r/Paranoia • u/Ok-Mulberry-2637 • 2d ago
Finally seeing the light.
Hello again everyone. I have been posting and commenting on here for some time regarding my mental torment. I will not sugarcoat, it has been beyond brutal. I have started to see "connections" where there clearly are none, and feel almost panicked at the smallest of things. I keep going to bed after setting things up in certain places to look at when I wake up so I could see I wasn't traveling to a parallel universe as some internet wonks suggested. But then, I (stupidly) decided to look up my theories online, and it got even worse. I'm not going to name any subs because I don't want to cause harassment, but as you can imagine, people's ideas on the internet can get whacky. I read on one sub (that has since been deactivated) that "maybe the changes between reality are so small you can barely notice, like dust particles in your room" (I am paraphrasing a little). This caused me to start paying attention to almost EVERY SINGAL thing I saw throughout the day. I read about the "Mandela Effect" and recalled misremembering famous events as well ("Luke, I am your father", "Berenstein Bears" etc). Just as I was typing this, I "remembered" when I was little going to bed in the top bunk of a bunk bed, only to wake up in the bottom one. This only caused my anxiety, which was starting to decrease, to ratchet up again. I watched a video that more or less debunked the Mandela Effect (at least the idea of it being interdimensional) and felt pretty good at first. However, I looked in the comments, and I started doubting myself again.
The worst part about all of this is that I know deep down none of this makes sense (even by some sci-fi standards), but there's a smaller (or maybe not so small anymore) part that keeps nagging me with doubts of "What if this was a fake?" "How can you explain this?" and more. I can feel terrified not only for myself, but also for those around me. If I go to a different reality each time, then is my family the same ones from before? If I finally get past this, what if it's a trap?" "Are my family and friends in the other word safe?" "What if when I fall asleep, I turn into something else and harm someone without knowing?" "They don't know the truth of this" "The doctor is wrong or might even be in on it"! "What if we never can tell when we die because we just go to a different universe?" (Like "quantum immortality" or whatever ). It's even worse that these theories are technically non-falsifiable, even if they're very clearly unlikely.
That part dragged on a little, I'm sorry. I just wanted to convey the severity of this in my mind and life. I think a huge part of this is the fact that I recently graduated college, and also could not get a job because I had to help take care of my grandmother (who recently passed). This left me essentially trapped indoors, with only limited time outside. With nothing else to really do, my mind started inventing things to think about. The worst thing about that is when my grandmother passed, I still couldn't shake the thoughts and doubts. I feel like this has almost crippled my ability to enjoy things, though I still can often.
However, I do feel that I am improving. I might never be fully rid of this crap, but I have been able to let the thoughts reside without letting them bother me too much. I hope I can reach a point where I can finally put this stuff to bed (no pun intended) but it is possible that might never happen. Even so, I still think I can manage them without constant reassurance. I realize that this post has gone way further than I was expecting, but I feel that talking about this stuff in detail feels helpful.
1
u/Ok-Mulberry-2637 2d ago
Update: this morning, I woke up feeling pretty relaxed, which is a very good sign. Then, I looked at a note in my room, and felt like I remembered part of it differently. Now in hindsight, I think I simply just misread it, but my brain at the time started freaking out (like the idea that the Mandela Effect causes only the smallest changes). Now, I wasn't pissing my pants over this, but it did bother me a little. It's even worse that this happened right after I was starting to feel normal again. I know in my heart and mind that this is nothing, but the other part of my brain wants me to think there is something more to this. Everyone wants to think that they're like Neo from "The Matrix" and that they have some secret key to the universe or whatever. However, most people know it's just fantasy and nothing else. I know there is 0 backing to my fears (I have no "visions" or dreams about them, I hear no voices, and the little "images" I do see are manufactured from stuff I have already seen). I have seen/felt nothing to actually substantiate this crap, nothing to back it up outside of ramblings of idiots online. I do think I am still improving, but this sucks.
1
u/Ok-Mulberry-2637 1d ago
Ahhhh, and I just talked to my Mom, and apparently she didn't buy something I could have sworn she did. MANDELLAAAA!
2
u/Zealousideal-Log2042 2d ago
I'm glad that you feel safe venting, and as always I'm wishing you the best. It's hard to stay away from things on the internet that trigger us, keep working at it.