it may not be paranoia. actually, i know it's not. i'm not worried about something coming to get me-- it's more like a heightened sense of self awareness. when no one's around.
it's become increasingly evident to me via this blog how much i think about how much people (or things or government or spiritual entities, real or made up) are looking. it explains my need to speak out loud when i'm by myself in my house. it explains why i talk to my dog when we're walking at night. or day. or ever.
another is-she-really-throwing-back-to-her-childhood-and-do-we-have-the-responsibility-of-assessing-her-psychological-stability example: it started when i was a kid. maybe it was the self imposed guilt of a hard-working protestant upbringing that conjured the feeling. maybe it's the hereditary chemical imbalances. either way, i was acutely aware that everything i did-- alone or not-- was being closely monitored. i know that the "god is always watching" idea in protestant life is meant as a comfortable fallback to the abandoned, disheartened, and/or neurotic; but i'm pretty sure it backfired. it didn't seem to matter what i did. god is always watching. i started feeling weird about my chronic nose-picking,*** the way i spoke to my stuffed animals, and all those tricky things that start happening at the blossoming of a young flower to a woman (yep, i said it). i had to ask god to stop, STOP IT-- it was weird. it persisted. then the pleading, "hey, i know it's your job, but could you just close your eyes for a minute?" always watching.
well, hell. i'll keep up a performance, then.
it only seemed to get worse from there. when i would spend the night at people's houses, i was convinced that they had cameras set up in their bathrooms (always the bathroom-- i don't know why). at school, being in the post columbine genre, the feeling was relatively justified as the cameras were hung where we could see them. then there's the bars, supermarkets, workplaces, and my car. always watching. maybe not god, but the government sometimes. sometimes just perverse individuals who i'll never meet but know me forever as the girl who would very modestly preserve her entire identity in ladies' rooms.
what am i getting at? how bizarre it is that i'm here. tonight i am willingly headed to a bar to perform on stage for a group of people. right now, i am writing into an entity where anyone with a computer or who knows someone with a computer or accesses the public library can see. maybe it's always worked up to this point. maybe the someone-is-always-watching has always just been a clear step in the direction of a performer. or maybe it's the other way around-- like i need to legitimize the feeling that someone is always watching.
what a strange place we've found ourselves. you watching me right now, me knowing you are. and just like always, the self consciousness only seems to go one way.
unless i just made you feel weird.
***i'm certain in this respect, thank god that god was always watching. i heard that kids that do this lack sodium in their diet. this may explain my guilty gluttony at age ten when i started hiding bags of potato chips under my bed and in the closet for after everyone went to bed. either way, god's watching made me so uncomfortable that i had to stop. the nose picking, that is. i may still have a bag of lays stashed in the back of my underwear drawer.
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