I used to love being alone. Many days I have craved alone time when I'm with other people. I didn't tell anyone for a long time, though, that sometimes I have days where I'm afraid to be alone. With myself. With Myself.
When I was still a young kid, I felt Me. It felt weird to feel Me. Sometimes on those days I would be very aware that I was a walking skeleton, or would sometimes feel like a doll I was moving around. I know nowadays that is called dissociation. To some degree it's very normal to click into an objective perspective and 'see' things from a different point of view. To do it constantly and feel stuck that way, like you can't get back 'in', isn't normal. I did that a lot as a kid.
When I dissociate on a bad day because extreme fatigue or pain spike or sometimes other things causing brain chemical changes (I'm hyper reactive to meds, for example), I lose being able to control how I present. I do and say things that seem confusing. For about an hour yesterday I felt like a box full of fireworks that started going off all at once, and I was experiencing all the emotions almost simultaneously or back to back without any coherent thread of why. There was no logical cause. I couldn't tell what was happening until I started writing, and pretty quickly, I think in about 10-15 minutes, I realized I had spiked into the nether regions of depression. My psychiatrist would like a harder diagnosis that I suspect would result in manic depression and possibly more, but since my psychologist monitors me and I don't seem to consistently go into the more hardcore 'manic' list of symptoms, the debate is left hanging without further testing. Yesterday, though, I definitely dissociated and once I realized it was happening, I was able to pull myself into focusing moment to moment. I did ok, made it through the rest of the day without incident, handled everything ok, made it to bedtime without any problems, at least on the outside.
I've mentioned my mom forcing me to learn to self monitor as a child through sometimes severe corporal punishment, which is now proven to be psychologically scarring and emotionally stunting. Because of that experience, though, I am much more objectively aware of myself than some people. (Not to be confused with the self UNaware state of autism spectrum, which is a social deficit/interaction problem.) I've met people who don't have a clue how to even see another point of view objectively at all, but mostly the people who can seem to be afraid of it. I ventured into objectivity at a young age and played with taboo in my head for many years, mostly as thought experiments that included every conceivable debate about God(s), right vs wrong, reality and realism, and much more. I can emotionally derail and catch myself fairly quickly with diversion, basically cutting the emotion part off. The part in between the derailing and the catching is spooky. People say I'm scary, and it's not because I'm violent so much as unpredictable, I think. I'd say the same thing about my dad because I got to see more of him growing up than my sibs, and I know his cognitive rigidity is his way of not derailing.
Personally, I know I can rely on myself to never cross certain lines, but dissociating is one of those things where you can't always see where the lines are. It's important to reach out and start dealing with real as soon as it starts happening. It's important to be honest and let people know I'm dealing. Trying to hide it never turns out well in the long run. For some people, it's a very short run because they commit suicide or start killing people, and I can tell you from the inside of that state of mind that there is no logic, no red flags, nothing stopping a dissociated person from living out a nightmare and never realizing what they're doing.
People don't like talking about this stuff. It's pretty common, because it's a reflexive survival tool the brain uses to get through something difficult, and some of us do it all the time without even realizing it. Some people cover it up with med, drug, or alcohol use, some people simply have a line of 'reasons' ready, some people just pretend it never happens, like don't talk about it and don't rock boats kind of thing, and then bringing it up is super awkward and makes things worse.
I am #aspienado and I don't want things to get worse. I am using #transparency and #honesty to talk about my stuff, and I keep using public social medias and a game server to keep my balance because it's hard for me to talk on phones and I don't have real life friends or family close by while @bonenado is at work.
I talk about being broken, and I say that we're all broken to some extent in some way or another, and I think 'kindness is logical' is a good belief to hang onto when all else fails me. I can stop immediately and ask myself- What am I doing right now? What do I want? How do I get what I want? Is what I'm doing to get what I want breaking anybody?
Breaking each other is a way of life in many religious and political systems. It's very effective. The better option, though, in my opinion, is kindess. It lasts longer. No matter how I am feeling in any moment, even when everything is black and stupid, I believe Kindness Is Logical.
Aaaaand someone beat me to that hashtag by just under 2 months, lol. That person is promoting 'love is hate' and sexism. Let's see if I can change that. I'm really tired of doublespeak.
#KindnessIsLogical
