I swear I’m not crazy. I’m not supposed to be here, and I don’t know how to get home.
To be clear- I guess I used to be here, or a different Me used to be here. But several little things are slightly off and I have this feeling that I’m like… a visitor or something. Eating utensils have a strange, metallic taste instead of being recyclable wood and public transport vehicles have many single or double seats facing forward instead of long benches along the windows. Automatic doors slide left and right into the wall instead of up into the ceiling. There is no center lane on the highway for motorcyclists. Even some trees I see regularly just look… different.
I’ve been encouraged to write about it in an effort to “find the root of what’s making me feel this otherness.” The therapist I just started seeing recently obviously thinks I’m having some kind of an identity crisis. I have never been a believer in the paranormal but I’m exploring every avenue because this shit just doesn’t make any rational sense. Maybe someone who reads this knows what I mean or can get me in touch with someone who can explain what’s happening to me.
I went to my boring office job to do my boring work, like any other day. I very clearly remember looking at the time in the corner of my computer screen. It read 3:26 PM. I had to go use the bathroom and decided to grab a drink from the breakroom. My coworker from the cubicle next door was walking back towards his workspace, presumably from his lunch break. As I stood up and stretched a bit, he asked me “Hey man, do you know what time it is?” I yawned and said “Half past three,” as I glanced back at my monitor. The clock now read 12:03 PM. As I stared at the screen, dumbfounded, my coworker said something like “What? There’s no way” but I’m not entirely sure, because I nearly passed out at that moment. I remember this wave of lightheadedness coming over me and having to grab the back of my chair and the cubicle wall to remain upright. I suddenly felt extremely nauseous and just… wrong. I’ve only experienced that heady feeling once before, when I was a really young kid and pulled a muscle in my neck from whipping my head too fast to look at the clock and see if it was dinnertime yet. My Mom loved to tell that story, because she said I kept lifting my arms up and asking if we were in outer space. She would joke that one boy went up to the moon and a different one came back down.
I know I rushed to the bathroom and the rest of the work day was kind of normal, except for the fact that I felt like I had worked a shift and a half by the end of it. I got on the bus to go home and saw the change in the seating, as I mentioned earlier. I knew the driver since I took this bus four days a week and I asked her about the new layout, but she acted confused and gave me a “sure, pal” or something like that instead of addressing me by name like she normally did. When I got home I felt sick again, because my apartment building was grey brick. I know, I know, I KNOW that it’s a sort of reddish-tan brick. I see it every day of my life. I’ve taken pictures in front of it. When I went inside, I found my apartment trashed. It was disgusting. Stacks of dirty dishes with fruit flies buzzing around them, clothes that had clearly been worn a few times before getting thrown into a corner pile, several stiff hand towels next to the mattress that was on the floor in the bedroom. I would never live like this. When I looked around, I had that spacey feeling again like reality was going in and out of focus. I remember that I tried to pull up the pictures from the day I moved in, and my PIN wouldn’t unlock my phone. That was the same PIN I used for everything, for years. I know that’s bad practice but like, what the fuck? My fingerprint ID worked, so I guess I’m physically still me. When I found the pictures… the building was grey. I had the first panic attack that I’ve ever had in my life, right then.
There have been lots of little changes here and there. I stopped bringing them up to the people in my life. After the first week or so since the “half past three” incident, people started to act more concerned than amused when I talked about things being different. Apparently, at first everyone thought that I was “seeing my life from a brighter perspective” or some shit like that. I’ve put it together that I, or the other Me, used to be very depressed- or rather, He IS depressed. He was withdrawn and didn’t form relationships with anyone around Him. Coworkers that I had been friendly with knew next to nothing about me. When I called my sister, something I always did a couple times a week, she seemed genuinely surprised to hear from me. I’d say it was about a month after the incident when my cubicle-neighbor slapped me on the back and congratulated me on feeling better. He told me that it was obvious that I’d been “bummed out” for quite a while and he was glad to see me doing well. He and I started talking more and I occasionally went out with a group of coworkers for drinks like I used to. We started dating and there have been a few times that I’ve tried to broach this subject with him, while desperately trying not to come off like a conspiracy theorist. It was at my boyfriend’s suggestion that I started therapy.
My therapist thinks I was in a state of deep depression, possibly brought on by the long and drawn-out death of my mother. It was dramatic and theatrical, very fitting for her. Not with her dying breath, but the last thing she said to my sister and I was straight out of a drama. She held one of our hands in each of hers and looked at my sister, saying “I love you, Ang,” then looked into my eyes for several silent moments and quietly said “I’ve always loved both of you.” Anyways, the doctor thinks I’ve muddled or fogged up my memories because I was running on autopilot or something after my Mom died. She says that since I was so unlike myself during that period, I see Him as a totally separate person. But how does that explain the little things that have nothing to do with my personality? Can depression make you think that dogs are supposed to wear leashes around their stomach instead of choking them around their throats? I haven’t been completely honest with my therapist about everything I’ve noticed because I don’t want to get locked up or have anyone think I’m on the verge of psychosis.
I have rare moments of panic where I feel like I’m in a dream or something. I’m terrified that I’m going to like, look at my watch and suddenly be a different person. I’m not going to lie, sometimes there’s a strong temptation to just say “fuck it” and do whatever I want to do, because consequences don’t matter when you’re not real. But I fight through those urges and try to make the best of this life. No- MY life. Besides the nagging feeling that I’m not real, the only thing that really upsets me are the headaches. Randomly, I’ll get a painful, splitting headache, followed by a super brief but super strong wave a terrible sadness before snapping out of it.
It always happens at about half past three.