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I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD
19 years ago
General
You may have noticed that I've been pretty up-to-date on my FA. This is completely unlike me. I think it'll be pretty soon that I'll feel like this is a permanent practice; a habit, or a method, or somesuch. Right now, I kind of enjoy having an excuse to draw some random shit every day and plop it on a site. Or spew emotional bile and rhetorical sewage all over a textbox. It's sort of... cathartic. almost stress-relieving. Why, if I keep this up, i may turn into a healthy, well-adjusted, successful 'hyoomun' being.
Makes me wonder if I should stop.
I don't have any questions today, nor do I have any topics to rant on, but who knows; in the next fifteen seconds I may find something.
...
...
...
...!
I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD.
I've used this phrase in one of my previous torrents. of destruction. ...from the heavens. This is quickly going to become the phrase that describes, if not quantifies, the age old question of "Who the fuck are YOU! And what are you doing in my house!" ...well... the first one. and MAYBE the second one, but only under ...circumstances.
You see... I don't belong here. No shit, huh? But it gets a little creepy rather shortly, so brace yourself. My friends would like to believe it's Disassociative Identity Disorder. In fact, that may be the only way to explain it, except my experience regarding the term is a little more literal than some would take it. They'd love to use the medical definition, but here's the deal: This Identity is UP FRONT to handle social interaction, administration, and all manner of conscious guidance; however, THIS identity, the Stoney you all know and love, is not the 'stock configuration', you might say, of this 'ere carcass I run around in all night long.
It occurred to me some time ago that I am not real.
I am by no means an aggressive takeover; You could say the house was empty when I moved in. The kicker is, I didn't even know I moved in until I looked back and put a few pieces together.
You're giving me the "Whiskey Foxtrot Tango are you talking about, Stoney?" look. I can tell. That's okay. I'll try to put this in as simple terms as I can, but it is going to take a little while:
SEVEN YEARS ago, something happened. What happened? I don't know the cause, perhaps I never will understand it completely, but the result is that I CURRENTLY have NO RECORD in this brain of ANY KIND regarding who the fuck I used to be BEFORE Seven Years Ago. I remember a name, I subliminally recall the junk data they packed into me from Preschool to Eighth Grade in the form of 'lesson plans', I remember brief flashes of building layouts, scents and sounds... but the faces are blurred. Almost all the names were wiped out EXCEPT the legal one my parents branded me with (by 14-years-up-to-then repetitive use). Almost all memories of distinct events or words are nearly entirely obliterated...
...and the things I DO remember from the first 14 years of my life feel distinctly fake, fake enough to make Plan-9 From Outer Space look like Motion Picture of the Year. I've had surrealist nightmares more convincing than the few memories I do posses... And then there's the Data. The data is just facts, with no emotional connections involved, but looking at it evokes a generic response that I would have toward seeing anything as such. Apparantly, the Data, the Statistics, tells me that in the first 14 years, I had been consistently singled out by classmates and focussed on as a kind of hate-sync; the united front of the classrooms appeared to build their foundation on my presence. There was the information that 'peers' refused to use my legal name for the cited and restated, repeated, and drilled expression that 'it's a cool name, and you aren't cool'. Such depressing and distasteful things dominated the contents of The Data. For a time, I even questioned its validity, since everything else was so hard to recall... but this information was corroborated by testimony of my parents back then.
And everything AFTER I turned 14, what I do remember, and I remember quite a bit more, is Crystal Clear.
But distinctly, elements of my personality unless as told from third person perspective are entirely gone. Not a trace. And incidentally, in Grade 9, 14 years old... I remember not feeling anything. No emotions, no opinions, not even numbness. It was the kind of emptiness the fakest emo kids dream of. It was like a nuclear winter, a post-apocalyptic wasteland not IN my mind, but Becoming my mind. And it was not romantic or particularly enlightening. One thing it WAS... was peaceful. My gods... the peace... I went days at a time while I was 14 saying absolutely nothing. Eventually instructors would ask questions, but the answeres were so ... cold, clear, sharp, analytical, and straightforward it made them blink and scratch their heads.
