March 23rd, 2015

Vulcan calligraphy

Defensive Mechanisms

Of all the Star Trek characters I've met so far, the one to whom I feel that I can relate most is Miranda Jones. She was born a telepath and is buffeted by the thoughts and emotions of others. She is also jealous and jealousy loyal.

I'm by no means a telepath, but when I'm in the presence of others, I can feel like I'm being surrounded by their emotions. It's as if they all leap upon me and wash through me and crush against me. Whoever I am is so dim that it's hardly even audible anymore. Sometimes I feel like my mind is trying to run away, trying to relocate itself; but it has nowhere to go to escape the onslaught, so it starts to spin in a panic within itself. Usually, it just gives up and endures the foreign atmosphere until it has the space to seek itself again. On the outside, I wonder what's wrong. Nothing is happening to me. Maybe no one is even speaking to me or engaging my presence. But the space is not my own and I've been overrun by the presences of others. It happens so naturally that I can hardly recognize it.

I don't always feel this way, but it happens. The only way to remedy the situation is to be alone. Totally alone. I might write, I might listen to music. I'm trying to wrestle free of the foreign emotions and relocate myself - do I even continue to exist? I can't see myself amidst the fray of intangible clatter.

Sometimes I wish that I could learn to shut out those thoughts and emotions, like Miranda learned to do by studying on Vulcan. But no matter what I try, I can't keep it out. The only way to evade them is to disengage. To take my mind and remove it for a little while. I've done that for as long as I can remember. As the other students raged around me, I slipped off into another place. Into a daydream. I didn't see the view out the window or hear the voices around me or feel the bus rolling along. I was somewhere else. That was the only way I found to guard my mind. I've read that a lot of Aspergirls do that. I would daydream and then I would write. Or I would read and then daydream. Either way, I found myself focusing on one instant or one character with such intensity that all the other pulsing emotions fell quiet and I was left with that one clear moment.

Is this a defensive mechanism?

Is there a better alternative?

And is this a common experience, I wonder?