“Ummm, it’s hard to explain”
Being stuck in an unreal world
Words you have probably used yourself. Words you have probably heard used. The first “hard to explain” moment which just found its way into my mind was right after Halloween in a time yonder, when I had to explain to my Mother that my hair was now, with a complete and utter lack of warning, red (it had never drifted from a shade of blonde for 24 years of existence prior). Now. Let us ask ourselves: How did this appalling decision of mine occur? It is quite simple really. If we allow ourselves to make a Venn Diagram of “lack of foresight” and “fierce dedication to Cosplay (basically, a fancy term for dressing-up).” Where they overlap, in that middle bit that looks like an orange slice? That would be the problem. I desperately wanted to go as Misty from Pokemon. My outfit was perfection. But her hair? (crickets singing to a starry sky) Alright… this could be fixed. This was fine. I bought 2 red wigs. Because neither were good enough, the next course of action was evident. The “ummm, it’s hard to explain” came a few days later when I was asked what I was going to do with my money from tutoring. Well, a large chunk of it was that I had no wish to stay a red-head.
At this point you’re probably wondering why I made you go through this tale (spins revolving chair to face you while stroking my white Persian half-breed) Dissociation. The entire time writing that, I was stuck in the dissociation I’ve been stuck in since last year September. Now, let me just pull a few things from a credible source. What is dissociation?
“Dissociation is a mental process of disconnecting from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity.” — Mental Health America
The keyword here is: disconnect. There is a disconnection somewhere between you and something in you/something around you. Now, there’s a load of information on the internet about dissociation, and some of it may be very “sceptical look” while some may be very “well damn, the writer really got that right for me.” Many people suffer from dissociative episodes in their lives, and these can be caused by a variety of things. I used to have panic attacks regularly a long time ago and dissociated before each one.
Fast forward to the present day. I am currently suffering and have been suffering from derealization… For a while. You will notice that the letters in that word are not the same as in the word dissociation. This is because they broke dissociation up into further forms because this is all actually immensely complex. There is also something called depersonalization. I’ve noticed that if your psychiatrist or psychologist is picking up that you’ve dissociated, they will often try and ask questions with buzz words to see if you react. One of them is: do you feel like you are watching yourself from out of your body? Or the top corner of a room? And the thing is, despite having a dissociative disorder, this I cannot fathom. A friend of mine experiences dissociation in her aura before an epileptic fit. She says the following: “I sort of forget who my friends actually are. I mean. I tell them I’m going to seize because I’m having an aura but I don’t know who they are.” It’s almost like one of those extremely corny game-shows where there are enough LED’s to provide a small country with electricity, and a host who you wonder many things about. What pushed him? Is this the gateway to fame, or the fall of a very terrible protagonist? Why the voice? Why the gold suit? So many questions but none answered because it is time for: “Let’s seeeeeeee which dissociative disorder you’ve won!” (spins overly-large wheel which is rigged never to stop at jackpot. Wheel spins and stops infuriatingly slowly). “ANDDDDDD looks like you’ll be going home witthhhh a dissociative fugue!!!” LED’s begin flashing violently. Glimmering confetti rains like tears of gold. (I’m really sorry. I try and use humour to cope with painful subjects as a defense mechanism. Cliché, right?)
Right. Well I spun the wheel and, when I woke up in hospital, found that I was stuck in the familiar kind of dissociation I used to get before panic attacks. My prize is always and has always been: derealization. The derealization package includes: feeling as though the world around me is not real, seeing everything around me as… foggy. Sort of. Almost as if it was just blurry and I just need to put on my glasses but no, that isn’t quite it. It is wrong. Everything is wrong. And people… They aren’t the people I know. It is like they are fake clones of them, even the ones I love the most. Their faces are the worst, I find it hard to look at people’s faces. I knew this feeling though, this wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation. I’ve had it before panic attacks, right? But it had not stayed for a full day, or a full week, or a full month… or… several months. And even though this is the world I live in now, acceptance won’t quite come. It’s hard to be stuck here and not know if I’ll ever drop out. Because nothing I should be used to by now has become familiar. And dropping out, back into the “real world”. No-one can really give you some sort of count-down. Only comforting words that you will drop back soon, which I don’t quite believe. And so I do daily activities. Including writing unnecessary introductions to test the waters of my derealization today. All seems as usual and this shall be published in my fake world of possibly-Internet.