I am not capable of this emptiness anymore. For the longest time, I even thought that those memories were me. No. Those memories were this body. wandering aimless, only knowing to do what it was told to do by its defined superiors. My parents back then were shocked when I got what they called my first entry on an honor roll. Furthermore, they had remarked strangely to the fact that I didn't miss one day of school that year, which leads me to believe that I never ran a year of perfect attendance before that.
In retrospect, the birth of the "Me" that I "Am" today began its larval stages when i turned 15. Online, I ran into a group of people, some of whom are still with me as my closest friends today. They laid the foundation for what would become my personality. Sophomore year of high school brought a struggle, when I experienced lonliness since the first time since the wipe, and sought friends. I learned a lot about finding myself from them....
But I didn't start this to reminisce about my life story.
I got into RP. It was an emotional, psychological study. An exercise for the emulation of fictional personalities. I learned the hard way the difference between IC and OOC. I quickly understood that a character's emotions were not mine, my emotions were not a character's, and crossing the two caused disaster. I learned how to influence my own feelings when needed, or how to create and run the framework of an entire other being in my mind. My characters became real to me, grew their personalities, and took up aspects of narrating (though not running) my life: Cyrus motivated me, Niall supported me, Adrianna congradulated me, and Allyssa soothed me. Stone Hawk became my avatar among them--though He isn't quite 'me' myself either, even if he is the closest to me, and I am honored that his personality definitions do not object violently when I represent myself with his image.
It was not quite multiple personality disorder, because they did not have any control, they 'knew' of the 'real world' when they played the imaginary friend roles, but it only looked as menacing as a comic strip breaking the fourth wall. They knew of Me and my 'life on the outside', and reacted accordingly to my actions and ideas... but I had no idea what it could possibly mean, what it was a sign of...
One late night as my mind bordered on the edge of sleep, I let slip a thought: what if Stone Hawk got to see literally through my eyes, to look at this world as though with his own sight and smell it as if with his own nose?
And then it felt like riding a tram car. The body made the conscious decision, seemingly with my unwitting but nonetheless willing blessings, to follow instead the direction of stone hawk: Adopt his manner, his accent, his gestures and fidgets, and to send the input to HIS place in this brain rather than mine.
... the memories were once again present but artificial in feel once I came back, and Stone recalled that in the back of ...'our' brain, my voice was that of a child... not a condescending remark, but one of curiosity, if not with a touch of worry, and more than a little care. He seemed disturbed at the lack of tail, the presence of plantigrade feet, the nakedness of no fur, the dulled senses of smell and hearing. And HIS memories... were so sharp and clear. I had in the forefront of my mind the exact definitions of what Gin Blossom smelled like, from their RP together: Gunpowder, machine oil, wood, steel, smoke, spices and herbs, even the natural musk, blended, somehow to seem to him, a very pleasing scent... I can understand why he likes Gin's particular blend; he loves her.
But here is the realization of the experience:
This body is the only baseline of consciousness between all of us in this head. It is a passive, empty shell with the craters of a personality that used to be here, but is not anymore... This body is conscious and even vaguely self-aware when I am not at the helm. The entire 'package' that contains every feature of WHO I AM is as supplantable as a SEGA Genesis cartridge...
I was disturbed. Are you disturbed? Probably not. Probably you just don't believe me. Probably, You don't HAVE to. The only issue is that I am unglued; literally unattached. I broke something, some kind of seal in the back of my mind that keeps the emotional bound to the logical and I don't think it can be fixed now, not nearly. Sure, the men in white coats would try to make me pretend... but if they think all I'm doing now is pretending, what good is more pretending going to do? In honesty, I have come to terms with this... and other things. I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF OUR HEAD. I am a social inteface emotional intelligence fixture, and I hope you'll never start to question if you're one for your body, too. I begin to wonder if everyone else is for theirs, and they've simply had the luxury of blissful ignorance that I did up until. If you were to crack them like I cracked myself: slice the emotions off from the logic, let them stare at eachother objectively like the eyes of a Pierson's Puppeteer... or would they be capable of surviving, as I did?
Seven years after this body was born, these hands, infuratingly, ironicly, and coincidentally, broke a mirror. Seven years of ironic, coincidental, infuriating pressure and turmoil caused something to snap, and The Wipe came and went. It's been seven years since the wipe. In these past seven years, I have searched for myself, and ALSO Ironically, ALSO coincidentally, ALSO infuriatingly, I now know exactly who and what I am.
