Is it normal to question reality at age 10?

So when I was born the doctors thought I'd have brain damage because there was a point during labor when my brain wasn't getting oxygen. They told my parents I would be "retarded" because that was still the technical term in the nineties, but as I grew everyone realized that I was actually pretty smart. At 3 years old I had the vocabulary of a 5 year old already in Kindergarten and I hadn't even started preschool. My parents told me all this when I was a kid as my big miracle at the start of everything, proof that I could overcome any obstacle. So around 4th or 5th grade I started to think about this idea that I was "supposed" to be special needs. I don't know if whoever stumbles upon this will be familiar with the show St. Elsewhere, but it apparently ends with some twist that a little boy on the autism spectrum is imagining all the goings-on at this hospital in his snow globe. I certainly hadn't heard of the show when I was 10, but I guess through cultural osmosis I was aware of the idea of the autistic child creating their own reality in their mind. One day I just sort of looked around and wondered if I'd dreamed it all up. My first attempts to prove my reality was the REAL reality were accusations: "Why wouldn't I have made myself prettier, or taller?" But the thing that made me believe in this reality was when I considered that if this were my own personal reality I could have invented things not present in the REAL reality. My first example was Disneyland, and I knew immediately that I was not possibly cool enough to imagine all of Disneyland. Nor was Disneyland something that could exist merely in one kid's imagination; Disneyland was so awesome that it HAD to exist. So if Disneyland existed in the reality I experienced, and I could not have invented Disneyland, then I could not have invented reality. Or so my 10 year old logic went.

Anyway, I wanted to bore you all with this because as I have moved beyond age 10 there have been some other interesting and sometimes painful mental quirks. I am starting to wonder if I can trace my more exaggerated mental health issues not just to my traumatic adolescence but all the way back to the 10 year old debating reality. Is it normal to wonder if you invented your own reality at 10? Is it normal to wonder if you invented your own reality in the first place? Thoughts?

Voting Results
76% Normal
Based on 25 votes (19 yes)
Help us keep this site organized and clean. Thanks!
[ Report Post ]
Comments ( 7 )
  • green_boogers

    At age 10, I began to suspect that some abstract truth was responsible for the tangible reality that people invented. My best guess was that it was Math. My Dad was an engineer and I had seen him solve real world problems with his slide rule. Slide rules seemed to have an indescribable supernatural aura.

    "Maybe it's not maths", I thought. But I'll assume it is until I find out what magic drives the universe. And so, I woke up and started my journey in life.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • Arm0se

    "I don't want to go to school! Why can't I just stay home?!"
    ~ every 10 year old ever

    Yes

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • jeremybrown50k

    I questioned reality at 9, why are our lives controlled by the $hit called society, why cant we do what ever we want, why do we have to go to school, why is knowledge bounded by books,why do we have to do what every one wants us to do. I have been thinking these since I was 9 and still cannot find the right answer...

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • thegypsysailor

    Stevie boy, is this you? Kinda sounds like you; 'At 3 years old I had the vocabulary of a 5 year old already'.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
      -
    • weird-gurrl5710

      Sorry, no Stevie here. What about that sentence made you think of him?

      Comment Hidden ( show )
        -
      • Little-GirlRapedAndSodomised

        It's normal because most kids have a big imagination.

        Comment Hidden ( show )
      • thegypsysailor

        He also is always bragging about his massive intellect.

        Comment Hidden ( show )