Nothing unusual, is usual.

These days, I feel like I am alone, but why do I feel that way? 

I am at home all the time (thanks to the ssRNA Coronavirus), and I am surrounded by my loved ones. Even then, I feel lonely. Maybe it's because I have no one to talk to. And when I say that, I don't mean we don't communicate, because we do! We watch television together, have our meals together, laugh and sleep tucking in the same blanket. But I feel like no one listens to me. They talk, and I listen, but when I feel like talking, I find nobody. And this happened maybe because I never opened up from the very beginning. In their defense, they say, "You never really used to talk before this, so we think you're okay!" But in my defense, back then, I had nothing much to talk about, and now when I do, I don't have anyone. But not exactly. I have Homo sapiens, friends I guess. But I can't expect anyone to stay here 24X7.

Why not? You might ask. Social obligation, it is. Plus, nobody is here to take anyone's shit all the time.

And why am I telling you all this? It's because this led to the development of an unusual habit in me. I talk to myself now, not out loud, but yes, I found myself nodding my head to my thoughts, staring at the wall. And this happened a few months back. When I noticed myself doing it, I thought it's alright to talk to myself, people do it all the time, and it's quite normal. But then, over time, I found myself staring at the wall for a stretch of 30-45 minutes, trapped in my own fantasy, giving weird expressions to the wall and seeing myself from afar and judging my own expressions. I myself play all the characters of my fantasy, and I do change versions of reality and enjoy every single possibility of WHATIFs.

Am I crazy?

When I realized I am doing it more often, I asked my third-person self, and it suggested that I should stop doing it as it may degenerate my mental health. I started looking for all possible causes for why I do that and what the possible solutions could be because this was not happening forever. And this persisting fantasy of mine was affecting my reality, as I was expecting the real characters to act like they did in my fantasy, and this hollow expectation has always led me to distress. It took me a long time to understand why I overreacted every time on an unexpected move by people that exist in my universe and what made them sick of my hue and cry, and made them distant, resulting in many voids in my universe. I won't complain; I was hard to be with; I understand, and I respect their decision. And I agree; I got late reaching the conclusion that the problem was always within me, and so was the solution. I have heard this many times - Don't expect! But now I understand what they all meant.

And then I started working on my complexes before getting exposed to the real world once again. This time, I observed that whenever I tried speaking my thoughts out, or whenever I tried talking for more than 2 minutes, I was asked to stop or talk some other time, or worse, I was yelled at - "nahi sunne man hai na, mat sunao" (Don't, I don't want to listen!). And yet again, I can't complain because back in the days, I never talked myself out, so this may be new to them, and I understand how 'changes are tough to deal with!