Note to Reader: Since posting this, I have gone back to edit misspellings and made slight grammar adjustments, simply for the sake of clarity, and removed one full name for the purpose of anonymity. It is otherwise an untouched stream of conscious. Enjoy.

Recently the voices took over again. The first time happened during my sophomore year of college after the first time I spent the night at Anthony’s. I had a paper due the day after I came home from his place and without going to my room went straight to the library and worked throughout the entire day and night finally turning my paper in just before it was due. Having finished my paper I immediately went to relax and took four bong rips then went to my room. Upon entering my room I saw one of Anthony’s friends walking through the courtyard of my dorm but he was going and I was coming so our paths didn’t cross. In my room I began doing what I do in that my mind wandered and I physically reacted to my thoughts and at one point while making different faces in the mirror I heard the voices for the first time – it sounded like Anthony’s voice and the exact words were “this girl is fucking crazy” ironic given the situation. But his voice didn’t stop there, or rather the voices didn’t stop because I heard the voice of yet another person, a friend of his whom I had met. I could hear their commentary on my actions, each move, how I moved, what I was doing. I even heard their realizations of my acknowledgement of their presence as they “watched” me. It was so vivid. I began pacing around my room, putting my clothes back on (I was in a bra and underwear), and searching in the direction of where the voices were coming from (they sounded as if they came from a corner cattycorner to the head of my bed, a perfect angle if someone wanted to view my room in its entirety). The voices talked amongst themselves “oh my god, can she hear us, she’s looking for something, shit I think she can hear us, you guys she can hear us, turn it off, turn it off” “she can’t hear us, she’s not going to find it, she doesn’t even know what she’s looking for Will blended it in, it looks just like everything else around it, it looks like it belongs there, she won’t know what it is even if she finds it, and she probably wont”

The voices were ones I recognized and ones I’d never heard before. They were all listening. In fact there was even a moment of pity within the crowd where one girl, a girl whose voice I’d never heard inside or outside my head before starting sticking up for me “you can’t do this to her, look at her you guys, she’s freaking out she thinks she’s crazy, you can’t make someone think they’re crazy like this, why are you doing it, why are you watching her, you’re the crazy ones , this is fucked up” finally there was a moment, consideration, “okay we’ll tell her” They mentioned two girls who were in the same dorm building as me, who knew what was happening, who were there to look out to see when I was coming home. I had seen two girls looking at me funny when I came back to get into my room, they had walked just past my door. I knew who they were talking about. Then I heard noises on the balcony outside the door of my suite, the main door just before I entered my bedroom. “I don’t wanna go in you go first, Oh god I don’t wanna do this, she’s gonna be so pissed we’re all going to get in trouble, what if she turns us in, I’m not going to do this” “I don’t want to either but I feel bad”. Just after this I heard the voices from my ceiling telling each other they were there, and I went to step out into my hallway, ready to face the girls who were coming to tell me I was being spied on that I wasn’t crazy and just hearing voices. But as I stepped into the hallway the ceiling voices warned the door girls and I heard them scamper off. I couldn’t believe what was going on – I lived in a suite with five other girls and not one of them was around. I was all alone and hearing things, I couldn’t get them to verify any of it. I paced around my room and the hallway freaking out convinced there were cameras in my bedroom, hallway, and in the bathroom. When I left my room to be out and about, only wanting sleep and a shower but unable to do so because there were cameras in my room, I found that the voices were still there, following me.

He must’ve bugged me, was all I could think. The guy who’s bed I had shared two nights earlier had bugged me and was following me for his own enjoyment because he found me weird and cute. I wandered all around campus hearing a peanut gallery of Anthony and his friends getting bored with my actions, deliberating about whether or not they should continue because it was a failed experiment and I had already figured it out, what fun would it be to watch me when I knew I was being watched. Anthony rebuked with the idea that I would become more entertaining because I thought I was crazy, or being bugged and he said it would be fun to watch and see what I do, to see how I handled it. This first encounter made me forty-five minutes late to an hour long poetry reading I had to go to for a class I had no excuse but to tell him a somewhat edited version of what was going on – a somewhat less crazy, yet the best I could do was say I thought a guy I recently started seeing had put a camera of some sort in my room. Needless to say it did provoke more questions but I said I don’t know if its true there was just an “incident” I said which freaked me out and leads me to believe this however, I don’t know and I’m not too sure. This actually worked in my favor since my teacher was intrigued enough as well as respectful enough to neither punish nor probe. After the reading, I went to walk back to my room, but since I had thought I was followed while there, in the silence I could hear them again and knew they had waited and were ready fuck with me as I walked back to my dorm in the dark.