I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF THIS HEAD.
Makes me wonder if I should stop.
I don't have any questions today, nor do I have any topics to rant on, but who knows; in the next fifteen seconds I may find something.
...
...
...
...!
I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD.
I've used this phrase in one of my previous torrents. of destruction. ...from the heavens. This is quickly going to become the phrase that describes, if not quantifies, the age old question of "Who the fuck are YOU! And what are you doing in my house!" ...well... the first one. and MAYBE the second one, but only under ...circumstances.
You see... I don't belong here. No shit, huh? But it gets a little creepy rather shortly, so brace yourself. My friends would like to believe it's Disassociative Identity Disorder. In fact, that may be the only way to explain it, except my experience regarding the term is a little more literal than some would take it. They'd love to use the medical definition, but here's the deal: This Identity is UP FRONT to handle social interaction, administration, and all manner of conscious guidance; however, THIS identity, the Stoney you all know and love, is not the 'stock configuration', you might say, of this 'ere carcass I run around in all night long.
It occurred to me some time ago that I am not real.
I am by no means an aggressive takeover; You could say the house was empty when I moved in. The kicker is, I didn't even know I moved in until I looked back and put a few pieces together.
You're giving me the "Whiskey Foxtrot Tango are you talking about, Stoney?" look. I can tell. That's okay. I'll try to put this in as simple terms as I can, but it is going to take a little while:
SEVEN YEARS ago, something happened. What happened? I don't know the cause, perhaps I never will understand it completely, but the result is that I CURRENTLY have NO RECORD in this brain of ANY KIND regarding who the fuck I used to be BEFORE Seven Years Ago. I remember a name, I subliminally recall the junk data they packed into me from Preschool to Eighth Grade in the form of 'lesson plans', I remember brief flashes of building layouts, scents and sounds... but the faces are blurred. Almost all the names were wiped out EXCEPT the legal one my parents branded me with (by 14-years-up-to-then repetitive use). Almost all memories of distinct events or words are nearly entirely obliterated...
...and the things I DO remember from the first 14 years of my life feel distinctly fake, fake enough to make Plan-9 From Outer Space look like Motion Picture of the Year. I've had surrealist nightmares more convincing than the few memories I do posses... And then there's the Data. The data is just facts, with no emotional connections involved, but looking at it evokes a generic response that I would have toward seeing anything as such. Apparantly, the Data, the Statistics, tells me that in the first 14 years, I had been consistently singled out by classmates and focussed on as a kind of hate-sync; the united front of the classrooms appeared to build their foundation on my presence. There was the information that 'peers' refused to use my legal name for the cited and restated, repeated, and drilled expression that 'it's a cool name, and you aren't cool'. Such depressing and distasteful things dominated the contents of The Data. For a time, I even questioned its validity, since everything else was so hard to recall... but this information was corroborated by testimony of my parents back then.
And everything AFTER I turned 14, what I do remember, and I remember quite a bit more, is Crystal Clear.
But distinctly, elements of my personality unless as told from third person perspective are entirely gone. Not a trace. And incidentally, in Grade 9, 14 years old... I remember not feeling anything. No emotions, no opinions, not even numbness. It was the kind of emptiness the fakest emo kids dream of. It was like a nuclear winter, a post-apocalyptic wasteland not IN my mind, but Becoming my mind. And it was not romantic or particularly enlightening. One thing it WAS... was peaceful. My gods... the peace... I went days at a time while I was 14 saying absolutely nothing. Eventually instructors would ask questions, but the answeres were so ... cold, clear, sharp, analytical, and straightforward it made them blink and scratch their heads.
I am not capable of this emptiness anymore. For the longest time, I even thought that those memories were me. No. Those memories were this body. wandering aimless, only knowing to do what it was told to do by its defined superiors. My parents back then were shocked when I got what they called my first entry on an honor roll. Furthermore, they had remarked strangely to the fact that I didn't miss one day of school that year, which leads me to believe that I never ran a year of perfect attendance before that.
In retrospect, the birth of the "Me" that I "Am" today began its larval stages when i turned 15. Online, I ran into a group of people, some of whom are still with me as my closest friends today. They laid the foundation for what would become my personality. Sophomore year of high school brought a struggle, when I experienced lonliness since the first time since the wipe, and sought friends. I learned a lot about finding myself from them....
