Sociopath Community

"Assuming this isn't already the case or that you haven't experienced anything like this before"

At a time it seemed like many but I've been able to narrow it down to 3.

[A] - After spending enough time and realizing these thoughts didn't match my personality I tired resisting them, doing the opposite of what they wanted. It didn't help and in the end managed to be more self destructive than being influenced by the thoughts. Now its a matter of me balancing out which theme of thoughts is the most prevalent,

[B] - It depends on what theme prevailed. Either I was excessively aggressive and confrontive for no apparent reason or overly avoidant, passive and preferring unhealthy amounts of isolation,

[C] -  While trying to understand the three themes I tried envisioning them while in deep thought, one was always blue. Blue was calm, collective, nonchalant and humorous. While the other was always clad in green holding discipline, honor and prestige to be vital. There is another entity when I think about them but its hard to determine whether its simply a trait of the themes or a theme on its own. I listed it previously as red but, both voices have reached a red like level at one point.

[D] - Yeah, its went through its changes but I try to exploit each one for different situations, leaning my ear closer to the one I'd predict to be more successful in that certain scenario. It wasnt always that way, I had times where I listened and avoided each voice exclusively until I found this balance. Both have my general interests in mind, so I often find myself negotiating with the two themes, seeing what needs can be met at minimal costs while still remaining effective.

Assuming this isn't already the case or that you haven't experienced anything like this before (if you have, feel free to answer with actual experiences), lets assume that just, one day, out of the blue, you begin to hear a voice in your head. This could range anywhere from contradictory or self-enabling thoughts in the sound of your own voice (or another's) to Wilfred's Wilfred to Donnie Darko's Frank to Fight Club's Alter Egos to Flintstones' The Great Gazoo having you travel on magnificent adventures to whatever else fits. Whatever the case, it's something you do not identify with as being "you" despite seemingly coming from your own head. Now...

a) If you were lucid enough to recognize that this situation isn't real, how would you see yourself responding to these things if they did not go away and kept persistently badgering you?

b) If you were not lucid enough to recognize that this situation isn't real, that this is, as far as you know it, "reality", how differently would you see yourself responding and what sort of world would you imagine your imagination having overlay real life?

c) From the nature of being "unlike you" yet still from you, how would you imagine this voice in your head behaving, sounding, even possibly appearing?

d) How do you imagine yourself responding to things like Command Hallucinations, and what sorts of commands do you see them being?

This topic's inspired from reading about a choose your own adventure book called Project UFO, listed as #2 of a Cracked Article's "7 Most F*ed Up Real 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Books".

a) Recognizing my own thoughts from "others" has always been difficult since they all sound like me (save for this one time...). Before Zinc, it felt like my thoughts would go into a set of eight or so yelling into a single microphone while my conscious self was stuck sorting through them all for what it means before trying to communicate it out loud. This made for some broken sentences and contradictory moments, and definitely a lot of stalling while trying to sort through it all. Keeping my thoughts more rigidly defined and consistent usually let me get past it by knowing what thoughts to look for and what ones to discard in advance like some sort of search engine. When I haven't taken Zinc for a while, that effect slowly starts sneaking back into being the case.

Without heavily focusing on what makes me "me", I can lose track of portions sometimes. A lot of how I think is more of a matter of jogging memory than easy recall already, so that applying to identity can sometimes take some sorting. Thankfully having had a lot of time to realize what I do and don't really believe has reinforced my ability to tell things apart.

b) I pretty much just start spouting everything that comes to mind while delusionally thinking anything is possible in a more raw sense. It's like the cynicism and negativity just leave and suddenly insane things sound just as likely as real things through following my gut instead of my brain. Information begins bleeding into the nonsense areas to come up with complex combinations of information that no longer require being grounded with logic, leading to some very crazy tangents. On top of that, it has me behaving very hyperactively. Visuals, sounds, smells, and even touch can change to suit whatever's coming to mind during those sorts of times, assuming it wasn't what came first.

The visuals usually were an altered perception of what's around me, like halos around subjects, color shifts of my environment, crawling materials if not visuals of bug-like movement, and twisted facial features that trigger automatic fear responses, but occasionally they'll be more specific to support something's "validity".

c) I only recognize them as unlike myself from not agreeing with it. It still sounds like my thoughts even though they aren't me. It's like arguing with myself in the truest sense, making me end up confused which is and isn't me at points. My problem roots from it not being unlike me beyond what it wants, making it convincing in the sense of being indistinguishable beyond tone and message. When I make mistakes, it's like a part of me is laughing at my own suffering in an indulgent sense, like being sadistic against myself while doing all this "you deserve this" and "you're so weak" crap. It's me, but it's not me, like I'm an observer of myself observing, a sarcastic heckler in the audience of my own head.