Onset of dissociation can be caused by numerous factors, and PTSD is one. I’ve read and researched too many different hypotheses about why my brain has decided throwing me into a scary new world was a good idea. And so I loathe it. Ah, I have done something there. Therapists will say “don’t separate your brain from yourself”. Ohhhhhh, trust me, I would stop doing it if I wasn’t constantly at war with this piece of fat. This is Ragnarok and I am somehow prophesied to lose even though I have two giant wolves, thousands of warriors and attractive blonde Valkyries riding their winged equines. Called Pegasi (Yes, I looked this up and it is the actual definition of Pegasus). And I’m sorry but I just have to say that, also prophesied for this Ragnarok we speak of, the damn earth splits open and I (being Odin in this situation) ride an eight-legged horse of immense power. All of this sounds about right for the havoc and madness in my mind. As per war with it, I need a strategist. We’ll come back to that part.
Despite the slight derailment of my thoughts there, all of this comes back to anger, confusion, and an inability to come to terms with what feels like a war with my brain.
Dissociation, for many people (including myself), can change and shift. Mine. I will try. My dissociation has a baseline of “this world is weird, it is not real, I don’t like it. But I live here.” It is the normal kind of derealization I wake up to and do not come out of. But that can heighten. So, in a stressful situation, the world will become less real and “further away” to me. Like I am slowly leaving it. Stress me beyond measure and I will hit the damn astral belt. A big no-no for me is crowds. Throw me in a mall the day before Valentine’s day. Males have forgotten to get their mates a gift and, at this moment, anything goes. The droves desperate for overly-large teddy bears or any locket left are all contributing to the phenomenon I call “There are too many people around me.” It heightens my dissociation. It is fault of my own. I forget that February the 13th is not a day to shop. Especially not for whipped cream.
When it heightens, I usually lie down (as I am rendered quite useless) and see if it can be coaxed back down. Extreme distress can heighten it so much that, in this case, I usually text my friends to say that chatting will cease because the ISS is approaching, and I can no longer read texts… It’s hard to explain?And not only that. But distressing too.
However, there is one more thing.
Odin has no strategist, but he has an arsenal. I shall tell you about the only arsenal I have. Against all of this. At the beginning of the year my therapist began his ride on the Covid train, and his was the sort of bumpy ride where the occasional carriage explodes and the entire thing ends up falling over the cliff-face because it was forgotten that the railway bridge over the canyon was a delayed project. The ones to survive achieved so by willpower alone. The end result of this was that, as I was in mental agony at the time, I was desperate to make contact with him but could not. The virus hit him just after the Christmas period, during which he had been away. This overall delay resulted in 5 weeks without therapy. I was being tested and tortured in ways that did not think was possible. But as a potent biological entity was wreaking havoc… I would have to Skype call. No. This would be a disaster, I simply cannot Skype call a therapist. But I was desperate, so I buckled. Owing to technical failures, the Skype call became a WhatsApp video call. There are many disasters to which I can compare this call, but I shall just say that I need time with my head in my hands if I am to think of it. After 20 minutes told him that the call was somehow adding to my pain and that I was going to hang up. He said one word before I hung up. “Swim”.
How in the name of any deity he actually got that right, I don’t know. That was it. This… Frigid Atlantic Ocean wherein Jack froze to death. So beautiful in its colours that I refused to look at it… because it was not my real sea. It was not real from a distance. It was not real from the beach. It was not real if I put my feet in the water and looked out. It was real when I was in it. In the blue which is not blue but every colour. I donned by bikini as I had nothing else and declared to my Mother I needed to get in the water. And after that, I needed it again and again and again. We eventually bought a wetsuit as it was becoming necessary. I have gotten to the first stage of hypothermia three times and this really doesn’t matter at all. Because.
If dissociation makes everything alien to me. The ocean is a very alien place to be. And so that was how it became the only normal place to be. And usually brings me back to my baseline dissociation. That is the arsenal. It is small. Many bloggers will speak of the different therapies they have been able to use for their dissociation. I have been fighting with my medical aid as they can’t quite pull through for therapy. Some may know the feeling. And the feeling when internet sources aren’t quite helping at all. But I have my ocean, and though it is a small reprieve, it helps me believe that maybe all this might be real after all.
Song of the day: Punching in a Dream — The Naked and Famous
Always feel free to contact me on selkie2309@yahoo.com anytime!
