How To Do The Hard Things

How To Dissociate

October - November 2023

Work had never been more draining than it was. I can't remember the start of the month. Too much had happened. And I felt like I was at the centre of it all. I had taken a week off, and when I came back everything had changed. I had decided then that I would quit, with or without a plan.

At some point, I stopped feeling myself move, I flipped from one page to the next. In the same spot on each turn. I joked about not remembering my commute knowing in truth that no memories came with it. And most days I would barely wake, but be in my seat 20 minutes after I needed to be. And I'd go home, and sleep with no noise. And only ever said goodbye with a smile.

Everything felt chilled. Living was one long chasm of moving grey colours, I couldn't imagine me outside of where I was. I was in trouble and I didn't know how to help myself. I wondered if anyone had noticed how much I had truly given up. I don't think I showed it entirely. How much it all effected me. I had made myself a victim of circumstance all over again. I had kept myself hidden.

I was too exhausted to want more. I would let any tease and touch and fear stir me. I think I smothered myself into a spectacle. Into a figure as opposed to a person. And I can't understand why I did. What did I gain from it? I think I wanted to hurt that place as much as it hurt me.

I thought I had nothing left to give it.

I think, you brought me a book. A brand new thing to tell me who I was. A new test to take and turn to when I needed an ego boost, but this one didn't leave me with something to brag about.

It told me I was self-centred. And I was.
It told me that I believed something was missing from my life. And I did.
And it told me that I withheld myself from others. And I do.
It called me out on my emotions.
It told me I feared being nothing to no one.
It told me something that I had always known. That there is something, deep within me, that needed to be accepted as it was. Something I had ignored for a while, out of my fear, out of safety. Something I had always thought I didn't deserve to be known. How it begged to come to the light.

And it told me,
you told me,
that it was seen,
that I was seen.

-

And it pokes the skin, its finger prints on flesh pushing against the womb. Testing how much it can stretch, testing how much it can take until it finally breaks.