when i felt this way about people talking about being systems it's because i was a system the whole time
when i felt this way about the effects of sexual trauma it was because i had sexual trauma the whole time
when i felt this way about people talking about trauma its because i was traumatized the whole time
so now it's time to face the fact that i've always felt this way about being psychotic, i've always felt this same way, i've always felt like that about it but this one is demonstrably false
i used to think the same about the others too but i was mistaken, this time i'm not mistaken
i don't hallucinate i don't have delusions so i'm not psychotic and i'm not mistaken on that
and yet in my gut i have the same feeling i always have when i'm trying not to realize something about myself
i have the same looming knowledge that there's something about me that i can't see, and i've always felt this way, ever since i was a little kid
when i first read about psychotic disorders, i was transfixed. did you know that? i was a little kid and i'd make myself up on the internet like i was an asylum escapee
(or rather, my ocs were, but they had more of aa sense of self than i did back then. i never really talked about myself back then. the ability to see myself as a person with characteristics is a very new thing for me, i used to never think about myself at all, every song and every piece of art and every poem and everything in the world was only ever about my roleplay muses, my comfort characters, my favorite ships, never ever once about myself until i was well into my sophomore year of college)
but i had never had a hallucination in my life and i was never delusional, and i'm still not
at least i don't think i am, and i think it would only be paranoia to convince myself that i'm just not self-aware about it
and yet, i feel this way.
i feel this way, and it's confusing to feel this way, and i've said it before and i'll say it again that my primary emotion is just confusion,
i think i'm convinced that i don't exist but not in the sense that i think i'm in a simulation or that i don't literally physically exist,
it's more like i'm not really a person, i'm just
...
well, i don't know what.
every time i've felt this way, every time my gut gave me this shock of extreme discomfort, this gnawing feeling almost like jealousy, it's been a sign
my gut has always, always been right before
but this time, it's not
i was obsessed with it. obsessed wih the idea, as a child, that i was actually psychotic even though i wasn't. i'd watch documentaries, research everything that was in my reading level, make elaborate backstories for my ocs which i thought about more than i ever thought about myself,
i think it made me feel special. or, it gave me a way to ignore the fact that i'm not special.
and yet, i feel this way, and yet, my gut has never been wrong before, and yet, this time it is wrong. demostrably, it is wrong. it never has been before.
so what gives?