Hello friend. I must say I haven’t missed you. Even though I created you and you are only a voice in my head. It has been a while since I spoke to you. It’s hard but there are things I need to get off my chest. For a while I haven’t been able to hear from you. Amidst a false clarity from the ironic cloud alcohol and narcotics provide, I seem to have lost touch with you. But in my sobriety I can tell that you are there, reading this. I know because I can hear you. I hear you speak the words as I type. I hear it in my head.
It’s funny how life seems to work. Not in reality, but in my head. Because in my head I make up these false ideas and perceptions of what life is even though they may not accurately reflect what actually ‘is’. It’s my perspective. But if that is only how I perceive it, does that really mean it isn’t real.
You for example. Are you not real because I can’t see or feel you, because no one else knows you are there? Or is reality defined by what motivates our actions and thoughts and is not necessarily exclusive to the actions themselves. If something can cause you to act a certain way, then it has effected reality. If that is the case, then you are real. Even though you may not be able to do things yourself, you have (through many perversions of my ideologies and conversations in my head) shaped how I act and feel. You are real.
I sit down and put on music that forces my brain waves into Alpha. I know it works, I hear you best at times like these. So now that you are here I need to ask you a few questions. I need to clear the water between us. We are too different you see. You are not consistent with me, but you are me and that is what makes this so hard. Have I separated you from myself because I refuse to believe that I could feel the things you feel? Think the things you think?
For example, I am not depressed. I am a happy person who can smile and laugh through almost anything. It is part of my identity. It is who I am. So then why do you stay up crying at night? Why are you incapable of writing happy songs? What is your angle here? What is so hard about your life that makes you do this to me?
I love being around people. I love the intense connection eye contact provides and the interaction between other minds. So why are you scared of being in public? Why do you have to resort to chain smoking or drinking excessively to stop yourself having an anxiety attack whenever more than ten people are in your near vicinity? Why do you shy away from contact because when you talk to people the inability to know what they are thinking grips your throat so hard you can’t breathe?
I hate smoking. I hate not having control of my body when I get drunk. I hate embarrassing myself. I hate lying. That is the biggest thing for me; How much you lie. How easily you do it. How I let you do it. You lie to everyone. Even to me. You lie so much you have dug a ditch so deep there is no way to escape from it. I can’t apologise for the lies you have told. Too many people I love will get hurt. But if I keep letting you lie I find myself deeper and deeper in this hole you have dug me.
Lies so deep you convinced me they were true. To the point in which I don’t even know what is true about me anymore. Even scarier is that I don’t know what is false either. I am so scared of forgetting who I am. You already have. You have lied so strongly and I believed you so passionately that the lies became true. You faked a concussion to get out of a stupid school assignment. And as it turns out I developed a brain cyst. One that had no effect on my life nor would it have until your lie got me into hospital. Until I knew it was there. It doesn’t affect me. But it freaks me out how much you have convinced me it has.
Your lies are so good they almost become a reality. I am fine. I am not depressed. I am not addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. I am not scared of people. I am not a liar. Yet here you are again. Telling me I am wrong. Telling me I am a liar for saying I am not. But I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you. You made me one. It is all your fault. You made me scared of rejection. You are the reason I lie so much to try fit in. You convinced me that who I am isn’t good enough for anyone in this world and that I had to be different and interesting to be wanted.
I mean, I do want to be different. I also want to be successful. I want to be known and loved by the world. My problem is that the small group of people who do love me never satisfies me enough. You make me always want more. I am special without you, you know. I am actually really good at music. It scares you that I could be independent from you. That I can find my way without you. It scares you, so you intimidate me. You convince me my music will not be good enough to be liked. That people will laugh at me and ruin the one thing I feel I am really good at. So I don’t share it. I don’t want to lose the only thing I have that gives me hope of losing you. You are a sick bastard.
You look at the glorification of coffee culture and think how it is so cool to be over tired and addicted to a caffeine rush. “Look at that man with bags under his eyes and Starbucks in his hand. He must really work hard.” Never mind. We don’t have Starbucks in South Africa. Except one in Joburg. Fuck Starbucks. Fuck Johannesburg. You look at posts of the internet of people throwing words around like “I am so depressed”, “My ocd is sooooo bad”, “I am so bipolar, I like cry, and then the next day I like…. Smile.” You think it’s funny. I know you do. I don’t think it’s funny. I think it makes a whole lot of people feel really shit and trivialised. You think it’s funny because you don’t really know what it feels like to be trivialised. Well I do and I don’t even have problems like you do.
It’s funny how life works. Not in my head, but in reality. Because the things that you formulated in my head always come true. You have that power over me. I don’t have control over my actions. You do. I don’t think I am crazy. I really don’t. But when you pretend that I have a mental illness or some type of ridiculous phobia I believe it. You are a good liar. Maybe your ability to trick people into letting you out of things you don’t want to do is a sign. A sign that your capability to manipulate and pretend so easily actually shows that you do have a problem, my friend.
That feeling of success you get when you get when you trick someone I love into doing something for you. I hate you for that feeling. You are a fucking sociopath and a narcissist and I hate you. You are so disconnected from everything. You don’t feel empathy. You don’t feel sympathy. You are a fucking brick wall and I hate you. Even a brick wall has more structure and support than you do. That is not me. I love people, I cry when people get hurt. I want to help people and make this world a better place.
I’m not crazy. Fuck you for doing this to me. I am not crazy like you. Please stop. Please leave me alone. I don’t want to drink to forget about you. I don’t want to have sex just to feel above you for a fleeting moment. I want to have a proper connection with other people, with myself. The people that love me don’t deserve what you do to me. What you make me do.
So I want you to read this very carefully. Over and over again. I want you to leave me alone. I want to get rid of you. But I know I can’t. I want to yell at you and call you horrendous names. But I am worn out. I can’t degrade myself any more. You are a coward and I hate you. But you are still me. I am a coward. I am a coward for pretending that you are someone else. But you are me. And I am still a coward. Isn’t that funny; how life works. In my head, and in reality.
Help me.
