insaine twinning

My digital twin saved my marriage.

I had gone to therapy for years. My therapist practically became a Ronnie historian. He knew all of my stories. But no matter how many times we revisited my little traumas, I never felt like I was making real progress.

Of course, that all got worse when I got married. Not at first. At first, I felt like all I'd needed was to find the love of my life. I couldn't believe I'd gotten so lucky. I never realized how much the Disney movies I loved as a kid set me up for disappointment. It surprised me to learn that I really believed my problems wouldn't matter once I was in love.

But they all came back with a vengeance, probably around year six. That year, I'd just gotten laid off. I had more free time than ever. My wife wanted to have kids. She'd said she makes enough for the both of us, and we didn't have very many baby-making years left. Who knows how long it would take to find a good sperm donor, she said.

I thought I was ready. Then as soon as we stepped into the fertility office, I had my first official panic attack. I'd been dealing with close calls for years. Moments where I'd get really hot, slightly dizzy. My heartbeat would hit my eyeballs. Usually I could just breathe through it and move on. This time, I rushed to the bathroom and had to get in the fetal position for a solid fifteen minutes. When the worst of it passed, I texted my wife that maybe I ate some bad sushi.

Why now? I kept asking my therapist. Haven't we discussed at length all of the possibilities of having or not having kids? Didn't we reach a resolution? Hadn't I accepted, and was possibly even excited, about raising a kid? There's a lot to take in right now, he said. Be kind to yourself.

I wanted to scream that we didn't have time for that Zen bullshit. My wife might be unstoppably pregnant as we speak. There's already no turning back. The time to make a choice has passed, and I blew it.

I started replaying little moments in my head on repeat. I wanted to identify every possible decision that led me to this point. Every moment I could have voiced a different opinion and didn't. I questioned everything. Am I just scared? Did I always secretly know that I didn't want kids? Had I been suppressing this because she really wants them? Would she still have married me if she'd known I might not want kids? Was I too afraid to say anything because I knew she wouldn't have?

I called myself a coward. I'd robbed her of a choice too, if I'm being honest. I'd watch her when she wasn't looking, trying to picture her as a mom. Wondering what she would be like as a single mom. Wondering if I'd eventually resent her if I committed to the responsible parent role.

Then I started wondering, what if I just change my mindset? Can I learn to be comfortable in this? My therapist has said again and again, "What gets repressed, gets expressed." But then, what's the difference between repressing a feeling and letting go of it? Like in a mindfulness sense. My therapist never has a good answer to that.

It was around this time when my wife started saying that I wasn't being present. She was growing by the day, and I didn't seem to notice or care. Her words. The trouble was that I was running mental marathons all day. I'd be doing something basic like washing the dishes, and I wouldn't realize she was talking to me. I'd be repeating the same questions in my head, and she'd have to wave her hand in front of my face to snap me out of it. It pissed her off. I was exhausted. We started nitpicking each other like crazy. We've never done that.

I found my saving grace on MomTok of all places. I was scrolling through, trying to find stories about women who had my same doubts but then they ended up loving being a mom. I usually did this a few times a week to ground myself, but it was always a risky thing because a single video about how so-and-so changes after you become a mom could send me right back to the mental doomloop.

I happened to come across a video from one of the influencers I follow. She talked about this new experimental psychology happening on the university's campus. Some neuroscientists, psychologists, medical doctors, and virtual reality specialists were looking for participants to test a new treatment for adjustment disorder.

I learned that term from my therapist. He diagnosed me with it for insurance purposes. My wife said at the time that it's probably what they say for anyone who doesn't have an acute condition. Although, it's clear to me now that she didn't realize the extent to which I'd been spiraling.

The more I researched, the more intrigued I was by this experiment. I signed up to be part of the trials. I told my wife I was doing it for an extra bit of cash, just while I searched for a new job. Luckily, it didn't surprise her that I'd want to test out what was essentially a virtual game. We bonded over our love of video games when we first started dating.

I went to the university research facility in Northbridge. It looked more like a production studio, with giant rooms and giant screens. The trial happened in a few phases. First the team brought me to this MRI-type machine and basically downloaded my brain. I think the official term was neural network. They would ask me questions to trigger memories, and I'd just have to think about them for a bit.

Apparently the lead neuroscientist had figured out how to map your memories in such a way that the VR specialists could translate them into a virtual reality landscape. I had to wait about a week for the results, and then they brought me in for the second part of the experiment.

They placed me in a huge room covered in black nylon-looking fabric. They had me put on a VR headset and bodysuit that let me feel sensations. Once everything was in place, I entered the "memory" landscape, and it was like walking through my brain. Suddenly I saw how everything was connected. Every memory, every relationship, every feeling — they all made sense when I could actually see the larger picture, so to speak. I could interact with individual memories too, seeing the same moment from different angles. Literally by walking around it, and psychologically by viewing it as both an observer and as the person it happened to.

My favorite part was on the outskirts of the mental map though. You could volunteer to trial the next phase of the technology: predictive walkthroughs. The software created a digital twin of me that lived out the next five years of my life based on my real experiences, how my brain processes things, and my likely future given my current circumstances.

I could even select memories that I wanted to "redo," and my digital twin showed me how that would've impacted everything else. Obviously there's no way to know for certain that that's what would happen. The research team explained to me at length that this feature is based on complex statistics and algorithms. But it was still rad. Like seeing into my future, and all possible futures. Exactly what's been keeping me up at night.

I saw, with my actual eyes, that all roads lead to me parenting. But it comforted me to know that my happiness is really a result of whether I stay active in my kid's life or check out. I have all the setup I need to be happy; I just can't get too deep into my head again.

So yeah, I would recommend this to anyone dealing with a life change.

Screw psychics. My digital twin sees the future.