Occasionally that sadistic, sarcastic, indulgent emotionless thing is given room to focus on someone other than myself. It's haunting in hindsight when that occurs and it tends to make for problems from it's display, if not from my fathoming what just happened. Adderall had me stuck that way for the week I tried it. It feels freeing until it passes, but once it passes there risks being social cleanup (if not mental sorting).

d) Only for OCD/OCPD symptoms or the urge to flee has this come up. It's similar to this link I posted here before. It can become loud enough that not following what it says means I can't hear myself think, and before I know it I'm compulsively following it for peace of mind in an effort to regather myself back to "normal". Resisting it is like compressing a spring, eventually it'll build up too much pressure and jump.

This has sometimes lead to people seeing me do insane things in public when I can't stop it from happening any longer. Avoiding cracks on artistically designed airport floors for example got some very strange looks out of people. I end up tightening and muttering out loud at increased frequency until I'm stuck following "orders" while my mind effectively laughs at itself like "Oh my god he's actually doing it!"

They always think you cray when you tell them you hear voices, man. Gotta accept that no one can understand shit what ya goin' through. This is why "knowledge can be passed, but wisdom is one's own". Unless they experience it, they will inevitably dust it off like nothing.

The voice that I hear is one alone, but s/he uses many different pitches, tones and affects.

A) No questioning, because you trust in it more than you trust others. They have reason and wisdom, because they share your own. One's a slave to the voice, like one's a slave to their own thinking.

B) This question is oddly worded, but I'll assume you mean how the voice views the world? Hard to say. 

After a while, you understand it isn't real, or at least you realize not everyone hears the same thing. You can't tell what they think about, and when you think you're close, they change on you. That's how this voice do. I debate, argue and converse actively with them/him/her whatever. Once upon a time, it was as real as it got. But he was unlike me. The voice has its own set of thinking, even though one expects a voice of your figment of imagination to have something remotely linked back to you. It's quite literally another person.

C) The voice sounds what s/he wants to sound like to sway me. Intrepid, pushy, but most of the time, he sounds like he's got the po-po on its tail. Frantic. He wants me to be on its side, let's say. Appearance is still undefined. I mostly hear the voice from behind. Turning around is futile.

D) That is the kind this voice is all about. He's crafty, and usually makes good points. Tempting points. Commands of rebutting, commands of pressure, commands of letting it go. Respond? No. Doing makes more sense. Why go against the one who makes more sense? It has done me more good than bad, anyhow. When I snap out of it, I can always ask for forgiveness.

I have some kinds of symptoms that are like OCD. This is not really like "hearing voices". I'm aware that the thoughts are my own. I've had a suspicion that they could originate from some outer source (like other than me) though. This isn't in a mad way, but just relating to how I've (perhaps) been different from other people since I was a child.

But...there is another "voice" or thoughts that started appearing some years ago. This is one of the things I feel I shouldn't write about, since I'm "superstitious" in some ways. I'll do it anyway... This voice is quite faint and it sounds like my own. There is a difference from other thoughts though. Hard to explain but it is of the commanding variety. Not that it really tells me to do anything, but more like giving me advice.

Do I follow it? Perhaps sometimes... What are the thoughts about? I'm not really sure since they are hard to remember. In most cases just telling me not to do something I'm about to do. It's like hypnagogic hallucinations in away except that I sometimes hear it when I'm awake. I'm not too worried about being stark raving mad though. It doesn't bother me that much and I've had it for years. Not really very intrusive either.

PS. I'm sorry for not replying in the way outlined in the original post. It's just too much of a bother for me to do so.

"But my capacity to form anything as structured as A,B,C,D... is so limited that I'll just respond without it."
That was more to help for those who haven't gone through that sort of thing. I'm actually a little surprised how much the replies so far are sounding like they're from experience instead of theoreticals and maybes.

"During this time I would wake up to what I can only describe as two halves of my brain arguing with each other, and I was like... an audience member."
Yeah... that... that's never not weird to feel. Being an audience to yourself is a fast way to question how much control we really have.

"I used to think my sister was a fake with the whole DID thing, until 3 years ago I had the the most extreme dissociative moment of my life."
I was in the same boat until I dealt with someone going through it. As a chronic face reader, it's pretty spooky.

"I "switched". I felt myself do it too."
It's that factor that makes it the most jarring when it happens. Were you like an audience member of yourself during, like as if you were out of body witnessing it all or sitting in front row seats inside your eyes, or were you "the five year old" through all dimensions of your capacity for thought during that moment, only really getting how weird it was in hindsight?

