All in My Head

Ever since I was a child I’ve had horrible headaches. I never told my parents about them, that’s probably why I still have them. They were monthly (if that), so I tried not to make a big deal out of it. I remember one time I was at an amusement park, either Disneyland or Six Flags, and I got a pounding migraine. I was on the ground, almost in tears, and when my parents asked what was wrong I told them I had to pee. Later that day they took me to the doctor to check if I had a Urinary Tract Infection. The worst part about the headaches is that I always seem to get them at the worst times; during pictures, tests, prom, and other social gatherings. Basically, any place which required me to be my best mentally my headaches followed.

I’m 27 now, and my headaches have decided now to take a great turn. The other day I was trying to have a nice date with a woman that I met on a dating website (Yes, I’m desperate). We went to a nice restaurant for dinner, it was expensive too. The moment she sat down at the table I got an intense headache. I grabbed my head, so she must have thought I was irritated to see her. I was able to suffer through them without her noticing until about halfway through. She had just started up a very intellectual conversation when I heard a man say to me “You're just a meanie” very childishly. I turned around right away because it sounded like the man was right next to me. There wasn’t anyone around, so I just dismissed it and continued on with my “very intellectual conversation”. She had just asked me a question, which was hard to understand with my headaches, and I heard the voice again, this time saying “She won't never love you”. Unlike the first time I was scared; I jumped up and hit the table, knocking my glass of water over. We had to call over the waiter and ask for napkins to clean up the mess. It was embarrassing, and I had to apologize to my date and she asked what was wrong and a couple of more questions I didn’t care about answering because I was still looking for the man that whispered in my ear. I apologized again and told her the truth. She told me either to ignore them or we’d have to reschedule. I’ve dealt with horrible headaches all my life, so I told her that it was nothing to worry about. Not even five minutes later, I heard the voice call out again, very loudly this time, “No one will never love you!”. I couldn’t stand it, I turned around and yelled at the old man that was sitting at the table almost ten feet away from me. “You think this is funny!” I yelled at him while I stood up, “Just shut up, will ya!”. My date was covering her face, embarrassed. Everybody was staring at me. That outburst got me kicked out of the restaurant.

I went to the doctor after that and told him about the voice in my head. He told me about the different reasons why people hear voices in their head; stress, depression, bad hearing, and of course, insanity. I need to write a journal about my “experiences” for three weeks and then to give him the results so that he can figure out what’s wrong with me. I thought I might as well spice it up a bit so I can read this when I’m older so I can laugh about the time when I thought I heard voices in my head.

June 3rd, 12:46 PM
I work at a construction company, which may the cause of the voices. I might be getting some chemicals in my system when I destroy buildings to create new ones. There is asbestos in these old buildings, most likely, and it would make sense if I accidentally inhaled some. I don’t know if asbestos causes the victim to hear voices, but I might as well write down every possible solution.

June 3rd, 4:48 PM
I heard another voice a few minutes ago. Our team had just finished setting up the explosives. We were going to blow up an old hospital, which has been abandoned for almost a century now, for the creation of an apartment complex. I was the one who “pushed the button”- the guy who detonated the explosives. When the countdown began I was ready. At the two second mark I heard the same voice say to me “All you do is break things. You meanie.” I pressed the button a few seconds late, and everyone is still a little pissed about my apparent “prank”. I told them that it was a delayed detonation, but they didn’t buy it.

June 4th, 8:27 AM
I had a horrible nightmare last night. In it, I was being chased by a giant red demon. It was hunched over when it chased me, for some reason, and it was a reddish-orange color. He told me something about “absorbing my power” and to do so he must consume me. “It’s just survival” he said, as he ate me whole. It was pretty scary. I felt like a helpless baby, I didn’t know what was going on, and he was so much larger than me. Who knows, maybe it’s a sign that there is a demon who’s out to get me.

June 4th, 2:35 PM
Another bad day again. Today at work, we had an important meeting. The boss was explaining to us that the reason he’d been gone for the past few days was because he found out his wife had cancer. The moment he said she had cancer I began laughing loudly and uncontrollably. I don’t know why, but at that moment I thought it was hilarious. I thought for sure I’d be fired, but because I apologized and told him I wasn’t acting myself lately, he told me to take the next few days off. That’s great, now I won’t get payed for at least three days.

June 4th, 8:57 PM
The voice just talked to me again. I was sitting at my computer, and it screamed at me “What did I do to you, you jerk!”. I jumped again, falling out of my chair this time. I heard the voice giggle. That really pissed me off, so I yelled at it “Leave me the hell alone!”. After I said that I realized that I was on the ground of my room talking to myself. The voice didn’t respond to me.

