What it feels like to be nobody

Public Domain image from the internet.

            I am always tired these days, yet I hardly sleep. When I am alone in bed, when my consciousness drops, I am filled to overflowing with self-derision and hopelessness. The voices in my head clang and clamor for notice. They become accusatory and critical, shouting at me about my weight, my looks, and anything I can do nothing about. Sometimes they become silent watchers, looming over me like an impatient crowd. Have you ever tried to sleep with the feeling that someone was watching you? It’s gotten so that even the bathtub is scary. Lying naked and prone and helpless does invite stress, and when stress is involved, so are The People (that’s what I call them). I doubt they’d be scared of the washcloth or my leg razor, which is all I’d have to fight them with.

            I have various strategies for dealing with these kinds of invasions. Usually, I turn The People into giant milk cartons and imagine running them over with my car. The SPLAT  they make is incredibly satisfying. Sometimes I just repeat to myself, “No, there’s nobody there. No, there’s nobody there.” My mind is excellent at searching out holes in logic, or gaps in plans, though. As soon as I can think of a defense against these phantasms, they’re on to it. Attack and counter-attack. Point and counter-point. An endless war no one can see.

The problem is I can feel them there, watching. And I can hear them there, commenting. That feeling you get when there’s someone standing behind you is the same feeling of a presence I get when The People are nearby. And they are never far away from me.

When I was younger, I thought they were ghosts. I thought I was special. I thought the gift of seeing all of these apparitions was for me alone. Everything had to do with me, and I ran round and round in my egocentric circles. That billboard? A special sign for me. 3 stones in a row? An augury of great importance for me. A double-take on the street, or a penny on the ground? You guessed it. That must be why there’s a “me” in “meaning”. Everything I thought had a circular logic that brought it back to me.

On medication, this all changed. The fabulous circus exploding in my head was gone, wiped clean and fresh as new milk. Except that it came back. Small at first, and unnoticed, it crept in like a burglar. It took the things I valued most: privacy, serenity, silence. The difference is I’ve learned that chance happenings in the world or random glances from others have nothing to do with me. Indeed the planet requires no observation to do its boogey-woogey thing. Still, The People haunt me.

Here’s the thing that makes me human, the thing that keeps everyone guessing what the difference is between them and a madman: in my head it’s still all about me. Everything I see or touch is filtered by my cognizance of it. And the contradiction strikes me flat every time I think of it. Inside is this “I” that has a sense that it is valuable and rare. Outside is proof that millions and billions of I’s exist all at once, each pushing and pulling according to their own little introverted desires. Welcome to humanity, I say. This is what it’s like to be nobody.