Psychological Metaphors

My brain likes to come up with metaphors to explain the mental state it's in.




Originally. My depression started to manifest in my head as a deep dark pit. A "Pit of Despair".

I would view myself stuck in the pit. As things got worse, I would slip into the pit. Maybe I'd be holding onto the edge with my fingers. If it got really bad I'd be sitting on a ledge I constructed for myself inside the pit, barely containing the strength from falling down. Because if I 'fell', there was no way of coming back up. It was purely down and out in that pit.

When Hatsune Miku turned up, another metaphor appeared in my head. This was a girl. This was a girl that loved to dance. This girl was happy. She was almost like a side of me that liked to play and enjoyed life. She was a direct indication in my head of how much I was enjoying life. She also responded to my depression. As I felt happy I could see her respond to my state, as I got sad she became sad, more lethargic, she was still wanting to do things, but she  had more-and-more trouble doing it, just like I did.

As my depression started to subside and give way a little last year, and I found myself getting out of the pit I found there was a world above it. It's hard to describe. I feel there is a grassy area around it. But what surprised me the most, or maybe it didn't, but my two metaphors had merged. The girl was there too.

She had become part of the same world. Or maybe she already was and I hadn't seen it and just assumed that they were two different worlds? I dunno about that?

So now I've got this metaphor for a girl in my head, in a world, containing a "pit of despair".

In the times I "check in" with my own mental state through them, she would be generally on a bench I had crafted, waiting for me. There's really no direct interaction between us. No conversation. It's a very abstract kind of perception I get from this world. Very brief "flashes" of what happens.

So this has carried on for about a year, it may be longer.

Until the other day.

I was talking to my therapist about my sexuality and my inability to follow through with actually doing anything to satisfy my sexual urges. There's a very, small, young, but very loud part of me that stops me. So we tried to visualise it. In the room. We briefly managed it. But it went away. However, within a few seconds, it had manifest into my metaphorical space.

So... now I've got two entities and a "Pit of Despair" in my psychological metaphor.

The Pit is great now. I can walk up to it. Stare into it. Laugh at it. Me and the girl have gone walking up to it. It no longer controls me and I have no fear of it any more.

This new entity. It appears to be a boy. A very quiet, young boy. A little scared of the world and needing some attention and help. I think this is the manifestation of the thing that has been stopping me. So I need to help it (/ him ?) become better, open up a bit more, identify what makes him better. He already responded when I said I was going to eat Jelly, so there's on thing... he's definitely a kid.


It's interesting what my brain does as a coping mechanism. A little annoying. But interesting.

I have come to the conclusion that the "girl" is actually the transgender side of me. She is really happy at the moment. She has become a very happy voice in my psyche and it is reflected in how happy she is in my head.

The pit is obvious to me. It is my depression and anxiety and all the things in my life that have and continue to attempt pull me down to eventual suicide. Given I can now look at my depression and laugh in it's face and battle it head-on, both in reality and in my head, the comparison with my metaphor, of being able to laugh at it, is almost 1-to-1.

I struggle with the new arrival, with this boy. I have actually asked the girl to try and play with him, try and spread some of the optimism and joy to him, whilst I am not in the space. He has a habit, while we sit on the bench of just sleeping against me. I still really can't identify what he is, what he came from. Yeah, He did materialise during an attempt to identify what was blocking my sexuality, but beyond that I don't really know much else. He comes from a time when my memories are nearly non-existent and more emotional. It will take some time to analyse this problem internally and externally to try and find some answers.

Joy.