June 5th, 9:06 AM
Given that I have a free day today, I’m going to run a few errands. Last night I had a dream that I was living in a nice house with a wife and a two children. My wife was beautiful, she had nice black hair like my mother. Our kids were just as beautiful. One of them had black hair like my wife and the other had brown hair, taking after me. We had a normal life; having dinner, playing catch, and watching TV together. The dream made me feel good. If this voice keeps on with its tricks, however, the idea of a family is gone.

June 5th, 1:36 PM
I was picking up some groceries today when I saw this gorgeous woman picking out apples. Next to the apples were the oranges, where I was. I had already had my “plan of attack”; I was going to ask her about oranges, like any ignorant single man would, and then I’d start to compliment her. The dream this morning really got me in a romantic mood. Just when I was going to walk to her my arm acted on its own and threw an orange at the woman. It was sort of like any reaction, except it was very violent. She gave me a glare, called me a jackass, and then walked away. My chance of having a family are being ruined by whatever I have.

I looked up what this kind of thing would be on my computer. I found several cases of people being possessed by demons who are experiencing the same problems I am. It would make sense, given my dreams. Tomorrow I’m going to find a priest to exorcise me. I don’t really believe in possessions and demons, but priests are free so it’s worth a shot.

June 5th, 11:45 PM
I’m actually scared at this point. I blacked out for an hour while I was on my computer. On it was a Word file, which was opened for me to see. This is exactly what it said:

'''“Wy do yu hav to be such a menie? all yu wana do is hurt mi dont yu? thats all yu du YU HURT MI! YU KIL ME TU! i wan yu to feel bad tu thas wat il du ill mak u feel bad FEEL SO BAD! u don giv me a chans ur the bad one yur the bad one yur the bad one. i hate yu an mi mommi hates u an yu”'''

I must have woken up right in the middle of the “spirit’s” sentence. I began crying after I finished reading it. Have I done something to upset the spirit? I think the spirit is a young child because of how horrible its spelling was (But why did I hear a grown man’s voice?). Maybe the hospital I tore down was special to it and it wants revenge. I doubt that I’m going to get any sleep tonight.

June 6th, 7:53 AM
I was right, I didn’t get any sleep. The priest is coming over at 9:00 today, so I have an hour before he gets here. I’d like to say in advance that I doubt that the priest will help me at all. There’s still a chance that I’m crazy. I’d probably prefer that than a malevolent spirit.

June 6th, 12:03 AM
The priest came in later than he promised. I was okay with it though, as long as he got the demon out of me. He was pretty nice, as you’d expect from a priest. He blessed me, said all the prayers (some in a language I didn’t understand), but nothing strange happened through the whole process. At the end of it, I honestly thought everything was finished. As he left I told him “Bye-bye you stupid head”. Before the exorcism I had told him that I thought that the spirit was a child, so he knew it wasn’t me. The priest turned around shocked, then tried a couple more incantations. He told me that some spirits are tricky, and can slip through the process. When he was done he told me to call him if the problems continued. I doubt it worked, but I can always hope it did.

June 8th, 3:24 PM
Yesterday nothing strange happened, so I think the “problem” is gone now. If that’s the case I’ll keep writing things that will entertain my future self until I see my doctor in another week. I did have another strange dream last night, however, and I might as well write down anything that might help if this thing is still in me. This one was pretty sad, it was a continuation of my last dream. My black-haired son died, apparently, and my whole family was at his funeral. I hate these depressing kind of dreams. That got me to thinking- maybe the spirit inside me was a child who died, and this was his last memory (But it was a man’s voice). I’m not going to think about it too much.

That dream also made me want to invite over my parents. My dad was busy somewhere in New York for a business trip (He’s 65 now, he should honestly just retire). When I called my mom she told me she would love to see me. She came at 11:00 AM, bringing homemade egg salad (my favorite). I can’t explain why, but I felt so happy around my mother. I kept hugging her and telling her that I loved her. It was like she was in her deathbed. Nothing is wrong with loving my mom, but it’s strange. What made it even stranger is what she told me when she was about to leave. “Honey, I don’t have any problem with it,” she started to ask me, “but why do you keep calling me ‘mommy’? You’re 27, isn’t that a little old for you?”. I hadn’t noticed that I was calling her “mommy” the whole time. I still don’t think the spirit is still inside me though, maybe it’s just the stress of it all that’s making me act like this.

June 10th, 2:26 PM
I just lost my job today. It took me a while to actually get over it and write about it. The moment I got to work I saw my boss waddling over. He was a very large man, so he was easy to spot. “Are you feeling better now? Those days off must have helped you!” I don’t know why, but I spit at him. It wasn’t even a full spit, I just sort of sprayed over his face. He fired me instantly. “I don’t care, tubby!” I yelled at him while I stuck out my tongue. I didn’t try to say that, though, I was going to apologize to him.