Coming through the parking lot from the building where the poet spoke, a location off campus connected by a decently lit path in the midst of a very wooded area, I realized I had dropped my key, a fact one of the voices of the people “following” me noticed as it happened also. I put my purse down where I was, walked back a couple feet and bent down on my hands and knees to find it. I could hear rustling and continually kept popping up and looking around to see if there was anyone there, but very few people were going in the direction I was headed. But not only did I hear the rustling but I could hear them talking about how dark it was how difficult it would be to find, etc, etc. Then I heard someone say “when is she going to get her phone?” My phone! Of course, I could use it to find my keys, what was I doing trying to sift through such a dimly lit area full of leaves and sticks. I walked back over to my purse and went looking for my phone. I couldn’t find it. I needed more light. I looked at where I was standing so I could make sure to come back to this part of the path and start looking again. I then made my way to the center of the parking lot, since the building was closed now that the reading was over, to look in my purse beneath a street lamp. I still couldn’t find my phone. But I just had it, was all I could think because I remembered putting it on silent before entering the poetry reading and putting it back in my purse, not even in my purse but one of the outside pockets, a pocket that snugly fit a phone, lighter and pack of cigarettes. I searched my purse inside and out multiple times, at one point sitting beneath the light on a parking lot median, taking everything out only to find that even with my purse empty my phone was still not there. Now I had lost my keys and my phone. I could hear the voices talking, again, during this entire time and they were talking about how they were screwing with me. One of them, so they discussed, had picked up my key and told them I dropped my key, which is why I couldn’t find it when I first started looking. Since I had put my purse down, and they knew I could hear them because I had reacted at the mention of my dropped key, the recommendation I had heard earlier to use my phone was a ploy to get me to notice that my phone had gone missing too. I couldn’t believe it. I sat on the ground and started trying to calm myself down, trying not to cry, getting more angry at the fact that these people had nothing better to do than follow me around and fuck with me. I heard them asking one person where he had put my phone, he said he put it somewhere around me but wouldn’t tell them where it was because I would hear him. I continued to sit defeated and they talked about that as well, noting that I would breakdown soon, that my defeatist attitude had lessened the thrill of the game and it was more sad and pathetic watching me edge towards a breakdown than anything.

I sat there listening, hearing them urge me to start looking again. They started saying “if you go back your key is on the path, its there we promise you’ll find it if you just go back to the path, we’re not bullshitting you this time your key is there.” So I listened to them, bringing my purse with me, afraid that if I left it out one of them may try to take yet another item that would send me scouring the parking lot. I went back to where I was originally looking and after what I can only guess was about 90 seconds of looking I found my key. All I could think was, Holy Shit. This is not happening, this can’t be real. I then began looking for my phone. They were right, finding the key gave me the extra boost they sought to achieve.



I had already been in the parking lot for what I can imagine was at least 30 minutes or so. They watched and commented and urged I go look in one direction and then another openly enjoying my discomfort and general awkwardness. They’d comment on when I would listen to them and when I wouldn’t. They were thoroughly enjoying watching me deal with this while I struggled to maintain my composure. It was like a game, we all knew what was going on but it was so fantastical and fearful that they watched and provoked to see how I would react, when I would snap and enter the inevitable mental breakdown they were brewing. They would tell me to look for my phone this way, or that way, then when I would head in that direction or alter my path they’d make comments like “she’s such a fucking dumbass why is she even listening to that suggestion she didn’t even walk through that part of the parking lot, oh my god this is too easy, I feel so bad, she’s just gonna be here all night” Sometimes the suggestions would be legitimate ones saying “I swear I’m not bullshitting you, try looking over here or somewhere over there.” Which would occasionally be followed by rebukes. There were people present only as spectators, some who pitied me and tried to help and some who felt bad but still found it mildly amusing. Then there was Anthony who got the most pleasure out of it because he felt confident that by making me think I was crazy he would gain a dominant hand in our relationship and I would become more dependent on him and his affirmations.

