What would the real you be like? Just curious, since you keep talking about it.

Sometimes l feel that way. There are times when l am in a crowd and l feel like l am living a lie. The person they see is not the person l am. Most times, l just feel like the real me is sleeping and won't wake up and no matter what l do, she just keeps sleeping. l'm really scared l killed her. l don't feel like the same person l was three years ago. l feel like l've entered the darkest parts of my mind and can't escape.

lt's a little different from your situation, but l can definitely relate.

American philosopher Daniel Dennet wrote about this, I highly recommend you check out some of his writings.

So many feelings
end up in here
left so alone I'm with
oh, an atmoshere
I'm sick and I'm tired
of reasoning
just want to break out
shake off this skin

I can't escape myself

All my problems
lume larger than life
I can swallow another slice
Seems like my shadow
marks every strike
can't learn to live with
what's trapped inside

I can't escape myself

So many feelings
end up in here
left so alone I'm with
oh, an atmoshere
I'm sick and I'm tired
of reasoning
just want to break out
shake off this skin

I can't escape mysef

Yes. I think I've always felt trapped inside of myself because I've always known that the way I understand and interpret the world is quite different from the methods of other people. So, because I can't relate to other people easily since they are absorbing the world in a different way than I am, I feel trapped inside of myself because I can never truly share the same life experiences, or truly feel empathetic for other people. So I'm alone, with my own head. Always. It's sad.

It makes perfect sense, and yes, I feel the same way in more ways than one.

The most obvious and easiest to explain reason for this is my anxiety. It's always prevented me from doing and saying the things I want to (or at least trying to do these things). Most of the time it prevents me from even leaving my house. However, even if I had no anxiety problems at all, I doubt things would be much different.

The largest and most significant reason I feel this way would be because of my difficulties communicating. It's always been a big problem for me, and it's only become worse as I get older. Translating my thoughts into language that other people can understand is always very hard for me, and often completely impossible. Talking to someone face to face is the hardest; there's so little time to formulate what I want to say to them that usually I can't manage more than a few words. It's like this for all real time conversations (face to face, telephone, instant message, etc), and I still have this problem even with the most basic of interactions. It's not that I have any problem deciding what I want to do or what I want to say; when someone says something to me I immediately know how I want to respond. The problems start when I try to put that response into words.

On a message board like this, it's less of a problem because I can take as much time as I want to write my post. (And that's exactly what I do; it takes me forever to write posts, even short ones.) However, the problem certainly doesn't go away online. Communicating any sort of complex idea is pretty much out of the question for me, no matter how long I spend trying to write it all out. This is extremely frustrating for me. I spend a great deal of time thinking, and my head is full of all sorts of complex ideas, but I'm unable to express any of them in any sort of meaningful way.

When you take this and combine it with my anxiety, I'm left pretty much completely unable to express myself. Sometimes it's so bad that I can hardly even speak a word. While it's nowhere near as bad online, the persona you see here is still not even close to what I'm really like; my true self exists only in my mind. "Trapped within myself" is truly the best way to describe it.

Lyrical, how would you act around me if we met in person? l've only known you online and l like you just the way you are Would you be more comfortable with me or still just as nervous?

l talk to my pysc about all the things that makes me nervous. She tells the best way to rid myself of these nerves is to continuously do the things l avoid. Eventually, they'll become routine to me and l'll get less nervous doing it. Perhaps start off slow. Take a step outside your door everyday. When you're comfortable with that, step a little further. You don't have to be comfortable with people yet, but it'll help to be comfortable with going outside. You'll soon realize most people keep to themselves and won't bother you.

It makes perfect sense, and yes, I feel the same way in more ways than one.

The most obvious and easiest to explain reason for this is my anxiety. It's always prevented me from doing and saying the things I want to (or at least trying to do these things). Most of the time it prevents me from even leaving my house. However, even if I had no anxiety problems at all, I doubt things would be much different.

The largest and most significant reason I feel this way would be because of my difficulties communicating. It's always been a big problem for me, and it's only become worse as I get older. Translating my thoughts into language that other people can understand is always very hard for me, and often completely impossible. Talking to someone face to face is the hardest; there's so little time to formulate what I want to say to them that usually I can't manage more than a few words. It's like this for all real time conversations (face to face, telephone, instant message, etc), and I still have this problem even with the most basic of interactions. It's not that I have any problem deciding what I want to do or what I want to say; when someone says something to me I immediately know how I want to respond. The problems start when I try to put that response into words.

On a message board like this, it's less of a problem because I can take as much time as I want to write my post. (And that's exactly what I do; it takes me forever to write posts, even short ones.) However, the problem certainly doesn't go away online. Communicating any sort of complex idea is pretty much out of the question for me, no matter how long I spend trying to write it all out. This is extremely frustrating for me. I spend a great deal of time thinking, and my head is full of all sorts of complex ideas, but I'm unable to express any of them in any sort of meaningful way.

When you take this and combine it with my anxiety, I'm left pretty much completely unable to express myself. Sometimes it's so bad that I can hardly even speak a word. While it's nowhere near as bad online, the persona you see here is still not even close to what I'm really like; my true self exists only in my mind. "Trapped within myself" is truly the best way to describe it.

yes and can this post be private?

Beyond simply the communication issues, I've generally just felt for some time that there's two versions of myself... the real self, which is the "me" you see here, and then what I sometimes affectionately call "this thing behind the PC" which I've increasingly started avoiding mirrors to look at when possible, because the more often I see my face/body (in comparison to the time I don't), the more eerily it seems to me like some type of puppet whose purpose is to be an outlet for the "me" inside to do and experience everything. It's almost like I'm not even fully attached to it; I mean I know it sounds weird, but I just feel that I'm looking through its eyes like a window...

Do you ever feel like you're trapped inside yourself??

The real me is basically the person am on here & other sites. I'm able to be myself online, & even on paper, when writing to people, or emailing to people, or even writing essays in school. But when it comes to real life, I've never been able to be myself. I can't explain it any better, but I just feel like there's some sort of barrier keeping my real self (the self I show online, etc.) from being shown to, or seen by, the rest of the world. Like something is keeping me from being me.