From time to time, I talk to my oldest friend, Greg. I've known him since I was 4 1/2 years old. We got in a lot of trouble together during our juvenile years. I considered his parents my second parents.
It seems that whenever we talk about the "good 'ol days" -- which hasn't happened for 2 or 3 years -- Greg brings up one occurrence that he remembers clear as a bell; one that convinced him that his buddy wasn't quite "normal."
I don't remember the particulars of this incident. I don't recall the where or when, but I vaguely acknowledge that it did happen.
Greg came around a corner to find me engaged in a full-blown conversation...with no one! I always passed it off as a case of me simply thinking out loud. Greg, however, always points out that most people don't adopt different voices and appear as different people when they merely are thinking out loud.
The truth of the matter is that Greg caught me talking out loud to the voices in my head. I often talk to them out loud, but I take great care not to do it around other people. Unfortunately, in this particular instance, I wasn't careful enough.
I was reminded of this episode not by my friend but by my brother, Sean. He remembered that I had revealed to him (years after the fact) that I had created a whole group of imaginary friends that I conversed with all throughout my youth. Well, that's what I told him. It was a lot easier to say that I had created the voices instead of the fact that they simply appeared one day. I also didn't bother to mention that I saw the people the voices came from.
These voices and images complicated my life as a child. On one level, I realized that what I heard and saw was not rational -- that they existed solely in my mind -- and yet they were real to me. They were my comrades in arms...except when they said disturbing things. Then they became phantoms.
And the truth that I only recently admitted is that these voices and images never went away. They have followed me throughout my life. At times, they are like my security blanket and, at other times, they scare me out of my wits.
It seems that whenever we talk about the "good 'ol days" -- which hasn't happened for 2 or 3 years -- Greg brings up one occurrence that he remembers clear as a bell; one that convinced him that his buddy wasn't quite "normal."
I don't remember the particulars of this incident. I don't recall the where or when, but I vaguely acknowledge that it did happen.
Greg came around a corner to find me engaged in a full-blown conversation...with no one! I always passed it off as a case of me simply thinking out loud. Greg, however, always points out that most people don't adopt different voices and appear as different people when they merely are thinking out loud.
The truth of the matter is that Greg caught me talking out loud to the voices in my head. I often talk to them out loud, but I take great care not to do it around other people. Unfortunately, in this particular instance, I wasn't careful enough.
I was reminded of this episode not by my friend but by my brother, Sean. He remembered that I had revealed to him (years after the fact) that I had created a whole group of imaginary friends that I conversed with all throughout my youth. Well, that's what I told him. It was a lot easier to say that I had created the voices instead of the fact that they simply appeared one day. I also didn't bother to mention that I saw the people the voices came from.
These voices and images complicated my life as a child. On one level, I realized that what I heard and saw was not rational -- that they existed solely in my mind -- and yet they were real to me. They were my comrades in arms...except when they said disturbing things. Then they became phantoms.
And the truth that I only recently admitted is that these voices and images never went away. They have followed me throughout my life. At times, they are like my security blanket and, at other times, they scare me out of my wits.
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