I’m anxious, I’m crying. This feeling of disconnection is overwhelming, my once coping mechanisms are now blocking me from being present. I don’t feel, my feelings aren’t the same. It’s all or nothing. They come on fast and hard and I don’t know how to handle them. It’s like meeting someone new and unexpected for the first time, like a very important person that I am forced to stay and entertain, we must have this conversation but it’s all one sided. It’s all them, the feelings, and I can’t get a word in, I can’t even listen, the words, the tone, I can only tune it out, the noise, the energy, I slide into silence, my own personal solitary oasis, where I can shut it off. This island is the only place I know how to be, how to function, if only in limited capacity, it is the only capacity I know. The world is fucked, and I can’t even wrapped my head around it anymore, my brain won’t allow it, it just shuts off, I shut down. Asking for assistance from this place feels impossible, the isolation is comforting, it doesn’t poke and prod, it just lets me be, and I can still present myself to the world as functional, I can work, I can eat, I can exercise, I can care for my son and family. I can distract, I’ll let myself fall to the wayside while I’m on my island looking busy, looking too cool to bother with anyone else, this is a pattern her behavior, she never reaches out anyways, she’s ok.

I’m not ok. I’m lost, but I’m here right in front of you. This is my attempt to care about myself, my effort to remember who I am. Who I was. I’m sad right now. I think I’ve been sad for a long time, but I don’t let those feelings in, so I’m not too sure how long it’s been, I’m good at the dissociation, it’s been how I cope. I’ve allowed myself to run, and in running I’ve discovered my strengths, it’s not all bad to run. You just have to know you’ll never be faster than that of which chases you. Cause that is already here, in you. You can’t run from that. You can push it down, turn it around, but it’s still there, but maybe just slightly out of frame. And when you tidy up your mind, adjust that crooked picture frame just right, it locks you in the eyes and just stares, cuts into your very essence, a familiar scent from years ago, the memories assault, it knocks you out, and for a brief moment it’s out of frame again, you breathe, recompose, you stand back up and let that crooked picture angle it’s self back out of frame. This is how I function. Barely.

It’s rare these days when I’m hit with such an assault. I’ve taken pride in my skills of dissociation. I’ve written essays in my mind and play acted my speaking tour of which I school people in the nuisances of dissociative art. It would hang on museum walls it is was tangible. It’s the vaccine for all unwanted feelings, at least thats what I tell my editor. It’s perfection, it is that one missing element of self care, sure your skin is glowing but have you tried scraping out your insides with dissociative bleach, really get in there, scratch it out, use your nails, I’ve got something to clean out the blood with later, there’s no to time waste, you have no time, wait, breathe, it’s trying to…no no no honey, use the bleach… now.

I feel better, for the moment, getting a few things out can help to keep these feelings in check. But I can’t let them all out. Not at once, HA! What a fool I’d be, it would surely kill me. Breathe.

I’ll be ok. I know I won’t be one hundred percent, ever, but dissociation has helped me cope with PTSD, it’s allowed me to succeed, be happy, grow, and learn, for that I am thankful. Unfortunately with its help it has also hindered, but that’s not its fault, it’s the trauma. When medication and talking can’t bring back the missing, you have to come to terms that this pain will never leave, never. The damage is done. It’s a permanent fixture in your psyche, your thought patterns forever disfigured, your chemicals changed. I haven’t discovered a therapy yet to fix this damage. The methods of withdrawal just substitute one evil with another lesser evil. It’s like scaring yourself to cure your hiccups, it’s doesn’t makes sense, my doctor writes out this prescription, take this and go talk to someone else. I smile. Cause all of this is funny, seriously, trauma happens, it’s very singular and formative..What are your points of reference? How do you react? How will you let it change your life? That’s up to you? I don’t drink, I dissociate, both have long term negative effects on your health. The down side is dissociation is invisible, and that in itself creates other issues, then it’s all compounded, a decade later and I’m still waking up with night terrors, hours of much needed self care, basic sleep, is denied and ravaged. Then the spiral begins, I can’t hide from myself all the time, it knows when I let my guard down, and it’s ruthless. I used to be ruthless too, but the bag under my eyes and the prolonged daydreams of vacancy have shone it’s cracks to my foe, it knows when to strike.

So I’m here, I’m ok, I’ve just been dealt a hard blow. But now my breathing has slowed, my pulse steady, I recede back a little calmer, these words sit on the screen. I’ll set this free, my feelings can be free for once, but really this is just me getting a running head start.