Here's what happened.
Here's the stuff that happened that I alluded to in my last journal.
In March of this year, a rather big event happened, and that was the event of my mother's death. It was a brain aneurysm and absolutely no one suspected it. There was a period of disorganization and chaos and family weirdness, and I don't want to go into a lot of it, but it resulted in my family structure being radically but not negatively altered.
Another thing happened as a result of that, however, and it was an altogether stranger thing. Well, I should rephrase that: I'm not sure if it happened because of my mother's death and the huge stress and inability to properly deal with things and feelings of total uncertainty and all. However, it was a phenomenon that developed sometime after that and that very easily could have been a way to deal with the various kinds of stress and weirdness that followed after my mother's death.
I started to experience my personality as a collection of numerous people. Or, you could say I started to have people in my head whose presence reflected the presence of something inside me. Or, you could say my (admittedly contradictory) personality began to split into different parts and take on their own identities.
When I'm talking to people and I try to explain what exactly it is that went on (or rather, is going on, because it's still going on), I tell them it's kind of like multiple personality disorder or multiplicity, except the people in my head aren't "real people" in that they don't feel like actual presences with full autonomy. (Well, I'm currently trying to figure that bit out, because it's still not entirely clear to me if this really is the case or not.)
But yeah, I've essentially developed "people in my head", and many of these people in my head are absorptions of fictional characters from various media I like. I call them my "facets", because all of them came to be because they related to some facet of my already-existing personality.
Some of them came about because their situations resembled my own. (Example: I have an Arthur Dent facet because, while my experience did not involve my planet blowing up, my experience did involve me suddenly losing something that was a huge part of how my life worked and then having to deal with it.) Some of them came about as ways to express habits or behaviors I already had. (Example: I have an Arthur Shappey facet because his constant attempts at helpfulness and quirkiness are quite similar to behaviors of my own, and it felt more comfortable to express them through the character.) Some of them came about as ways to help me deal with situations. (Example: I have a Douglas Richardson facet because the character's extroversion and conversational skills are things I need to be able to do, and it's really helpful to be able to call up someone like that and go on "autopilot", so to speak, having their behaviors come up naturally.) Some of them came about and I have no idea why. (Example: I have a Fourth Doctor facet and while I like the character a lot, I honestly don't understand why he's here.)
Not all my facets are characters from other things; some of them originated from my mind, and they have similar causes as the fictional ones. There's not as many of them, though. Not sure why.
Anyhow, that was a thing that happened following my mother's death. Another thing that happened - and I'm very much sure this had nothing to do with the event - I ended up realizing everything that's wrong with my worldview. I'm currently trying to systematically break it down, because, the way it's currently structured, it doesn't allow me to feel good unless I'm somehow superior to someone else, it's very easy for me to assume superiority to people who don't share my religious views, and it suggests that I'm only valuable if I'm constantly doing certain things. These are only some of the reasons it's bad.
A bunch of other stuff happened between my last period of journal activity and now, though these are the most important ones. I'm going to use this LiveJournal account to talk about them because, while I talk about them on my Tumblr (my url is thewordsmithy, if you have Tumblr and are keen on following me), there are a lot of things I want to chronicle that I'm afraid my friends on Tumblr will judge me for. I don't want that. But Livejournal seems a somewhat safer place to say them, because I really don't know anyone here, so it's impossible for me to be judged by someone whose opinion I care about.
There you go. That's what's happened. That's what's changed.
In March of this year, a rather big event happened, and that was the event of my mother's death. It was a brain aneurysm and absolutely no one suspected it. There was a period of disorganization and chaos and family weirdness, and I don't want to go into a lot of it, but it resulted in my family structure being radically but not negatively altered.
Another thing happened as a result of that, however, and it was an altogether stranger thing. Well, I should rephrase that: I'm not sure if it happened because of my mother's death and the huge stress and inability to properly deal with things and feelings of total uncertainty and all. However, it was a phenomenon that developed sometime after that and that very easily could have been a way to deal with the various kinds of stress and weirdness that followed after my mother's death.
I started to experience my personality as a collection of numerous people. Or, you could say I started to have people in my head whose presence reflected the presence of something inside me. Or, you could say my (admittedly contradictory) personality began to split into different parts and take on their own identities.
When I'm talking to people and I try to explain what exactly it is that went on (or rather, is going on, because it's still going on), I tell them it's kind of like multiple personality disorder or multiplicity, except the people in my head aren't "real people" in that they don't feel like actual presences with full autonomy. (Well, I'm currently trying to figure that bit out, because it's still not entirely clear to me if this really is the case or not.)
But yeah, I've essentially developed "people in my head", and many of these people in my head are absorptions of fictional characters from various media I like. I call them my "facets", because all of them came to be because they related to some facet of my already-existing personality.
Some of them came about because their situations resembled my own. (Example: I have an Arthur Dent facet because, while my experience did not involve my planet blowing up, my experience did involve me suddenly losing something that was a huge part of how my life worked and then having to deal with it.) Some of them came about as ways to express habits or behaviors I already had. (Example: I have an Arthur Shappey facet because his constant attempts at helpfulness and quirkiness are quite similar to behaviors of my own, and it felt more comfortable to express them through the character.) Some of them came about as ways to help me deal with situations. (Example: I have a Douglas Richardson facet because the character's extroversion and conversational skills are things I need to be able to do, and it's really helpful to be able to call up someone like that and go on "autopilot", so to speak, having their behaviors come up naturally.) Some of them came about and I have no idea why. (Example: I have a Fourth Doctor facet and while I like the character a lot, I honestly don't understand why he's here.)
Not all my facets are characters from other things; some of them originated from my mind, and they have similar causes as the fictional ones. There's not as many of them, though. Not sure why.
Anyhow, that was a thing that happened following my mother's death. Another thing that happened - and I'm very much sure this had nothing to do with the event - I ended up realizing everything that's wrong with my worldview. I'm currently trying to systematically break it down, because, the way it's currently structured, it doesn't allow me to feel good unless I'm somehow superior to someone else, it's very easy for me to assume superiority to people who don't share my religious views, and it suggests that I'm only valuable if I'm constantly doing certain things. These are only some of the reasons it's bad.
A bunch of other stuff happened between my last period of journal activity and now, though these are the most important ones. I'm going to use this LiveJournal account to talk about them because, while I talk about them on my Tumblr (my url is thewordsmithy, if you have Tumblr and are keen on following me), there are a lot of things I want to chronicle that I'm afraid my friends on Tumblr will judge me for. I don't want that. But Livejournal seems a somewhat safer place to say them, because I really don't know anyone here, so it's impossible for me to be judged by someone whose opinion I care about.
There you go. That's what's happened. That's what's changed.