I wanted to write something that didn’t have anything to do with my friends (former or current), at least not directly about them, since I have been doing that quite a bit.. so I thought I might try and delve further into my experiences with Sam. Sam, for those who don’t know is a name I have given to someone I see from time to time. Quite literally, I see her and talk to her when I need someone to see and talk to. I talked about her in an earlier post (though I would not recommend reading it for it’s length and just… I’m not very proud of the post or how I was during the time of the post. It’d probably just be best left skipped), for a paragraph which is certainly much more than I have ever talked about her before but I still have not given the full story. In fact I think I’ve mentioned this person several times throughout the history of “In My Head” whether indirectly or talking about this person as if they were one because sometimes I feel like she is one in her own way.  It’s not a hallucination nor do I think this is the result of a mental disorder such as Psychosis or Schizophrenia. I am not saying I am completely free of mental disorders, since I clearly am not. I’m sure I have one or two that haven’t been diagnosed. However, Sam is merely a figment of my imagination. I have never mistaken her for being a real person and all I hear from her comes from within my head, such as an inner dialogue. I just think it’s very important to clarify that Sam is not a hallucination, only the product of a lonely person with an overactive imagination.

So, let’s begin. The start of my “relationship” with Sam (note: seeing as this person is only imaginative but is still a recurring character in my life, the wording and phrases might be a little strange) began where most of the crazy shit that’s happened with me began. High school. Senior Year. I don’t remember the exact moment or reasoning this person appeared in my life, I just know that she appeared somewhere during the beginning of this year and had something to do with my crush who I was so desperate to make my “big introduction” to. It was most likely that I conjured up this alternate version of my crush to help get more acquainted talking with her as my crippling social anxiety made it nearly impossible to talk to anyone I wasn’t completely comfortable, let alone tell a very pretty girl that I had a huge crush on her. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you more than likely are familiar with how this whole story plays out (aside from Sam’s involvement of course); there’s a cute girl in my class that I desperately want to let her know I like her, not just because I did like her but because I had felt like I’ve been wasting my life being scared, never having asked a girl out, never really having anyone outside my close group of friends notice me unless it was to tease or bully me. I write her a note because my anxieties will never let me go talk to her without getting completely tongue tied, she finds it sweet and we talk and she says we should be friends. We didn’t eventually become friends, but we both had very serious stuff going on in our lives that we had to deal with. That’s the gist of it. The note idea wasn’t something that came right away and even then it still took me a couple weeks of just trying to plan everything out so I wasn’t in a position where I could quickly back out because with something so frightening I knew I would. Around this time is when Sam introduced herself to me. It seemed innocent at first. Here was a version of the girl I liked, who I so desperately wanted to be able to have a conversation with because I kept seeing her walk into class everyday, happy and joking with friends and I wanted that. Now that I think about it, maybe my crush then also had a little to do with me wanting to be her in addition of course to me wanting to be with her. That’s probably a whole other can of worms that I really don’t feel like going into today.

Sam, although her physical appearance changes from time to time, her personality and my acknowledgement of her as a person in my life has remained pretty much similar. She’s not that voice in my head telling me to do bad things, she’s not any weird psychological disorder manifested into some hallucination of a human being. She’s an imaginary friend that shows up often during times I don’t want her to. I don’t know how to explain this without me sounding completely bonkers. I can say I feel like I am consciously creating this person, their dialog, their appearance.. in my head but during. When I’m actually seeing her, talking to her. I don’t think about that part. I just think here’s this person who’s asking me why I’m doing the things I’m doing. Why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling and sure now it seems kind of like a simple thing to do but she often comes at times where I’m too afraid to be honest with even myself about my feelings so here’s this person who comes in and finally calls me out on my shit. Makes me actually think about things and I’m incredibly thankful for her existence or for my brain for thinking that I might need this kind of thing because for once my brain was very right. However, like I said before she reappears during times where I’m not feeling so great and I need someone to talk to but also comes at times where I’m going down that path of things becoming really bad. That pre-depression state where you feel kind of okay/happy but there’s always this lingering feeling at the end of the day that questions if you’re really all that content. So my brain just pops her in, in a near by seat.. standing next to me.. whatever. Again need to clarify, not a hallucination. I know this person isn’t there, and the clarity of this person is the same as if you tried to right now imagine someone standing right beside you. You can kind of see them in the back of your head but ultimately you’re probably just looking at a wall right now. That’s what she was except I didn’t quite know beforehand I was going to imagine her but as soon as I do I don’t usually “un”-imagine her. She’s usually there for a reason and that frightens me to think about because I’m often not aware things are bad. Just a lingering doubt, is all so once she does shows up it confirms that I might be leading to something spectacularly disastrous and I need to do something to get out of it but she’s still just a figment of my imagination so I keep trying to ask her “What do I do?” but she doesn’t know. She tells me she’s just there to get me to ask the question. She doesn’t know any of the answers.  Okay you know what fuck it. I’m actually just genuinely insane. I’m sorry for anyone who is/was slow to find that out. “Surprise!”

She showed up again recently and I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe that was just me, thinking of her because she didn’t say anything and I was in the waiting room of a psychiatrist’s office. Sure I could and often do just talk to her in my head, because ultimately she is just me talking to myself if myself had a different perspective than I did. Or just liked disagreeing with me… Still, I didn’t want to risk accidentally saying something out loud to her because that’s not something you quite want to do in such a facility. So she just sat there and stared. And usually I try and find some hidden meaning behind the face I put behind Sam, because she often takes the face of people that I have liked. One in particular keeps showing up, so her appearance isn’t as questionable since I sort of just think of that Sam as the default one. There’s probably some strange reason behind that too, that Sam # 2 (i would use more names but I wont be able to keep track of all the fake names I make up so I’ll just go by order of appearance) is considered the default Sam but that’ll have to be for another post on another day. This time it was 4. And that means nothing to whoever might end up reading this, which is kind of the intent but still.. why 4? Sam #4 had a brief appearance back when she first I guess “became a Sam” (and by that i just mean that I started imagining this personification of my thoughts as this certain person) but her life as Sam was quick lived, which I guess makes sense because so were my feelings for 4. When things got bad again #2 quickly took back her place as the ol’ familiar Sam I knew and loved. This time it was 4 again and maybe that’s telling me something. Maybe it’s not. Maybe I just got tired of imagining #2. Maybe seeing her doesn’t hold any importance either. Maybe I just imagined her there so I can feel like there’s something wrong. I don’t fucking know. I don’t have the patience or strength to try and answer these either.

I suppose I kind of just wanted to ask them.

-Tristan.