My own has symptoms that hint it's coming, but once an episode hits it's from out of nowhere. I'm not really sure how "there" I am since everything from those times feel either like a dream or "too real", "too detailed". It's like life suddenly gains the sharpen and blur tools from Photoshop while the script in my head is replaced with a random thought generator. While I'd not call mine DID since it's still fairly me, I would still call it some form of chaos through appropriating how I function into something weirder.

What scares me about it is how much I do not associate that behavior as my own. It's me responding completely out of my control, a scary thought when control is almost everything to me.

"They always think you cray when you tell them you hear voices, man. Gotta accept that no one can understand shit what ya goin' through."
Nah man, hearing voices is pretty crazy, and that's not coming from someone inexperienced with it.

"The voice that I hear is one alone, but s/he uses many different pitches, tones and affects."
So this is still a thing?

A) No questioning, because you trust in it more than you trust others. They have reason and wisdom, because they share your own. One's a slave to the voice, like one's a slave to their own thinking.
I don't see why there'd be no questions or why there'd be trust in something like that.

Then again, my entry touches slightly on why that is for me. It's not wisdom, it's torture.

"B) This question is oddly worded, but I'll assume you mean how the voice views the world? Hard to say. "
Closer to how it'd affect the world around you as you understand it if you believe what fabrications are being presented as if they were real. It's how you'd be when you don't notice it's not real.

"After a while, you understand it isn't real, or at least you realize not everyone hears the same thing. You can't tell what they think about, and when you think you're close, they change on you."
But... it's you. How couldn't you understand how you think, even when in an altered state of it? It'd still have motivations based on you to at least be able to get to the core of it to attack with theories.

"That's how this voice do. I debate, argue and converse actively with them/him/her whatever."
That's pretty much the only real advantage I can think of that came from my own version anyway.

"Doing makes more sense. Why go against the one who makes more sense?"
What makes it make "more sense"? How nonsensical is the non-voice? Or is this you trying to say that "thinking" is the voice in your head?

My answer is that it was both.  I split into two halves. One half felt my five year old self as it being my real self. The other half stood outside watching it happen. 

I thought it might be worth my while to drop in very briefly for this one post. It's a good one. But my capacity to form anything as structured as A,B,C,D... is so limited that I'll just respond without it.

The first time I heard a voice in my head was when I was 18 or 19. I was travelling a long way by bus and hadn't slept in a while. It was my mother's voice and she was hurling insults at me. I'm not sure what you could compare that to other than to say it felt to me like maybe flashbacks from the one full year I lived with her.
My experience of it was that it was completely separate from me and that perhaps I was going ahead, and losing my mind. 

I've had my brain play many funny tricks on me, but I think the one worth mentioning the most was when I was in my early 30's. Just moved to Texas and was working absurd hours training to be a chemical specialist. I ended up with chemical poisoning mild enough to keep me out of the hospital, but dysfunctional enough that my doctors at first thought they were looking at either a brain tumor or MS.

During this time I would wake up to what I can only describe as two halves of my brain arguing with each other, and I was like... an audience member. Someone sitting in the back row watching and listening to two people separate from me but yet... the same. They had my voice but not my core personality at all, and they both lied a lot of the time. Sometimes it was a bunch of made up shit that made no sense at all. Sometimes it did though. Sometimes it was shit far wiser than my regular self seemed capable of coming up with. But then... I do recall having dreams at the most manic state I'd ever been in, where I read computer code and understood it the same as reading a book. The human brain is infinitely fascinating and hard to chart. 

A friend of mine once compared my mind to a labyrinth. I remember walking out of that conversation thinking that maybe I should consider whether or not he was insulting me by saying that. Years later I couldn't agree more, and it's no more an insult than a complement. It just is how it is. I used to think my sister was a fake with the whole DID thing, until 3 years ago I had the the most extreme dissociative moment of my life. I went to visit a bunch of cousins I hadn't seen in 20 years, and one of their husbands asked which sister I was. When I told him my name he threw his arms around me and gave me a big bear hug. 15 people or more were standing near us watching, and it happened. 
I "switched". I felt myself do it too. I suddenly became this 5 year old version of myself. First I stiffened in his arms, and then I felt my body shrinking. He let go and I started backing away from him. I could see the look on everyone's faces. Like they didn't know what was happening to me or what to think. He tried to reassure me but the more he talked the worse it got, and I backed all the way up until I was able to hide behind my mother. Lol I hid behind my fucking mother! I was like... 37 years old! But I felt 5. Acted just like the me I was at 5. Even my thoughts were that of a 5 year old. I couldn't speak and I couldn't handle everyone looking at me. To make it worse my eldest sister called it out. She very loudly blurted, "What's wrong with you... I haven't seen you act like that since you were five!" 

Yeah... my mind is indeed a labyrinth, and I'm actually ok with that.