I'm not quite sure where to begin; this revelation took me a while to unpack, but.
Basically.
You know how I identify as a median, right?
How there are many mes, and all of them are Bree?
And how while there are many of us, the primary two are identified as Ranger and mastina?
Well.
I think there's actually a third, and she's more dominant than both combined, especially right now. The reason I haven't noticed, however, is that she's really good at disguising herself as either of us...and more than that. She...on her own, by herself. Doesn't really have anything to think.
She's a bit of an empty shell, an empty husk. There's nothing in her, by herself. Yet she has this amazing ability. Ranger has the capability to talk to characters and get to know them. I've always known, however, that I have another ability, and this third me I believe is the source of it: when I actually become the characters.
And...this has been happening a lot as of recently. A LOT, a lot. Far, far, far, far, far, FAR more often than normal. The most it's ever happened since I was a young child, I believe. Primarily, the two I am becoming are actually becoming Ruby and actually becoming Phyrra, but I can and do become others as well. In this mode, I can think what they do, I can feel what they do, I can almost feel their powers coursing through my veins, and everything about their world becomes a reality to me.
Yet also during those same times, I feel a little bit of a sense of emptiness--as if there is a nothingness, a void. Which I think becoming the character is an attempt to fill. That the me who becomes these characters is literally attempting to become someone else...because there's nothing in her, nothing to her, nothing about her.
I actually have a hypothesis, that this third me who I only caught the faintest glimpse of is actually the first me, the first Bree, the original me. The me who is responsible for me having a core that all Brees derive from. The me who has the fullest control, the me who connects everything together in spite of not actually thinking for herself, instead simply summoning the thoughts of others to think for her.
This sounds like normal me delusions, yes. But what made me convinced that this might have merit was a moment.
There was a moment where I was able to release thought, control, and emotion to her. It was her, alone, in her thoughts, for just a split moment.
At first, there was literally nothing. No thought. No emotion. No nothing. But immediately following that. I felt the strongest fear I have ever felt in my life. It lasted for a split second. Only that long, because immediately following it I was promptly and immediately driving again, as if she was hiding herself intentionally from facing whatever thought could create that emotion.
But that was the most intense feeling I have ever experienced. A deep, primordial fear of something, mixed with a taint of sadness. My theory more or less developed that she was me before there were many mes, but was empty, isolated, alone. She was a vivid, perfect actor of sorts, capable of playing a part to reflect the circumstances and yet being nothing on her own. These parts she played were compartmentalized and from those raised the various mes. All originally her, but extensions of her that eventually came alive, more or less.
Of course, that's just the theory.
I think it's a good one, because it more or less matches my memory of my entire life, matches with my numerous mental conditions (autism plus bipolar disorder namely), matches what feels like it makes sense, and matches my recent experiences. (I've been feeling a bit detached from reality but more than that...I've been feeling a bit detached from myself in that I've been looking at me and just...not feeling like there's anything there.)
But while almost everything I've said is just conjecture, while almost everything I've said is purely speculation. I can still access the memory of that feeling, that sensation, of that deep, fundamental fear, with the tint of sadness attached. That was real. That was something overwhelmingly strong, even painful, to feel, and I know as much as I know I am Bree that it was a real feeling, one which originated from some very deep-rooted source.
If I had to self-analyze, what I'd get from it is that my guess is that I'm afraid of being nothing. I don't mean amounting to nothing. I don't mean dieing. (As in, suddenly going from existing to not existing.) Afraid of existing, but there being nothing in that existence at all. Which seems like a fairly reasonable fear to me.
I also don't think this is something I'll be exploring too much. I think stumbling upon this discovery was very, very healthy for my wellbeing, as a more or less, "Oh, so that's what's happening", in that it can help me better understand what I'm going through so I can manage my life a little more effectively. Yet I also feel that exploring much further would be detrimental since I get a kind of sense where, "leave the system undisturbed since I am happy with it", more or less.
In short, for much the same reason that I don't particularly care if people call me crazy or delusional, I don't particularly care to look further; I'm happy with this as it is, and that's all that really matters.