Multiple Personality... Laziness?

When starting this, I have just forced myself/been forced by my wonderful roommate out of one of my hermit phases.  She came home at about two in the afternoon to see me lying in my bed with my computer and several snack food items sitting around me, and promptly ordered me that she was taking me with her on some errands and then dinner at a friend's house.  I took a shower, cleaned my room up very nicely if I do say so myself, and now am taking a very undeserved break to write this while my roommate takes a very deserved nap.

Unfortunately, this is not as seldom an occurrence as I would like.  Often, without any warning, I will slip into what I have recently been calling a hermit phase, usually lasting at least twenty-four hours.  Basically, it involves not getting up out of my chair (or more often bed) except for absolute necessities such as the bathroom and snack foods, and conversing with anyone being kept to an absolute minimum.  When I was younger it used to involve books and weird daydreams; now it involves constantly staring at my laptop.

When not being a hermit, I have several other phases I go through, but they are all relatively short, reasonable, and not very different from each other.  For now, I'm just lumping them together and calling it my 'people phase'.  (Oddly enough, though the computer completely consumes me during these episodes, the only urges I have felt to blog since I 'started' this thing have been in my people phase.)  My people phase is relatively neat, outdoor-friendly, and recognizes the need to study (although writing papers isn't always included in that).

I have frequently joked with my friends about myself having multiple personality disorder, though not really referring to this situation.  However, recently, I have started becoming more and more perplexed about my extreme mood changes. There does not seem to be any factor that pushes me into my hermit phase, and only the disapproval of my peers and/or relatives, or consequences, feared or real, drags me back out of it.  I have completely different personalities and mindsets in the two phases, and each one prefers itself.  My people phase, each part of it, thoroughly disapproves of my hermit self, while the hermit knows this and is very self-satisfied.

Now, to all those nitpickers out there, I am aware, or at least vaguely certain, from my extensive education obtained from the television in all things random, that multiple personality disorder actually is when the different personalities are not aware of each other.  So I'm pretty sure I don't have that, but I am seriously considering the possibility that I have some slightly tamer version.  Of course, I would never go to some sort of psychologist, being a Christian who believes that God's life within is the only thing that can truly solve my problems. But still, something is definitely wrong with me.  And, considering the previous sentence, my hermit phase still seems to happen even when I am enjoying Him in my spirit.

Also on my mental list of possible explanations is that I am a pretty introverted person (which I learned in my note-taking class that was taught by a psychology professor).  This means that while I don't mind it, socializing can mentally tire me out, in which case I would feel like just being alone for a little while to 'recharge'.  This explanation seems to sorta fit what I'm going through, including the whole 'I don't know what pushes me into it' thing.  If this is the case, though, I have a pretty serious problem, since my flip-flopping seems to be getting worse, and it is not the Lord's way to change people overnight.

I can't really cut back on my social life to try and lessen the rebound, since the Christian life basically depends on the other members of His church.  So the only option I have is to try and set some kind of security system in place to prevent/cure my hermit phase.  The problem is, I really don't care when I am in that mood, so it has to be something that doesn't really depend on me realizing how miserable or horrible I am.  The other problem is, I'm not sure if I trust/am comfortable with anyone enough to let them know how dark I can get inside.  So I can't just say - whenever I have piles of food in my room and am staring at my computer screen that you can't see, please yank me out of bed and make me clean up and like, read the Bible out loud in the living room while playing hymns.  Or better yet, take me out somewhere public with people I know, preferably a meeting.  I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I am hoping someone I know actually does read this and pick this practice up. Hm. I think I'm analyzing myself too much.


So, as I finish this, it's several hours since I started and I've been to a meeting and pretty much gotten rid of the mental afterimage of hermit phase. Watching/listening to the freshmen in my apartment psych themselves up for the beginning of class tomorrow makes me feel nostalgic/too old and experienced/slightly ashamed that I really don't care.  I'm just feeling slightly intimidated from 4 1/2 straight hours of science-y classes, though I am that kind of person and very happy I don't have any humanities courses.  Still, it's better that I'm feeling focused and ready (in my people phase) rather than slightly worried that I'll even feel like going out of the apartment.


Aaand, before I get too off topic, I better end this.  If I am excited about my new classes and not too tired, there is a very good chance I will do another entry tomorrow about boring stuff like how my day went.  I am also wondering if I want to purposely let my housemates read my blog. Scary stuff that, compared to random people on the internet.  Should I have a closing? Hm. Will think about that too.