Surreal I

There are those days where the world seems to turn so strange. I find myself grasping at straws as if they were reality. I find the world splintering, then melting then in a panicked blink everything is as it was and nothing changed except me who revealed his madness to the world. I felt their eyes on me as I struggled to maintain myself, to preserve my life in these strange experiences. I would leave and try to avoid this people, but I soon realized there would always be people like that.​

​I also spent too much of my youth running in fear or cowering as the world broke down around me. There was so much that could go wrong if I panicked, so I decided around my teens to accept what the world was to me and watch as it all disappeared.

I remember the first day I tried this method. I was in class watching a science lesson show me what molecules did in their different states and then I watched as everything began to vibrate. I suppose the lesson had a great affect on me as I began to see the world as if it were vibrating molecules. Watching as those tight clusters of atoms called people and objects, but also watching those molecules that would be a lot less static as millions of atoms would fly from the object and bounce around this world at a great distance.

It was safe to say that lesson had the greatest effect on me when I realized that the atoms of everything could either be static like the objects as we saw them, or as frantic as beams of light. It was wholly strange to realize that I shared the atoms of everyone in that room and scientifically speaking, we were all of the same entity. By the end of that I took it further and followed the bouncing atoms of the universe and realized that we were all one cosmic being that would never die and our planet was much an atom to the rest of the universe, everlasting, but ever changing.

By the time the lesson ended so did my hallucination and I left the class smiling. It was odd in itself, but then again, everyone seemed happy to leave the class. My experiment with these hallucinations went further to the point in my first job.

I had been working there nearly three months and doing well. I even believed that a promotion was on the way because some higher ups retired or were simply let go. It left openings that needed to be filled by the most qualified employee and that was me.

Of course, that changed when I had another hallucination in the middle of my work. These things never lasted for long and I figured I could continue with my work just ignoring them. However, everything was altered when I was in that surreal trance. My vision, my hearing and ever my sense of touch. So when it came down to writing a list of instructions to newer employees I had in fact used a metal ruler to carve the list into an unrelated book.

The pages tore of course and soon people noticed. When my hallucination ended it was downhill from there. The fear in their eyes when they looked at me as heartbreaking. I had known these people so long, some even from university and they knew about my disorder. Still, so many of them could only imagine it as if there was a knife in my hand and a person I was cutting the list into. It would never happen, nowhere near possible, yet there were some who just spread their fear and any consideration I had of being promoted was dashed in a moment.

I returned home that day saddened, rather than angry. There is so much wrong with what I saw, but now it was affecting my life harshly. I used to get by and accepting my hallucinations only took me to higher places. Now, it was a hindrance and my mind began to work against me.

Negativity pushed some special button and the hallucinations became much more frequent. From having once a week to having several in a day. It was my worst nightmare brought to life and that disturbed feeling only made it worse. What could I do to fight it? Nothing, but be still.

Now, there were times where it would be bad to stay still. Crossing the road for instance or leaving a train at your stop. You can tell where I am going with this. I was starting to arrive late to work and even when I was there I wasn’t getting much done. My mind wouldn’t let me.

I was fired for not completing my tasks and yes, I could have sued them for firing me over my disorder, but I promised them it wouldn’t happen. I could understand their feelings and quite frankly, they were my friends up till the end. I was given a sad farewell and driven home and guided into my apartment. I was given calls every now and then from the people at my old work to check and see if I was doing okay.

When my moments passed and I saw the apartment, the madness of objects it had become. The clutter, the hoarding, the horror. I lied to them and told them everything was alright.

I was stuck, stuck in a situation I could not accept and would not accept. I had no money, no job and I was fast losing hope. I turned to the only people that had my back through thick and thin although we didn’t part on the best of terms. I called my parents and they arrived to save me. My apartment was cleaned, the trash taken down from the building as I was too scared to incase I fell into the traffic.

I love them more than anything, but to help me despite the conflict we had in the past...that was something I could never payback, even though I tried to everyday after that. Now, it was all a matter finding out how to live in these conditions.