This is just too much for me. I’m going to visit the doctor again tomorrow. I think I’m crazy.

June 11th, 12:22 AM
When my doctor came into my room he was smiling. “You’re back already, are you? Everything is better now, I suppose?” I shook my head “no”. “Of course, then why else would you be here?” he said with a smile. I wasn’t in the mood for his humor. I told him everything that’s happened to me in the past week. He looked worried. He told me he was going to take a CAT scan of my brain, to see if anything was wrong with it.

I don’t know why, but when I was in the CAT scanner I felt so happy. It felt futuristic and just cool, like I was a kid again.

The results came a half hour later. The doctor walked in with a depressed look on his face. I knew it was bad news. He told me I have three small tumors in my brain, which is most likely what has been causing my problems. They have to be removed immediately or I’m going to die. I have an appointment for surgery in two days. I don’t think I can write another entry until then, the surgery could kill me. I don't want my parents to stress out about it so I haven’t told them yet.

June 13, 3:01 PM
I had another strange dream last night. My dead son was slowly and meticulously ripped apart by the monster in my first dream. I had to keep watching the horrific scene for the entirety of my dream. Slowly, the monster kept changing while it ate my son. It grew small, became human like, and grew long brown hair- it was then I realized that it was my other son killing him.

I think I know what these dreams would mean now, if, of course, I didn’t have tumors. The spirit must have been killed by his brother and wants to tell me about it so he can go to heaven. I know it’s cliche but it’s a pretty messed up world we live in. I wouldn’t be surprised if some monster of a brother killed him. I’m an only child, I would never know what brotherly love means, but I know how messed up it is. If I have tumors and a spirit possessing me, I’m done.

June 14th, 9:24 PM
The surgery took almost five hours. I just heard how it went from my doctor. He was sweating when he walked in. “Oh good, you’re awake.” he started nervously, “There’s something I need to show you.”. The first thing I thought was that it failed. I was going to die today and that was that. But it was worse.

He showed me a picture taken during the surgery. I saw my head opened up, which was gross in itself. He pointed in the middle of my brain. Sticking out of it was a curled up finger. There was also a few teeth and two more hidden fingers. My doctor had to explain to me how it happened. “Well, you see, when eggs are forming and they’re twins, sometimes the bigger twin consumes the smaller one. And sometimes, because of this, the dead twin still develops in the surviving one’s body. It’s not all that uncommon, we have patients coming in who have teeth growing in their noses, fingernails on their head. Nightmare fuel, if you know what I mean.” Now I really couldn’t deal with my doctor’s sense of humor. “Yours was particularly disturbing. You see how the finger is corled up? It wasn’t like that when we opened you up. It looked like it was trying to get me closer, it started to curl up on its own, go back down, and then finally it curled back up and stopped.” This was just absolutely sick. “It’s scary, but it’s nothing to worry about. Your brain must have sent a strange signal that made it do that before the finger died. It also may have been the release of pressure.” The look on his face told me he was still worried. He told me more than any other doctor would, so I decided not to ask him any more questions. That, and this is really disturbing me. I’m just going to look it up at home.

I’m probably not going to write another entry for a while. This is really shocking to me, as my future self should know, and I need some time to think about it. And possibly mourn.

July 29th, 4:55 PM
This is my last entry. Since I’ve learned the truth, I told both of my parents about everything that has happened. They didn’t even know I was having surgery in the first place, so this was probably really shocking to them to realize that they almost had twins.

I got the remains of my dead twin from the doctor the night of the surgery. Last week I burned them and buried them in my backyard with my parents. There was a little gravestone on it, marked “Jerry” (My mom told me that was almost my name). We had all got to say something for Jerry before we buried him. While I looked at the gravestone I told him “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did, Jerry. I’m also sorry that I killed you, you would’ve made a kickass twin brother” My mom giggled a little while she wiped away her tears. “I forgive you for what you did, I deserved it. I hope you can forgive me too.” I was going to stop there, but I couldn’t. “ It should have been me, Jerry, I’m the one who should have been eaten.” The word “No” echoed through my head. That was the last word Jerry has ever said to me.

Since then, I stopped getting the horrible headaches that I’ve had for almost 27 years now. Also, I finally figured out why the voice in my head had horrible grammar but sounded like a man. I learned about the formation of zygotes in Biology sophomore year of college. What the doctor said was slightly familiar, I remembered hearing it from somewhere. It was held in a part of my brain that I couldn’t get to, the part that Jerry owned. Jerry came into existence when I was told about this, he was a being created from a grudge. He has the mind of the seven year old and the body of a 27 year old man. If Jerry’s goal was to make me feel bad, he achieved it. I hope I can just forget it all. This makes me wonder though- Is Jerry gone, or is will he always be a part of me?