ID 101 - 6: Hidden personality?

Mr. Robot

As all of this was going on in my head, something strange happened!

Mr Robot on IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4158110/

The official synopsis reads:

Elliot, a brilliant but highly unstable young cyber-security engineer and vigilante hacker, becomes a key figure in a complex game of global dominance when he and his shadowy allies try to take down the corrupt corporation he works for (imdb.com)

However, the story as I saw it was a different one. Elliot had been abused as a child and had Disassociated Personality Disorder. I did not want to watch it. Yet I was compelled. I could not stop staring at the TV, episode after episode, with my heart in my throat and leaky eyes.

Then the last episode of the last season came. The outcome was that Elliot was a new personality that he had created to survive the harm he suffered. But his original personality was too fragile to survive in the real world and could not be re-integrated.

I cried. Or rather I watched myself cry. I watched myself for hours. I was inconsolable. As the tears stopped a few times I saw myself catching my breath, and then a new wave would come. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t do anything. I could just watch myself.

I didn’t know why I was reacting like that. It was not something to which I could relate. I was quite amazed at the effect that it had had on me.

Even now, almost two years later, and while analysing everything I am uncertain. I have a couple of theories.

1. My younger self (i.e., another personality!) was afraid that he too would be buried away, and effectively cease to exist.
2. Another possible interpretation is that my subconscious was reminding me that I have undealt issues, and it was giving me an option to address these issues pragmatically. Creating an alternative personality who has lived through these experiences and being able to discuss them in the third person could be a way to begin tackling those soul-destroying events.

It is all just speculation now, and as I delve deeper in the next section; I may confirm or disprove either of these theories, come up with new ones, or find that this could just be a musing of the psyche rather than of any significance.

I must admit that I liked this option of another “Little me”. Of the fact that I can talk about things in the third person. That I can ease myself into these gut-wrenching memories. I also feel shame for taking this option. If my younger self is really a “disassociated” personality, I am very disrespectful. I am a coward. He lived through this, I should … I guess the best word for it is “own”. Yes, I should own my memories.

As I was thinking through these points, over time, I became increasingly aware that on occasions I was in fact “watching” myself. In a noteworthy way!

 

I feel like I am watching myself

As I grew up in my adopted family, it seemed everything I did was wrong. From how I would stand, to how I would walk, or move my hands, to how I talked, as well as what I said. There was a pressure that I should have not been who I was. I had to construct this “me” person in a way that did not cause offense.

This led me to carefully plan everything I did and said. The maxim “think before you speak” became “think before you are”. In due course, everything I did and said was carefully scripted in advance. I had a range of hundreds of behaviours and sentences that had been proven to be “acceptable”. Eventually, even likeable. I drew on these for my daily actions and interactions and kept developing new ones.

That meant that I had to watch myself. All the time!

So, watching myself probably means something different to me than it does to other people. It is something intrinsic within me. It’s part of the conditioned behaviour that came out of my childhood.

However, throughout life I have always experienced a different type of “watching” myself. And it is probably more literal.

It involves seeing myself in the third person. As if I am literally watching someone. It is a little weird as while I do this, I am still in my body. So, it’s not an out of body experience or astral projection, or similar event.

Until the past few years either this was only occasional, or I was not paying attention and confused it with my daily “monitoring” routine. It has become increasingly common since I have been able to spend time on my own. And it does happen only when I am completely alone. [And this watching myself is different in that I don't see myself in the third person, but rather I see myself from the inside. I feel my muscles, my expressions, tears flowing down; interoception without will, in many ways]

This presents itself in several ways. They can be broken into many distinct categories, but at the top level I am:

• Watching my actions
• Watching my thoughts
• Watching my feelings

 

Watching my actions

These are just moments. Brief moments. Usually I see myself watching something, staring in the distance, smiling. I can feel I have a silly childish smile on my face. I find it amusing.

Lately, this also happens when I am walking in the park. I find myself throwing stones in the pond. Staring at birds and clouds. Trivial things. Things that seem to bring me joy, although I am not sure that it is my own joy.

 

Watching my thoughts

I talk to myself, like every respectable crazy person. I do control it quite well, and people will rarely see me doing so. But I do. Petty things. Like a car does not let me cross the road, and I might say “whatever”, or “wanker”. Or I might see people laughing, and think aloud “oh, that’s nice”. Unimportant things like that.

However, I have noticed that I might say something when I am not thinking anything. For example, sometimes I hear myself saying something like “what the hell?!”  This would normally happen when I am thinking or noticing something that meets with my disapproval. Yet, as I say that I think “why am I saying it?”

On other occasions I say things like “I hate me”, or “I want to die”. That is not me. I don’t hate me. Following the “invent yourself” principle, I would just correct anything I don’t like about me. Why am I saying it? And I don’t want to die. I have another 40-50 years ahead of me, so much I can do! Why am I saying those things?

Another sign is a little stranger. I know when my brain is working hard. It’s usually tingling, buzzing with electricity, and pressure floating in different areas. Sometimes in all areas. And sometimes I can feel that my brain is thinking, but I don’t know what.

A further, and probably more striking example, are my writings. I often write stuff without knowing what I am writing. I can hear my brain telling my hand what to write, but those words do not come from me. My Unified Theory of the Universe is a particularly good example, although there are others.

For example, as I am going through this process of analysing myself in this paper, I am recounting some of my memories and writing them down. Yet most often, these are not memories I own. My brain is telling me a story that my hand writes it. Sometimes I know these memories to be correct. Others I don’t. And I don’t know what I am writing until I read it afterwards!

 

Watching my feelings

The most obvious example of this happening is the Mr. Robot (on page 18) incident. But there are many more.

The most common is when recollecting past events. As I write them and my brain is telling me a story, I often find myself feelings that I do not own. They are not my feeling. I feel as if a dear friend is confiding in me. I empathise, but they are not my feelings.

Others is when watching TV. I often cry (or laugh) excessively. Feelings have a depth with which I am not familiar.

Other times is joy. When working in the park and some geese chase each other on the water, or watching the waves made by a stone thrown in the pond. A joy that is not mine. That I do not know, nor own.

Weird, right?!