Voices

For as long as I've remembered, I've heard voices in my head. Now, to be clear, I'm not talking about the crazy voices that tell you to set fire to things or to hurt people.

Those voices only pop up when I'm seated next to a toddler at a restaurant

No, rather, these voices are more like voices of doubt. Those nagging little voices that tell you that you're wrong, or that you're going to make a fool of yourself. The voices that tell you that people don't like you or that they are making fun of you. And the thing is, I imagine everyone has those little voices. The problem I have is that there's no filter and no off switch. Every day for me is a series of endless, overlapping conversations, picking apart everything I do and everything happening around me.

For instance, let's take a typical day at work:

"Uh oh, a server just went down."
"Maybe someone is patching it. Let's give it a few minutes and see if it comes back up."
"But what if they aren't patching?"
"It's the normal maintenance window, so it--"
"Now it's been down two minutes. What if it's broken?"
"I'm sure it's fine."
"But what if it isn't?"
"It's fine, isn't it?"
"It's been down three minutes. Can we call someone yet?"

In those circumstances, 99% of the time, everything is perfectly fine, but sitting there, staring at that screen waiting for it to clear is torture.

Social situations are no better:

"I don't know what I want to eat."
"You better think of something, she already knows what she wants."
"I could get the same thing I always get."
"I dunno, she might judge you for being boring."
"She's never judged me before."
"That you know of!"
"But why would she--"
"Because you're boring."
"..."
"You still don't know what you want to eat, do you?"

Even making a simple phone call can be tiring:

"You're not going to call them, are you?"
"Why not? They call me from time to time with no real purpose. Why can't I?"
"What if they're busy?"
"Well--"
"You could be interrupting something important. They do have a life outside of you, you know!"
"True--"
"Do you have anything to talk about?"
"Actually, no--"
"If you call them, they're going to be expecting you to have a reason for calling. You can't just call them up out of the blue, never mind if you're disrupting their day or not, and then ramble on about something stupid, or worse, sit in silence expecting them to talk to you!"
"Why not? My friends call me and talk to me. Why can't I talk to them?"
"Because they have interesting things to talk about! They don't have to have conversations in their head to figure out what a good topic of conversation would be. What would you talk to them about?"
",,,"

These are of course generalized. To get a better idea of just what goes on in my head on a daily basis, imagine those conversations overlapped with similar conversations, working out the different ways I can be helpful with the given situation at work, all while considering all the ways I could make things worse. Or thinking about what I should order while thinking about every possible path the conversation could go, good or bad. It's quite exhausting, which is why most days I'm perfectly content to just stay home and avoid it all.

Not that that is much quieter. When I'm at home, there's the inevitable question of how to pass the time, which brings on another overlapping chorus of voices with suggestions and arguments about how to best pass the time. Most of the time, I just side step the whole issue by watching reruns of the Simpsons.

Truth be told, I can only think of one particular time when all the conflicting voices shut up. It was a rather unique situation that I found myself in. In that given moment, I should have been bombarded with every form of confusion, self doubt, and worry. But instead, it was as if every voice decided unanimously to sit back and just wait to see what happened next.

Now, I won't disclose just what happened, as it is a memory I'd like to keep for myself, but I can say that at that time, I had a moment of actual peace and calm. I was happy, and for that moment I didn't feel abnormal or an outsider or any of the feelings I typically have when trying to interact with others. It was nice. And it lasted right up until someone asked me a question that I wasn't prepared for and brought all those voices of doubt crashing back into my head and drowning everything out with a chorus of overlapping shouts of worry, concern, anxiety, and regret.

And, unfortunately, I've never really been able to capture that moment again.

So, all I can do is learn to deal with it. Over the years, I've managed to adjust the volume a bit on the nagging voices. They're still there, but at least I can function despite them.

I usually like to end these posts with a joke or some sort of funny drawing, but something's telling me that perhaps I've rambled on long enough.