Sometimes the voices in my head can’t shut up and I have these running monologues with myself. I recently (today) I realised that these running monologues occur the most when I’m doing some mundane tasks like washing dishes. These thoughts…when I was younger someone once told me that he could hear me thinking. I know when these thoughts come running through my head, I kinda zone out…I’m there but not there. I remember going for walks and talking aloud to myself and getting funny looks. The thoughts don’t stop till I get them out….that’s where blogging really helps….stops me from zoning out. As a child I just daydreamt all the time….and my daydreams were in the present with myself in my head…I had this imaginary twin and I would tell myself what she would say in my head. I still have running conversations with myself and the only time I know I’m feeling very low is when I can’t hear myself in my head! So then, I suppose the feelings of everything about me not being real (jamais vu) I used to have was some type of extreme zoning out. The first time ever, I remember zoning out was in boarding school (many moons ago!)…I was talking my final exams and all of a sudden, I didn’t know who I was or where I was…but I had the foresight to just sit tight and not move from my desk. After that, I can’t remember it happening again till maybe after university – tell a lie- it used to happen a lot during university (on campus) cos I remember asking a friend if he knew of anyone who would suddenly kind of blank out…where all of a sudden you don’t know where you are and who you are. He said it happens to his mom! I suppose that’s when I heard the term jamais vu for the first time.
And when I wasn’t zoning out…I would have these thoughts…always so scary! My almost daily prayer used to be ‘God keep me from evil thoughts’ cos sometimes the thoughts were so random, graphically violent. (I have never been to a shrink…don’t need to…got a blog now)
Another thing that has helped me deal with random thoughts is music…I forever have earphones in when I am out and about and this stops me drifting off or zoning out. When I used to zone out…I would tell myself my name and where I live. Sometimes (before I started blogging avidly) I would wonder what would happen if I drifted so far (zoned out) and could not bring myself back. God will bring me back…my prayer is that I always have enough presence of mind to not lose myself.
(just found out – that it can also be derealisation – that makes sense/ cos when it happens everything around me is suddenly unreal – lasts about less than a minute (I hope). Don’t know…never timed it obviously…just always waited for it to pass. But like I said earlier God’s got my back! Actually, asked my husband once, if it ever happened to him, he looked so terrified, I never discussed it again.
DESIGNWITHFLAIR 