NON-FIC-FIC-SCI-FI by Jea Rhee (13.05.2020)

I live a different virtual reality than most would believe or consider to be true.

Point A. Being as I am diagnosed with a mental illness.

That is what hinders me from addressing and/or writing about it in a comprehensive manner to acknowledge that it is happening to me.

HyperReal Psychosis: as I defined it’s meaning, to me, in previous writing. My first attempt at relaying my mental illness in regards to technology and the digital medium. (See*Social Media as an Influencing Machine)

I re-read it recently, backwards, and what seemed so complicated for me at the time, and complex I couldn’t fathom…. it just seems like rhetoric, today.

So simple.

I’ve managed to garner attention from sources I never believed possible.

I can’t call them peers. I won’t indulge to call them my heroes either. They are people I don’t know personally, but have a connection with online. I am their fandom. I am their fan. I’ve been their audience at stages throughout my life. They are inspiration. They are music. And they came together to help a sister out. At least that’s what I want to believe as true.

First a spectator. Second a supporter.

Just An Entertainer

Some of them are a community from grandeur hip hop culture.

Some of them are researchers in tech that I wish I knew.

Some of them are artists with great rights.

And I, myself, am befuddled to really know how it all happened.

Just a hack?

Would you believe that I can communicate to people on the television when it’s live? Otherwise if my minds not stable, the mysterious world is always in step and time with my thoughts, or with what I speak. That idea that everything in this universe is connected. Psychosis is a hypersensitive reality to the connection of all things that our brains choose to focus on. (Signs/symbols/sounds)

Communication gets picked up through my phone. Every bit of information picked up, if it’s written.

No privacy, all access pass?

Point B. This reality has virtually killed off the notion of grandiose conspiracies and surveillance. That part of my paranoia with psychosis.

I no longer know if I am having a psychotic episode because that part has seemed to have been addressed.

As I wanted to find out, what happens to people with mental illness when they become aware that technology has moved this far and forward, that suspicion and extreme paranoia is simply a reality. What does mental illness look like after this? How will it affect children that grow up in this technically advanced society.

Did it “cure” me? That part, yes. I still get paranoid but more about situations, outcomes, and people I’ve known personally. My past.  I cannot manage stress well and it raises my anxiety. These negative thoughts and feelings cloud my brain and make it a little bit more vivid. Too many rampant thoughts at once. That I seem to go into a depressive hole. I know to worry when my mind gets triggered by sounds a little bit too much, in a manner of coursing the thoughts in my mind or the actions I make.

That has got to be part of my mental illness but I no longer know what exactly I experience. I no longer know if it’s just being human. That everyone experiences these things but have better coping mechanisms.

I’ve always been a help yourself kind of person. I forget I can call my nurse if I am experiencing any discomfort in my mind. I just go through it, get out, and then maybe it comes up in a conversation as something that already happened. Fine now though. This can’t be the best way to manage mental health, but I’m used to it.

No one person needs to know this is my life. No one person has to believe this is my life. The ones who are least willing to comprehend or believe it are the people I personally know. They know something is going on but not exactly what. It’s too abstract to put into words. At least for me.

I’m not even sure I know exactly what/when/who/where/why… but I know all these better than I know the How.

But there are many people involved in this reality of mine, that I don’t need anyone else to believe it.

I will continue to saunter through this life for as long as it takes until I reach the end.

I’ve for the most part adapted, but I still get insecure about what it is exactly I’m doing. Or what I’m trying to do. I question way less.

All I know is we went to the dentist one time, and came home with what can easily be believed to be a chip/mic/what have you, on the back of our tooth. And I haven’t been to the dentist since. And after our appointment the dentists changed.

We transition and change throughout the course of our lives. Some people stay stagnant. But I believe in forward motion. As in running away from my past to get on with life as I know it. Call it truama. Call it all truama. But the one thing I seem to be successful at is grappling with life, no matter what is thrown into it.  I somehow seem to still GET BY.

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH.