Dissociation

Dissociation, it’s a defense mechanism that I mostly have under control now days. But sometimes it hits, and most often at the most inconvenient times. One minute you are talking with someone the next you are waking up feeling like hours have passed yet the person is still in front of you talking and you never really fell asleep. You feel confused and scared. Terrified. Dissociation can come in many forms, from what I have I read it is a personality disorder with several different categories. With the information I have read I seem to struggle with the depersonalization side of things. The very first time I realized it or was rather aware of it was when I smoked pot in the back of my grandparents car. I was 14 or 15 and I didn’t understand what was going on because I had been smoking pot for years already at this point with nothing like this happening before. It was dark outside and as we drove down the highway the lights started blurring into one constant stream of lights and I felt like I was losing chunks of time as I was talking with my grandparents. I felt embarrassed and confused I didn’t know what was happening so I laid my head down and went to sleep and never thought about it again.

Then it was New Years Eve and I was celebrating with my friends, I had a couple of drinks, and smoked such a small amount of weed. I went into the kitchen to help my friend wash dishes and all of a sudden everything became black, tunnel vision I could not see anything but the floor. I was terrified and confused I had no idea what was going on. Everybody was talking and I was losing grip on their words, I was fighting to hang on to the moments, scared to let go and slip into an unknown dimension of a world I was unaware existed. That particular situation got worse, I went home and had seizures, convolutions and even memory loss over the course of the next few weeks. I went to the emergency room at one point, I had to have brain scans, test after test was done and nobody could link it to anything. All I could think was it had to be the pot, so I didn’t smoke anymore, I could never risk that again. Slowly I came out of this weird in-between world’s type dimension that I felt. For years and years I wondered what caused this reaction, was it laced, was it a traumatic thing, was in the mix of the booze and the weed, was it just anxiety from what was going on, was it PTSD from my abusive father living at my grandparents with us when he wasn’t supposed to be because of the abuse he was found guilty of in the eyes of the law? Was it the strobe lights at the party? I never really found out and every so often even when I didn’t smoke  the dissociation would creep up on me, although never quit as bad as the New Years eve time but still it could become pretty intense.

When I was 17, 18, and into adulthood I could get away with small amounts of using THC rather it be others shot gunning it to me, or if I consumed it in cookies or tea, and a few times I tried smoking. It was always hit or miss if I would slip away thought. Still it never got as bad as it did during that New Years Eve, most times I could sleep it off.  I feel like it’s a cruel and unfair joke the universe plays on me to not be able to use a natural medicine that grows on our planet in a way to help me. I struggle a lot with anxiety and pain and some strains of marijuana can help but I cannot risk the chances of increased dissociation with never knowing or not how it will effect me. I have spent years and years working out traumas to not disappear. Because even without the use of THC I would still dissociation just not as intensely I suppose, and each time it would still be as scary as ever, between that and sleep paralyses I would have to say they are the two most scariest things that happen to me. I will try and figure out what triggers it or sets it off. I will try and tell my brain to stop jumping around in time. It’s like a weird time vortex, or losing grip on the reality that I am in at that current moment. It’s hard to explain and people look at me like I am insane when I attempt to explain it. Often I will refer to it as disappearing, because that is essentially what it feels like.

The other day at work I all of a sudden realized I have gone through several customers and feel like I cannot even remember. I work in a busy retail like setting as a cashier. It hit me out of nowhere and for no reason that I could even think of. All thought sometimes my social anxiety can get bad so maybe it was related to that and my mind decided to check out I am not even sure. It felt like my skin was on fire, I felt like I was drenched in sweat, and the world I was standing in felt miles away, such as if I was standing on the ground and gazing up at a big bright moon that appeared to be exceptionally close to earth yet still too far to reach out and touch it. Everything was so far away, my customers’ voices and the co-workers standing next to me all just felt like echoes and far. I needed to get out of there, I wanted to ask to go home but my shift had barely just started. I was scared to ask to go home. I was just scared that this was happening at work, and at a new job, a job I cannot afford to lose at this time. My arms felt tingly numb like and my legs felt like they weren’t even attached to my body. Was I a robot?  Is my world melting away right around this body that I am standing in and no longer have control over? These thoughts they are mine yet they are not at the same time, is this a dream? It feels like a dream. I am scared and unsure how to react or what to do. I have done this before in a less public setting but still around other people. Onlookers don’t realize or recognize it’s happening. Can I fake my way through the day until I can get home and safely crawl under my blankets? Will they notice, maybe I will pass out thought, what if I start having seizures, it feels like I am having many under my skin and in my mind, I’m shaking and clammy and slurring my speech but nobody seems to notice, so maybe it will be okay. I am screaming at my inner sleeping self to wake up, this is real, stay here, stay in reality, stay in the present, just stop, Stop STOP!! Don’t look up, don’t make eye contact with anyone, just get through this day, come on, you have made it before just keep going, I think to my robotically controlled self. If I pass out I can never return here, the shame and embarrassment will be too much to bare. Am I moving in slow motion? They seem annoyed, maybe I am, am I not being nice or social enough, maybe my coworkers notice, maybe they will think I am just sick, please someone tell me to go home that I don’t look so well. But nobody seems to notice, I struggle hanging on to this rope to keep from falling right out of this dimension of a world. Should I let go, where will I go? I question everything in my existence, the lights dim, then they get bright again, do these people notice the fog that is in the store, the dimming of the lights then the brightness? Nobody seems to notice, it’s just me, am I going blind maybe? Is my blood sugar low, if I eat maybe it will help. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. I walk to clock out, I can’t feel my feet, I’m floating to the time clock, just go with the motions, just let the robot controlling your body guide you, it’s like pretending to be sober when you are completely drunk. But I am not drunk, I am not under the influence of anything, what if they notice thought and assume I am and I get in trouble?  Once I got home safe and buried myself under my blankets I felt a tiny bit better, and after sleeping I work up more in touch with reality. Still feeling off for a few days but nothing like the first day at work. I question myself on what happened, if I was set into an anxiety, or if there is just still too much I need to deal with. Has me been working on my writing and emotions been affecting me and how do I make that not happen again? I have so much more work to do on myself to continue my journey of healing. I hope I can figure out the emotional triggers of the dissociating and prevent it from happening.