The Prison of the Mind(Charles E.J. Moulton) The Prison of the Mind

A Short Story
By Charles E.J. Moulton


***

How does prison feel like?
I mean, real prison.
Not prison like the kind where you're in a cell and waiting to die.
That is real.
It sucks. But it's real.
Everyone knows about it.
It's official.
But what about the prison you know is real, but no one but you knows is real.
You're in prison and no one knows about it.
Fears, inner voices that scream at you. Traumatic opposing voices from your past fighting over you about who's right about you, who owns the most of your stocks. People who misunderstand you. Misinterpret you.
Think they know you.
But they don't.
The danger begins when so many people misinterpret you and you don't have anyone to talk to about it, so you begin acting like they think you are or should be. Then you have to decide which version of you you wanna play. Mom's version? Dad's version? Clark's version? Paula's version?
I mean the kind of horror you experience where you are completely alone with your troubles. Where no one cares if you live or die. Homeless people with homes. People who are caught in relationships where the other one does not care. Where you have no one to talk to. Where no one takes you seriously. Where you're supposed to say everything is okay when actually everything is awful. Where you are the spouse of a person who attracts all of the attention, plans every little detail, treats you like a gofer and gets angry if you are introspective or sad or screaming to be respected. The person spends all of the time demanding you do this and that and yells at you, calling you names, if you are a little pissed off how badly you are being treated.
That person never ever even tries to adjust to you or understand you or respect you, because everything is about the fact that this person's will is not a will at all, but the only right way. Your way is not a way at all, but just stupid. Your ideas are stupid.
That's the way you were treated in school. You should be used to it. You are a commodity. You are not important in yourself. You matter just because you do something for someone else.
The Weirdo. The guy that acts funny.
Well, that's real prison, because you know very well you can never talk to that person you feel is disrespecting you. Ever. The choleric outburst will be too extreme. Because whenever you really talk about your feelings, the other person, your spouse, anyone who disrespects you, will make it small and defend the other people, not you. Because you are a diva who exaggerates things. You're making it up.
But your feelings are there. They won't go away. Only, no one knows about it because you don't dare speak about it.
How do you deal with that kind of prison?
So, although you live with the person, the person does not really know you. Not really. The person cleans, cooks, organizes, does everything. But has the person ever embraced you tenderly, kissing you and asked you in a caring voice if you are okay? Has the person ever accepted if you say you're sorry after saying how awful it was that you did something? Okay, it was awful that you did it, obviously, reacting a certain way out of self defense, breaking something out of clumsiness. But your spouse will never accept your apology. It does not change your actions, the person says. You are never right. Ever.
So you remain what you have been all your life. An oddball. A strange person who has never ever really fitted in anywhere. So you end up speaking to yourself when you think no one is hearing you. But then someone hears you. And you feel ashamed of yourself for it. You are used to people trying to understand you. Analyzing you, but never ever being quite correct about you. They say you are arrogant. A troll. An alien. Weird. Insecure. Secure. Gay. Macho. Straight. Quiet. Loud. Crazy. Boring. Too real. Not real enough. A kid. Too grown up. Silly. Serious.
They are all wrong.
None of them know you.
And then there are your ideas.
You remember your previous lives. You've seen UFOs.
You are hypersensitive.
People look at you funny when you speak. You don't really fit in anywhere. You are hyper intelligent. Read a lot. Write a lot. But you have no degrees or anything. So you are really nowhere. A Nowhere Man. A Fool on the Hill.
What do you do if no one really understands you?
Then things work out better when you say nothing. That is good and scary at the same time.
You are living in your own haunted house. Haunted by memories.
You can't see it.
There are millions of those around and they think no one cares.
That is a real prison.
It's a prison of the mind.

---