I remember staring at the mirror, my reflection gazing back with a vacant expression. The room around me felt surreal, as if it belonged to someone else. I knew my name, but the connection between my mind and body felt tenuous, like a weak signal.
It began early in my recovery. Reclaiming who I was, figuring out how to process complex PTSD, and learning to manage and cope with feelings and memories I had spent years running from—it was all too much.
I’d sit in my small studio apartment, listening to sirens and the sounds of the city. All I could focus on was the hum of the horrible LED lights in the ceiling. It felt like I was seeing myself from outside my body, disconnected from the couch I was sitting on. There was a constant low hummm in my head. My hands felt as if they were someone else’s, almost paralyzed, as if my consciousness had left but my body was stuck there.
I brushed off the moments of detachment as fatigue, but they became more frequent and intense.
One evening, I sat on the front stoop of my apartment building, watching the city lights and all the college students moving quickly past me. The sounds of cars honking and people chattering seemed distant, like background noise in a movie. I felt like an actress playing a role I couldn’t quite remember auditioning for.
The world moved in slow motion, and I was a silent observer, detached and floating above it all.
The detachment grew worse. At work, I’d catch myself staring at my screen, the words blurring into meaningless symbols. Meetings passed in a haze, and I often found myself nodding without understanding what was being discussed. At home, I watched my hands go through the motions of cooking dinner, but it felt like I was controlling them from a distance.
I was exhausted. I didn’t feel connected to myself, to the people around me, or to the world. I was wearing a mask, and behind it, I was lifeless.
Therapy has been one of the greatest tools in my recovery. I found someone who helped me understand exactly what was going on: dissociation.
Dissociation is a mental process where a person disconnects from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. This phenomenon can range from mild, everyday experiences to severe, chronic conditions.Some of the key aspects of dissociation are:
- Detachment from Reality: People experiencing dissociation may feel disconnected from their surroundings, often describing it as if they are watching themselves from outside their body or living in a dream.
- Memory Gaps: There may be gaps in memory for specific periods of time, events, or personal information. This can range from forgetting small details to missing large chunks of time.
- Sense of Identity: Dissociation can affect a person’s sense of identity, leading to feelings of being split into multiple parts or having different personalities.
- Emotional Numbness: People might feel emotionally numb or detached from their feelings, making it difficult to connect with their emotions or the emotions of others.
The realization and understanding of dissociation were both frightening and comforting. I wasn’t losing my mind; I was protecting it. Processing everything at once was too much for me. There was too much trauma, so my mind decided to detach to protect me from crashing and burning, from feeling too much pain.
I knew I needed to reclaim my sense of self, lift this fog, and learn to be present. This proved to be much harder than I anticipated. It required processing trauma, slowing down, breathing, and a lot more therapy.
Through therapy, I began to understand the triggers and learn techniques to ground myself in the present.
One morning, as I stood before the mirror, I smiled at my reflection. The vacant expression was gone, replaced by a glimmer of recognition. I was still healing, but I was on my way back to myself.
The world no longer felt like a distant dream; it was real, vibrant, and filled with possibilities. And for the first time in a long while, I felt like an active participant in my own story.
One of my favorite authors said something that really stuck with me. If you’ve struggled with detachment, dissociation or any mental health issues, you know that you long for that moment—the one where the clouds lift and you start to see yourself again. You begin to realize you’re on the other side, and everything will be ok…. She said:
“You let time pass. That’s the cure. You survive the days. You float like a rabid ghost through the weeks. You cry and wallow and lament and scratch your way back up through the months…….And then one day you find yourself alone on a bench in the sun and you close your eyes and lean your head back and you realize you’re okay.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Brave Enough
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