I wasn't a tiny bit jealous of people who do experience these things

It's easy to think that way. Who wouldn't want to meet aliens, right?

But whatever is going on, it's not Star Trek. It's not a peaceful, consensual meeting of equals for tea and philosophy.

Try to imagine that impossible things start happening, and okay it's kind of cool sometimes, but mostly you're never sure that you didn't hallucinate it. You can't prove it and no one else saw it.

Since I've let myself become aware of this, my mental health has plunged.

I've spent literally decades questioning my sanity. There's still a big part of me that thinks I'm crazy. That thinks I'm so messed in the head that I am incapable of recognizing hallucination/delusion, or that deep down I imagine things because I want to be super-special and important. Hell I had my therapist argue with me that I'm not crazy, that sometimes things happen that we don't understand. And I've only told her a few things because I think if I bring up everything she will change her mind, decide that she was mistaken and I must be the craziest person she's ever me.

If you talk to people about it, they try to explain it to you even though you've already ruled those explanations out. Or they don't know what to say and change the subject. You're left wondering if they think you're crazy, hysterical, or a liar.

And then there's the other side of things. I don't know what is going on, or why.

I read people's stories and the hypnosis accounts. And some of them are absolutely terrifying. Is that happening to me? Was I cursed from birth to be some sort of alien test subject? Have I been sexually assaulted and not remember it? Was I ever pregnant and didn't know it? God help me, are the stories of 'hybrid children' real? Is that what's going on?

Or, am I worrying about nothing? Because in truth I don't remember much of anything. I'm not 100% sure that something happened, I just have other signs. Woke up with a weird bruise once on my upper inner arm (I live alone and can't imagine how the bruise could have happened. Plus it looked a bit like fingers). Had an episode of missing time at elementary school. Dream about aliens sometimes but they don't feel like dreams, they feel more real than that. But you know, again, maybe I'm so crazy that my subconscious is building up this fantasy for me and it's all in my head.

I had a missing object appear on my couch when I stepped out of my living room for 30 seconds. Something I'd been looking for earlier in the day, and I had definitely checked the couch cushions. Suddenly it was sitting on top of one of the couch cushions, far enough away from the edges that it couldn't have rolled out from underneath the cushions, and placed so prominently and so exactly that I couldn't have missed it when I'd been searching.

How does that happen? I have no idea. Either I have some sort of lurking extra personality, I'm dissociating, or... maybe I have a ghost? Maybe aliens are fucking with my head? I have no idea. It raises so many questions. It throws absolutely everything I thought I knew about reality in the trash. Because objects can't just appear out of nowhere. Except they can, so it means I know nothing.

The whole thing is driving me nuts. I've even started talking to a part of my mind that's wise and gives me good advice and encourages me to snap out of mental health ruts. Like an internalized therapist.

But I wonder sometimes if that part of my mind is really me, or if it's external to me. And I wouldn't question that at all if it wasn't for all the rest of this. And that leads me right back to questioning my sanity and believing that I must be so deeply gullible that I have started fooling myself with delusions.

Look, this turned into a long rant. Sorry about that. It's not you, I just have a lot on my mind and I guess I let loose a bit.

Point is, it's not fun. It's lonely. It's maddening.