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Reading is bizarre. Every time I pick up a book, I race to the end, desperate to absorb every detail of the story all at once. I feel as if I’m living the lives of the characters. I’m not peeking into their brains, I am their brain. I feel and think as they do.
I noticed a few years ago that while reading a book, I would almost act like the protagonist. Not in any extreme way, or like I thought I was them or anything. I was just strongly influenced by living that person’s life. I would talk similarly or pick up their mannerisms.
This would happen until I picked up a new book and became a new person. I think that’s one of the reasons books with alternating views are sometimes difficult for me to get into. If the POVs are too different, I’m thrown out of the person’s mind.
Unfortunately this does give me a habit of reading books from perspectives kinda similar to mine in the first place. I mostly read from female POVs. And I lean toward books from the POV of someone with a mental illness. It’s so easy for me to put myself there.
Of course this can get me in some bad swings. I read a book from the POV of someone with social anxiety and suddenly my social anxiety spikes. Same with when I read a POV with depression. A POV with OCD really draws out my obsessive and intrusive thoughts.
And yet I can’t get enough of them. I don’t know if it’s the knowledge that I’m not alone. If it’s getting to experience other people’s pain. If it’s the way it makes me bawl and feel completely and absolutely vulnerable. I don’t know, but I can’t get enough.
TW// suicide (in case anyone ever sees this except me)
I just read an alternating perspective book, where one of the characters had bipolar disorder and killed themself. Idk why I’m worried about spoilers, but I won’t say the name of the book.
I just read an alternating perspective book, where one of the characters had bipolar disorder and killed themself. Idk why I’m worried about spoilers, but I won’t say the name of the book.
This book, despite what I said before, did not make me want to kill myself. Sure it made some thoughts pop up, but they’re always there anyway. I am suicidal. I have been for years. That doesn’t mean I’ll commit or anything. But this character did.
They don’t share his mind right before. They share what his swings are like, both manic and depressive. They show the aftermath. They show the way people missed him. They show how people were sad and angry. They showed that no one was happy.
The people who encouraged the character’s suicidal attempts mourned like the rest did. I think people are rarely happy when someone actually dies, no matter what they say before. It’s not natural to celebrate a death. Even when it’s someone you hate, death is painful.
To add a different thread to this thread, some things I find generally peculiar about reading. Sorry that this isn’t linear if anyone reads it, but thoughts aren’t linear. They’re messy and scattered and sometimes a spiral, but almost never linear.
Oops, another web of thoughts came from this.
How do writers possibly write anything? How do you form a linear story? Obviously their thoughts aren’t linear. They have to throw them out there and then collect them and line them up. But how do you line them up??
How do writers possibly write anything? How do you form a linear story? Obviously their thoughts aren’t linear. They have to throw them out there and then collect them and line them up. But how do you line them up??
It’s bizarre
