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The Voices Explain Themselves
For years, I have heard voices. They were real to me, but no one else. I thought I was going crazy. My family and friends did too, no doubt. But over the last few years, I have noticed characteristics in myself that had been overlooked for decades. I did some research and found names for these characteristics. Object permanence, the phenomenon when if I do not see an object, my mind doesn't give it realism. If someone puts something somewhere, and I am not aware, I will overlook it as if it were not there. My mind rarely focuses on anything or any task for more than a few minutes. And I hear voices.
Though it seems odd to others around me, it has always seemed normal to me. Almost as normal as being in a crowded room. Sometimes it is hard to even think through the commotion. The strangest thing about it, is how they usually help me to solve problems mentally. For me, every task is a group project. Usually, this is a blessing, but there are times I wish they were silent so I can sleep.
Today was one of those days. Nothing was silencing the group. Some days or nights, I find myself in a mental battle of thoughts, because the voices often do not agree with my opinions. This was also true of tonight. I wasn't understanding my Microeconomics homework and wanted to go to sleep, but one of the voices wouldn't let me. We argued about my intelligence for nearly an hour as I paced my living room floor. Finally, we agreed to hear each other out. I brought my case to the bench first. The words are big, I am distracted, and for some reason, my energy levels are super high.
Then the voice rocked my world from within the confines of my skull. "Have you ever heard the expression (I'm not that guy anymore)? Well, it holds more truth than many could understand. You see, most people have personality shifts that are slightly noticed. In you, your mind was broken as a child, and you suffer from ADHD. Each voice you hear is just a series of broken thoughts that your mind is trying to maintain. But any new stimuli causes your train of thought to violently jump the tracks. That is how you can have this conversation in your head right now. Your right and left hemispheres of your brain lack the proper amount of synapses to properly communicate with each other, while each also has entirely too many firing within their zones." It took me quite some time to register and evaluate his claim, but I cannot disprove it. And the more I focused on the voice, the more I realized the voice I heard was mine. Once I allowed myself to focus on this new possibility, an example came into my head. The USA is one country. It has one elected leader above all. But this one country is formed by fifty states. Each state has its own government and leadership. Each state has counties, counties have cities and townships. That is exactly how a human brain works. The projected "self," your identity, runs your mind and makes your choices. In the case of humans like me, it is more like the British Monarchy, the "self" sitting in a position of power, but most important tasks are delegated to other important officials of the mind.
In a standard brain, all stimuli are channeled and directed to work together to make sense of its surroundings. In a mind such as mine, each sense registers the stimuli and forms its own synopsis of the situation, and then the "over-mind" tries to determine what is logical and what is not. My voices are just my mind's way of making sense of conflicting data.
I understand how to accomplish my scholastic goals now. Unlike regular minds that process everything at once, I have to switch off data flow for unnecessary mental processes and focus on one at a time. If I am doing math, I need to shut off art, vocabulary, and literacy. If I am reading a chapter for Microeconomics, I should only have reading comprehension active. Once I realized this I took a short break to clear my mind, then reopened the document for reading. It seemed completely different than before, and I understood what I was reading. And as for the voices, they let me read in peace.
© Geoffrey Shelton
Though it seems odd to others around me, it has always seemed normal to me. Almost as normal as being in a crowded room. Sometimes it is hard to even think through the commotion. The strangest thing about it, is how they usually help me to solve problems mentally. For me, every task is a group project. Usually, this is a blessing, but there are times I wish they were silent so I can sleep.
Today was one of those days. Nothing was silencing the group. Some days or nights, I find myself in a mental battle of thoughts, because the voices often do not agree with my opinions. This was also true of tonight. I wasn't understanding my Microeconomics homework and wanted to go to sleep, but one of the voices wouldn't let me. We argued about my intelligence for nearly an hour as I paced my living room floor. Finally, we agreed to hear each other out. I brought my case to the bench first. The words are big, I am distracted, and for some reason, my energy levels are super high.
Then the voice rocked my world from within the confines of my skull. "Have you ever heard the expression (I'm not that guy anymore)? Well, it holds more truth than many could understand. You see, most people have personality shifts that are slightly noticed. In you, your mind was broken as a child, and you suffer from ADHD. Each voice you hear is just a series of broken thoughts that your mind is trying to maintain. But any new stimuli causes your train of thought to violently jump the tracks. That is how you can have this conversation in your head right now. Your right and left hemispheres of your brain lack the proper amount of synapses to properly communicate with each other, while each also has entirely too many firing within their zones." It took me quite some time to register and evaluate his claim, but I cannot disprove it. And the more I focused on the voice, the more I realized the voice I heard was mine. Once I allowed myself to focus on this new possibility, an example came into my head. The USA is one country. It has one elected leader above all. But this one country is formed by fifty states. Each state has its own government and leadership. Each state has counties, counties have cities and townships. That is exactly how a human brain works. The projected "self," your identity, runs your mind and makes your choices. In the case of humans like me, it is more like the British Monarchy, the "self" sitting in a position of power, but most important tasks are delegated to other important officials of the mind.
In a standard brain, all stimuli are channeled and directed to work together to make sense of its surroundings. In a mind such as mine, each sense registers the stimuli and forms its own synopsis of the situation, and then the "over-mind" tries to determine what is logical and what is not. My voices are just my mind's way of making sense of conflicting data.
I understand how to accomplish my scholastic goals now. Unlike regular minds that process everything at once, I have to switch off data flow for unnecessary mental processes and focus on one at a time. If I am doing math, I need to shut off art, vocabulary, and literacy. If I am reading a chapter for Microeconomics, I should only have reading comprehension active. Once I realized this I took a short break to clear my mind, then reopened the document for reading. It seemed completely different than before, and I understood what I was reading. And as for the voices, they let me read in peace.
© Geoffrey Shelton