Finally I had looked for what was probably another half hour and didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t cry. I tried, but I couldn’t. I also couldn’t keep wandering around the parking lot, searching for a hidden phone on silent. As I went and sat beneath the street lamp again I debated just walking home, unfortunately I had lost or damaged about 7 phones prior to this and the one in question was just under a month old. There was no way I could say it was a lost cause, I didn’t want to admit my irresponsibility or questionable mental stability. So all I could do was sit on the curb holding my purse trying to cry and listening to the voices who had put me in this situation. Those who pitied me continually advocated for my release from the hell I was experiencing, they said I was a nice girl that didn’t deserve it who hadn’t hurt any of them and who was clearly suffering. Eventually one girl noted that given the time of night and my location in a secluded parking lot next to a wooded area it wasn’t safe for me to be wandering around looking for my phone.

The compromise that changed Anthony’s mind went as follows: “what if somebody comes up and tries to hurt her or do something” “I’m watching her I won’t let anything happen to her.” “so you’re going to go and protect her if anybody tries to do something?” “yeah and she’ll be so grateful I saved her she won’t even question it” “well she may not question it in the moment, but when she’s safe she will because she will know that all this was true and she will know about everything because you saving her would only confirm it all and then she’ll be furious and want nothing to do with you” “okay he said, then how do we get her phone to her without revealing ourselves” “we’ll just tell her where it is” And that’s what happened, sort of. They led me right near where I had dropped my key, saying that it was underneath one of the branches of leaves just off the path. I kept looking and looking but I couldn’t find it. The voices kept telling me it was there and that I should just keep looking and then another voice piped up and suggested I go check my purse, just one last time. I was extremely reluctant since I had already searched it twice, and thoroughly. In fact, I had even left my purse underneath the light post thinking I was safe from further pranks due to the fact I had heard them all agree that the game was fun but it was time for me to go home. I walked back from the path to the center of the parking lot for probably the hundredth time that evening and checked my purse again. I found my phone in the outside pocket I had remembered putting it in.

Thinking back on that evening and what I have begun to wonder tonight regarding the occurrences of my voices and how real and vivid it all was, I understand how my brain, or rather that piece of my person or personality was able to garner control over my actions. Somehow, the same phenomena that occurs when you’re searching for the keys that are sitting directly in front of you yet don’t see them until you leave the room only to check again and find them, somehow that same phenomena occurred that first night when I searched for my lost key and phone. I searched every pocket of my purse twice before looking only to come back and find my phone was exactly where I remembered putting it, only it hadn’t been there earlier. The voices new this because somehow, some part of me has manifested itself into its own personality. It’s voice is no longer my own voice. I say this because prior to this entire experience, my insecurities and paranoia would come from the same head voice my original thoughts stemmed from.

All “mental sound” so to speak, the voice/s you use when you think, the sound you perceive when recalling conversations and other auditory memories, can best be described as being spoken from the center of the brain, the area where my consciousness resides, possibly where the id, ego, and super-ego all come together (or not, who knows) but it’s the main functioning part of your brain, your personality it’s who you tell to think and try harder when attempting to recall a something, either way it is a unified, not ‘being’ but ‘being’ is the best way to describe it, in a way. So, since I distinctly remember the first moment I heard these voices and because I have heard them on and off since that time, I have become aware of a break almost a schism if you will that has occurred in my head, altering my “mental sound”. Instead of every thought, daydream, etc coming from the same area of my brain, which for all intensive purposes is located in the center, these new voices arose from a different part. The mental sound was different, it come from somewhere else, near my ears but in the back of my head. When I listened to it I could hear it clearly, but when I thought, consciously I found that my mental speaker in sense was stronger than the new speaker. I was also able to almost mentally feel the difference in their locations, which is why the voices I had heard nearly convinced me I was truly hearing people talk. My brain tricked me, or rather my ‘id’ possibly.

