Lately I've been trying to put into words a strange pattern that's followed me since I was about eleven. Every five years or so, whenever I'm overwhelmed or deeply stressed, I end up hallucinating a being I've made up in my head. It's based on a mythical creature that's usually portrayed as dangerous or cruel, definitely not something meant to offer comfort especially to someone vulnerable. It appears almost like a normal human, close enough that at a glance, you could mistake it for a person. There are tiny details that give it away every time though.
The most recent time, a pair of them came up to me during a depressive episode. They spoke to me calmly, gently, and somehow pulled me back from that dark place. They told me they spent time in the exact spot where I saw them, and said reassuringly they were there every day if I wanted to talk to them again. But even though I went back daily for weeks afterward, I never actually saw them again. I can still picture their faces and voices as clearly as if I saw them yesterday. It wasn't like a dream where some details are fuzzy. It was like they were really there.
I even asked one for his social media handle after I asked him if he has one, to which he said yeah. When I got home that day and searched it, I could've sworn a real profile showed up. But now, when I look, it doesn't exist, there's not even a "this user deleted their account" message. It's just…... nothing like it was never there at all?
It's happened four times so far. The first time was right after I'd seen something about that creature in the news and a magazine, and I remember feeling incredibly lonely. Each episode happened in a public place, once it was at school and one time, a few years back, the one I mention with the social media question, I lost about thirty minutes of actual time which is the amount of time I was talking to them. Every one looked slightly different, like another individual of the same species rather than the same guy, and once there were two of them talking to me and also chatting with each other as if they were completely separate.
I haven't had hallucinations of anything else in my life, just those four, and part of me feels conflicted and guilty that I miss them. This creature is supposed to be evil, something that harms or even kills innocent people, yet the versions I see are the opposite, they're quiet, kind, and grounding. It's comforting and unsettling at the same time. I catch myself searching for the creature in movies, shows, books anything. It comforts me yet it also leaves me feeling strangely sad and just empty. I spend about an hour a day looking up information or stories about it. It's like some part of my brain is always itching for more, even though most portrayals paint it as monstrous instead of compassionate.
That's also the reason why these people looked so familiar. The school one looked very much like me in the face, except he was a boy, and when I "encountered" the pair a few years ago, one of them eerily resembled my cousin, even down to his build. I have a hostile family, but I remember reading somewhere that your brain cannot create new faces from scratch. It has to base them off of people it knows.
I don't think I'll get over the fact the people who were there for me to comfort me when no one else would never really existed.
Yeah, I was wondering that. I have been feeling lonelier than usual lately, and I've been very physically ill for a long time so I missed out on a lot of things, too. I've since recovered, but I do feel a bit lost.