But I didn't start this to reminisce about my life story.
I got into RP. It was an emotional, psychological study. An exercise for the emulation of fictional personalities. I learned the hard way the difference between IC and OOC. I quickly understood that a character's emotions were not mine, my emotions were not a character's, and crossing the two caused disaster. I learned how to influence my own feelings when needed, or how to create and run the framework of an entire other being in my mind. My characters became real to me, grew their personalities, and took up aspects of narrating (though not running) my life: Cyrus motivated me, Niall supported me, Adrianna congradulated me, and Allyssa soothed me. Stone Hawk became my avatar among them--though He isn't quite 'me' myself either, even if he is the closest to me, and I am honored that his personality definitions do not object violently when I represent myself with his image.
It was not quite multiple personality disorder, because they did not have any control, they 'knew' of the 'real world' when they played the imaginary friend roles, but it only looked as menacing as a comic strip breaking the fourth wall. They knew of Me and my 'life on the outside', and reacted accordingly to my actions and ideas... but I had no idea what it could possibly mean, what it was a sign of...
One late night as my mind bordered on the edge of sleep, I let slip a thought: what if Stone Hawk got to see literally through my eyes, to look at this world as though with his own sight and smell it as if with his own nose?
And then it felt like riding a tram car. The body made the conscious decision, seemingly with my unwitting but nonetheless willing blessings, to follow instead the direction of stone hawk: Adopt his manner, his accent, his gestures and fidgets, and to send the input to HIS place in this brain rather than mine.
... the memories were once again present but artificial in feel once I came back, and Stone recalled that in the back of ...'our' brain, my voice was that of a child... not a condescending remark, but one of curiosity, if not with a touch of worry, and more than a little care. He seemed disturbed at the lack of tail, the presence of plantigrade feet, the nakedness of no fur, the dulled senses of smell and hearing. And HIS memories... were so sharp and clear. I had in the forefront of my mind the exact definitions of what Gin Blossom smelled like, from their RP together: Gunpowder, machine oil, wood, steel, smoke, spices and herbs, even the natural musk, blended, somehow to seem to him, a very pleasing scent... I can understand why he likes Gin's particular blend; he loves her.
But here is the realization of the experience:
This body is the only baseline of consciousness between all of us in this head. It is a passive, empty shell with the craters of a personality that used to be here, but is not anymore... This body is conscious and even vaguely self-aware when I am not at the helm. The entire 'package' that contains every feature of WHO I AM is as supplantable as a SEGA Genesis cartridge...
I was disturbed. Are you disturbed? Probably not. Probably you just don't believe me. Probably, You don't HAVE to. The only issue is that I am unglued; literally unattached. I broke something, some kind of seal in the back of my mind that keeps the emotional bound to the logical and I don't think it can be fixed now, not nearly. Sure, the men in white coats would try to make me pretend... but if they think all I'm doing now is pretending, what good is more pretending going to do? In honesty, I have come to terms with this... and other things. I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF OUR HEAD. I am a social inteface emotional intelligence fixture, and I hope you'll never start to question if you're one for your body, too. I begin to wonder if everyone else is for theirs, and they've simply had the luxury of blissful ignorance that I did up until. If you were to crack them like I cracked myself: slice the emotions off from the logic, let them stare at eachother objectively like the eyes of a Pierson's Puppeteer... or would they be capable of surviving, as I did?
Seven years after this body was born, these hands, infuratingly, ironicly, and coincidentally, broke a mirror. Seven years of ironic, coincidental, infuriating pressure and turmoil caused something to snap, and The Wipe came and went. It's been seven years since the wipe. In these past seven years, I have searched for myself, and ALSO Ironically, ALSO coincidentally, ALSO infuriatingly, I now know exactly who and what I am.
I AM THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF THIS HEAD.
Mikefur
~mikefur
i literally dont know what to say......but what u did and all...searching so deeply about everything..urself..just..deep deep....i have no need to explain..the understandings i have tords u and the truth u have...i get it..though..with me..its hard to explain...u explain realy well....but yeah..i get it..i been thru the same and going thru it now...so deeply....soooo deeply.
