family becoming puzzle pieces, and me being all alone had to fix them up, glue them, going to a stranger in metres of vertical snow, trudging through all that to get my family alive again, yet the cat had no tail and a member had a furry new addition. That was the best kind of ending there was wasn’t it? The family was alive even though they barely survived to begin with. They were not well physically and nothing was the same but they lived, they were alive.

Before I was 12, I saw a horror movie stand-up poster when I was with my parents. I can’t remember why, or comprehend why, but my brain had really good imagination. It spun out a whole story from that poster. It was without much dialogue, a lot of moving pictures, that I thought I had even watched the movie. Since then, I started to dream of ships, ghosts, and pirate ship ghosts.

Of course, if only what I saw and read were my nightmares, however naïve they sound to you, things would be easier. There would be a source and I could stop it. Just stop exposing myself, run away, hide. But they weren’t.

I grew up like any other lucky normal kid. I was fed, raised with 2 parents, different gender. I was alive, breathing, healthy physically with rashes and that was all. Except, my father would scold, punish, hit, I was not to ever talk back, there was never to be another angle than his. I would fall, injure, tumble, and I would get more scoldings, more cold glares. Sometimes I couldn’t stop the tears, and I would be met with louder shouts and colder glares. I believed so much that behind those, there was love. I clinged on believing that they said I wasn’t depressed.

I wish I believed.

Things would be easier, if my heart, emotions, thoughts would agree with my rational, thinking, logical mind. I’m not schizophrenic, saying I am belittles the troubles they go through. I know though that exactly why I still exist is because of this paradox between my mind and emotions. Like living on that line that separates things. Things people don’t often stop to be grateful of, things I should fear more of.

But I am so tired, weary, of the two. I often get from adults that I think maturely, funny cause I think I am very childish, so very childish. But I know, I have thoughts I shouldn’t have, not many other people would have anyways.

I would sit alone and think, and sometimes realise my eyes were closed. I would open them, and wonder why I see faces on every contour, every every shapeless thing everything. Sometimes it was animals, wolf, lions, sometimes they were human, so very human yet unrecognizable. Sometimes, it was nothing but my brain keeps telling me it is something. My brain liked to perceive things as not what they were. It likes to think. Too much. Way too much. I told myself to slow down, stop assuming, think like a normal person would, what do you see? Yet, what is normal actually?

I can’t anyways, whatever the concept of normal was, it was not me. I tried, but I can’t. Every time I go through this little debate in my head before I ask a question, the result often disappoints me, ‘Why do you care about that?’ or ‘That’s an odd thing you noticed’ or ‘Why ask that, it’s not important’ or last but not the least ‘Worry about that later, you should care about this first.’ and I realized I always skipped a step. The most crucial step. The step where my rational side screams: ‘Shut up.’.

I should listen to it more often.

Now I’m not sure when it started, but I loved me time. When I was by myself, without anyone to defend me from my thoughts, where the pictures that somehow still are capable of scarring me would come back. I held on to them. Even though I know I can and I did switch them off. I could control what comes in and what stays in the archived cobweb spaces in my brain, but I realized I love them. They made me who I am. They remind me that I was alive, that I experience things, that I can fell. Even if it was fear.

I’m not sure when voices started and pictures were becoming rarer, but it was around the time I had a phone. 13 was it? I realized I started getting lesser pictures, more voices, just myself, but my own voice. It’s a weird sensation thinking about it, because who should remember how their own voice sounds like? It’s not mine, it’s not mine I would think, but the voice has a certain quality that screams me, it’s insanely sane. Calm, deep that my voice has grown into.

My voice used to be high-pitched, or at least higher-pitched. I used to run around always full of energy, yet fall asleep at 8pm. I would cause tons of trouble because of my pride. I thought it was just my pride, but I am so wrong. Afterall, when was I ever correct?

Some people were born and would grow to be awesome people, not without flaws, but awesome people nevertheless. Some has to fight their way to be. Some others, like me, are just never meant to be good.

I am a very controlled person. I know that, and funny how I just realized it. I have very very dark thoughts that no one should ever know of. I joke, I humour, I have truckloads of sarcasm, but those thoughts… they are worse than these being real. Its funny. How I ever managed to develop a rational brain that could control my emotions and push it away. After all, without it, I would be dead, by my own hands.

Teaching and education definitely played a part in developing that rational side. I just wish it never did, but again the rational side thanks them, because it is what is right isn’t it?

The thing is. I was taught to be nice, to care, to treasure things, to be happy. They never came to me. Maybe they did until I was 2, afterall my mum said I seldom ever cried even as a baby, unless it concerned a hungry stomach. Even then I had to keep myself alive, I wonder why. Instinct?

Anyways, I was taught all of that. As for my instincts, I like to hurt myself or others I don’t care, but I like pain. A lot. Physical one only. Emotionally, I was not sure what emotional pain was, until I realized I never really lived without it. The little thing that beats in my chest, the thing people call a heart didn’t want to, but the brain tells it to. I can be really dangerous, because people are so kind, violence is not so common nowadays that one or two punches would hurt enough. At least I thought people are kind.

I don’t know why, but my brain finds it in itself to care. About other people. Wait. I know. Because they are why I am still alive. Its ironic, and nobody would ever think I think that way, or at least my rational side did, but I really, ONLY put people’s wellbeing in my brain. Maybe the way I show it is weird, afterall, I don’t show emotions. Not much. Not much of the real ones.

I used to wear my heart on my sleeve. I think I did, that’s why I hurt people, I let my emotions go with what it wanted to do, hurt. Hurt people, and of course it would come back to bite me, it’s only fair, but I never learn, I continued to hurt, others and myself. Then brain came along to tame my instincts. So I stopped, I was still loud, talkative, insensitive, attention-seeking even though I didn’t know I was. I never cared then. Self-centred is rather appropriate. Or is it?

Over the years, I slowly became quieter. My voice still has its power, I still command the ability to shout across buildings, but I know when I do that now, I am tired, I am so very tired. I know why the voices started to be in my head, because I don’t vocalize anymore. I shouldn’t. It’s a scary and scarring thing to let others know about such crazy things. I think they are crazy anyways, my heart says it’s fine, or do I still have a heart, did it ever exist or was it always just me?

I like how controlled I am. I often wonder with my emotions in check in the day, why do I still find it hard to look people in the eye? I used to think it was just cause I was shy, because I hide secrets nobody should ever know, but I realized, of course I was wrong again. I can look people in the eye. If they could bare seeing what is behind them, if they could see anything behind them, because I know, if my eyes used to sparkle of a soul, it wasn’t there anymore.

I feel lethargic. I know the real me, I always avoided facing it, because it was a demon. A really scary demon that knew it shouldn’t exist. I try to fight it, I really do, stop these thoughts, be nice, be really nice, be so extremely damn nice that you look like a mannequin, but I have cracks. I am no robot.

Sometimes I say things I shouldn’t and I want to take it back, but my heart tells me it’s fine, yet my brain knows it shouldn’t. I finally understood after so long why I always hurt people when I thought I care. Why I always blurt out insensitive things. It isn’t a mistake, it isn’t a flaw, it is me. It is so very me that it hurts, yet the pain feels alright. It feels good. It reminds me that I am not perfect that someone, someone may see through this insane person and try to help, uproot the poor little demon.

I now know why I can imitate so many things, because I never was me, never was when I started to understand and learn anyways. I was always imitating, trying to copy, trying to match, trying to… hide. Hide who I am. But now it’s out. I would like to know.

Do you believe anything I said?  

And if you made it so far,

Tell me now. How do you think?