I’ve been thinking about what could have caused it. How I could have started hearing voices, but not only that but how I fell victim to these voices when I have (there have numerous instances in which this has occurred but I can accurately recall enough information from only five occasions– the first was with Anthony, the second was following a study session at some classmates apartment, the third was during an after party at Roper and Conor’s place when I was hanging out with Brian and Savannah and Olivia arrived, the fourth was when Roper and Conor invited me to their place for dinner and the most recent which occurred when I smoked with my roommate and the company she had over only to find I thought I could hear everything they were saying) but there have been more instances, instances where it hasn’t been as successful, times where I could push it out of my mind, yet it continually occurs. Each time finding new ways to convince me to listen to it through the voices it creates. And while the main theme is the same continual attempt to incite feelings of insecurity, it sometimes finds ways to engage my attention by discussing topics that are not focused on me. It does so by presenting itself when I am just out of listening range, but cleverly. For example, if I am engaged in a group gathering and leave to go to the restroom, which oftentimes is when these encounters occur, if I could just barely hear the conversation I’ve left when I enter the bathroom then I will continue to “hear” it when I settle to pee and just for that moment of silence think that I can still hear what’s going on amongst the people I have just excused myself from. Usually at moments like this when it happens the conversations are mostly about me which tips me off to the fact that the conversation I’m hearing isn’t real, that I’m only paranoid and I tell it to shut the fuck up, I’m not doing anything wrong this isn’t real because there’s no reason for anyone to be talking about me. Many times this works and the voice is practically smothered as it transforms into a softer whisper and eventually stops. Then there are times when it hits a cord, despite that I am aware of it happening in which case I may try to mingle, knowing there was never any group discussion about me or my behavior, but cannot shirk the feeling of insecurity and find myself leaving early if only to ease the discomfort of it all. And then there are times when I feed into it, because it’s not about me, times where I listen to the conversation, where I hear them talking about other people and their behavior, not me or my behavior. This causes me to perk up and I give the voices back a little bit of their power, eavesdropping on subconscious inventions disguised as the company I keep. This is how it attempts to gain my good graces, or maybe more so my attention.

In fact, if you think about it, if who we are, our personality in its entirety, our conscious and subconscious, is one whole comprised of or maybe operated through/by the trinity of our id, ego, and superego, then one could assess in order to picture the schism I’m looking to explain that my id, or atleast part of it, has broken away from the rest of me. That while it is still contained with me, because it is a part of me and who I am, it has either broken away or been ostracized from whatever it was that held it together with the rest of “me”.

There are two ways I can think to describe this, either one is easy to understand, but two may paint a better picture. The first is the idea that the brain is a building made up of a series rooms, and that somewhere amongst all these rooms which contain active information, latent information, conscious memories, subconscious memories, suppressed memories, desires, etc. there lies in the center of it all a main room, similar to a control room which finds, filters, examines everything and serves as a liaison between the subconscious, the latent information, etc and the conscious. Now the idea I am forming or toying with is that this voice/s is my suppressed insecurities. I say this because when it is in effect and when I have allowed it to control me or my actions that is the overwhelming feeling, a feeling which I despise and years ago found I had the ability to control. It took me years to overcome them, but when I did I knew how to avoid feeling bad about myself and feeling insecure. Each and every time an insecurity tried to make that transition from subconscious feeling to conscious worry I immediately found ways to prove to myself these feelings were unwarranted, or too critical, or that silly because I couldn’t believe I was so full of myself that I would be the topic of conversation whenever I left the room. Over time it worked, an insecure thought would pass through my mind and unless it seemed valid, which it rarely ever did, I would immediately discard it while boosting my self-confidence and eventually finding that I was very comfortable with who I was, both inside and out. The opinions of the general public were no longer a concern to me, instead my mind set shifted from ‘what do or will people think of me’ to ‘how do the people I respect and admire perceive me’.

In case you don’t understand the entirety of the distinction I will explain it to you. Obviously just based on how my viewpoint changed you know that I no longer concerned myself with people in general but with people who embodied certain qualities and attitudes I admire and respect. Which is why I also changed the phrasing from ‘how will they think of me’ to ‘how will they perceive me’ because I am not looking to change who I am, only critique and better how I show people who I am. Anyone who has had difficulty conveying a thought or feeling should understand what I mean by this because I no longer tried to alter the thought or feeling, I no longer tried altering who I was, instead I began to alter my conveyance of them, I altered the way in which I expressed my personality. I followed social cues, I began noticing more often habits I possessed and found that not only was I unaware of these habits, but that I couldn’t stand people with the same habits which in turn made me realize the people I surrounded myself with, the people I cared about were being subject to these poor personality habits without ever saying anything or pointing them out because, as I found when exposed to people of similar habits, it feels as if a criticism of the habit would be a criticism of the person itself.





