Letters to an Existential Buddy
I have a new friend in my life who has been the first one to directly relate to my feeling of existential shock and terror. Yesterday I allowed myself to dump a wall of text on them and today I decided it’d be good to go through that text again… and why not do it publicly? Here we go.
What's your take on Parts?
It so awful when I try to think of myself in Parts
I get really confused about who the fuck I am
And I feel like people are gaslighting me, talkin’ 'bout me being parts. It's just a chattering insane voice in there. No parts. Unless there ARE…!? Then I second guess myself and then obsess over if I am parts or not
Then I wonder if the obsessing thoughts about Parts are Parts, too. I just get lost, using my mind to understand itself but it goes crazy looking in the mirror. Like I am a paradox.
I struggle to follow what I'm reading if I'm attempting to read because I'll be distracted my thoughts occurring over the attempt to read. The thoughts are just wild, unable to tell you what they're about. Crazy. And I'll be feeling that while also trying to read. And I can't read a sentence without getting distracted by my own metacognition
My thoughts ruminate about whether they are thoughts. Then these thoughts about my thoughts thinking about my thoughts I ruminate on.
I ruminate on whether I'm feeling my emotion or if I am actually emotionally clogged and if I am why am I so afraid to feeling emotions. Then I think I must be too afraid to be human from being religious.
Then I ruminate on how surely this is all pointless to think about and I should stop caring about it, I'll never get an answer, life is a mystery. Then I'll feel defensive, like, no, I am not going to just submit to the mystery. I’m not going to stop asking questions. Just like what they asked me to do in Christianity.
Then I wonder if I've always been like this. And I wonder if any of my memories actually happened. They don't feel like they did. But even if they didn't, explain to me how I am 42 years old and have a body stored with someone's memories
Then I feel self conscious, like these thoughts are just crazy and if I keep talking about this, people are going to get tired of it or worse: not understand me and I don't get reassurance.
Then I worry that you're trying to focus on something but your phone keeps vibrating cuz I am texting you, so I think I should stop putting a wall of text on you and disturbing your night. Then I notice my own self hatred thought and I feel contempt for myself for hating myself.
I hate myself for hating myself
Then I think no one else thinks like this, Marie, with these thoughts. You are alone with your mental hell and you can never really let anyone know how unsafe you constantly feel within yourself because the superficial love from others is better than being seen as truly crazy as you are
I just now went to check an email from a friend, responded, then when I exited out the app, I suddenly felt like I woke up in shock cuz I couldn't remember if I had been on the phone for a while now or what my intention was with being on the phone, was I trying to get off it? What was I doing? Then remembering I was texting you and then part of me is like "oh God, that's so embarrassing, I was hoping that was a dream that I spilled all that shit out to her... Oh God"
Then I think of something else to tell you about - another thought I have but then I quickly forget it and feel really scared that I can lose a thought so quickly and frequently. Like holding water. Surely it’s not supposed to do this?
I had two dozen more of these crazy thoughts while just now switching to another app to message someone. The thoughts are speeding away all the time blah’ing about metacognition and what is its own nature? My mind wants to understand itself. Know how to relate to being aware of itself.
The thoughts speed about how surely my mind isn't supposed to be doing THIS, right? And I keep trying to tell people this is going on and they say it's just my thoughts and meditate and just notice them.
I want to understand my subjective nature and how to relate to it. It isn't a philosophical question for me. It is a very real, very much happening right now question. And I feel like everyone's just saying one of a few things:
No one knows
It's your parts
It's your soul
Don't worry about it
Just trust it. Surrender.
It’s intrusive thoughts
It’s trauma
How fucking unsatisfying, these options
I know grounding can be found with animals so sometimes I try to send all my focus onto intuiting what my cats are doing, thinking, or feeling. Like viewing them emotionally. How are they acting? Deduce their mind from their actions. I have spent so much time reading into humans that animals and babies are soothing to me, psychoanalytically speaking.
Then I have thoughts about whether I am absolutely mad that I think like this, or that I'm a genius, or I'm neither... I am just curious about nature and asking natural questions.
But then people keep calling me gifted, that I have a high IQ, that I am neurodivergent and have ADHD. I have no idea what that means about the nature of myself. So what parts of me are ADHD? And what parts are me? What is the smart? Where do I find that? What neuro did I "diverge" from exactly? I am not particularly fast to buy into culture’s language for reality and humanity at this point. This species has fully disillusioned me and I cannot trust any system within it.