An example would be people who talk too much. I love to talk and sometimes I talk a lot but have put forth effort to restrain these ‘verbal urges’ because I know how unpleasant it is to be talking to someone who won’t shut up. I have an acquaintance who talks a lot a lot, and for me to say this truly means something. This acquaintance of mine will monopolize one-on-one conversations or group conversations without any hesitation, so that it becomes more of a lecture series than social gathering. What is even more unpleasant at times is when I am interested in what she’s saying, and cannot express my accord or intrigue on the subject outside of a couple ‘uh huhs’ and nods and despite the fact that I find her personality to be mostly agreeable I hate being around her because of the turbo-charged motor mouth she totes around. Now, hopefully I can make the distinction I am seeking to explain clearer. Because I have caught myself monopolizing conversations and been told in the past that I do tend to talk a lot, I was aware of what one could consider my social vice, and found that this acquaintance possessed the same one. Admittedly, prior to having spent time with this person I did not consider my excessive talking a social vice, I considered it just who I was and that was that, but after spending time with her I found that at a certain point it didn’t matter what she was saying, and that instead of me getting to know her through what she said, which I’m sure was the intent she had, I began to get annoyed and dislike her because she seemed selfish and egotistical, traits which her personality does not suggest, only her actions. And so I found that in order for people to understand me, I didn’t need to explain myself, I needed to show it through my actions and interactions. This is what I mean by how people thought of me versus how they perceived me, because all talking aside this girl was interesting and nice, yet her incessant need to be heard put off not only myself, but potential friends, people who could teach, influence, or help better or enhance her growth as a person.

So, my mindset changed and I began asking different questions which led me to different answers and solutions. I found with the people I was already acquainted with that if I just said “hey, I know I get obnoxious, or pushy, or super talkative, or whatever and I know it puts people off because when I experience it puts me off and I don’t want to annoy you because we’re friends and I cherish our friendship and I respect your opinion blah blah blah” then they would eventually start helping me out, pointing out when I was falling into the bad habits I had addressed. I will say that I did have to tell them that I actually was serious and that I won’t be mad or upset or irritated when they tell me I’m exhibiting that behavior, but eventually they understood and we reached an accord that outlined our mutual respect, admiration, and appreciation for the other person and the friendship and felt that if we couldn’t honestly tell the other when one was ‘actin’ a fool’ so to say, then our friendship wouldn’t grow or develop and its stagnancy would inevitably lead to a false and/or empty relationship.

So again, back to the brain being a building inhabiting all the separate facets of our brain behind a series of doors and our person(ality) acting as a liaison between these rooms and our active thoughts, I eventually began suppressing my insecurities out of habit and almost subconsciously because I knew those around me were honest and would call me out on the social vices I embodied and therefore didn’t really need to worry about what other people were thinking because I knew what they were thinking.

Now here is where I get into what I believe has occurred within my brain. I think my insecurities have manifested themselves somehow in an effort to gain more conscious attention. It’s as if the part of me which basically feeds off insecurities, the part of us really, which makes us question whether or not we’re good enough or pretty enough or smart enough, that part was no longer receiving any conscious attention because I had become more comfortable with myself and no longer dealt with my insecurities because they were filtered and remained in the subconscious, locked behind their door. And so the best way I can describe what I think has happened in a way is that my insecurities took on a voice of their own, or more accurately since the voices vary it developed a consciousness of its own and found a way to leave the room in which it is meant to be confined. However, like I said because there is a distinct separation between the voices, a discrepancy where one did not previously exist prior to the first incident, I cannot help but imagine that the insecurity found a way out of the room, only to roam between walls, floors and ceilings, always contained within the structure but now free to roam outside the room.

I believe that first incident was its initial escape, its initial battle similar to the battle they say satan wages against god, knowing he can’t beat him but that he can rattle him. It is a cunning aspect of my personality no doubt, and growing more cunning, possibly due to its ability to move between walls accessing other aspects of my brain, educating itself and evolving its tactics. It seems almost a blessing however that these voices appear to originate from different parts of the brain, the real me coming from the heart of my mind, and the insecurity that escaped the room in which I had it encapsulated that speaks from someplace within my head but outside my mind.

I guess now the only thing to do is monitor it, and study when it happens, when it occurs, how it occurs, and what has triggered it.