Climbing into the Back and Watching the Scenery Pass

I was losing weight. 

Quickly.

Fitting easily into clothing that only barely fit me the last time I had a period like this, eight years ago. I only worried a little bit about it, but I thought about it often. From an analytical point of view. 

Why was it happening?

I thought that it was a number of things in conjunction. First and foremost; depression. In these longer waves I almost always lose a lot of weight. This one was ending though (finally), so maybe it would no longer be a factor. After that, the anti-depressant Welbutrin. I was on the max dose and two common side effects that I was experiencing were weight loss and lack of appetite. It wasn't safe to take myself off of the medication, especially because it had so far been the only one to produce any results. Lastly, I had been avoiding carbs for close to a year, on and off, save for a beer or a slice of pizza here and there. The combination of all of that made the most sense.

But I guess I looked all right, so there's that. Not that it made much of a difference to me.

I had tried on a shirt for a movie my friends had made almost a decade ago and was surprised at how well it fit now. It hadn't even come close to fitting since I got it. I took a picture in the mirror. Not with my face. 

Usually never with my face anymore.

I am not my face.

I am not my wasting body.

I am not my rat clothing. My long and rapidly thinning hair. I am not the bags under my eyes or my shitty tattoos. I'm just trapped in here. For now.

My therapist and I had begun to discuss it lately. My sense of being. My identity and body issues. My dissociation and PTSD. All of it, and how it was all related. 

I just disappear sometimes. I never think about it as "leaving my body". More like stepping out of the drivers seat, climbing into the back, and watching the scenery pass. I don't leave my body, I'm trapped here. A friend once told me "Sometimes you are so far away." She was right. Others have called me back from time to time, or stopped it from happening. Recently, as I was stepping back, someone quickly said "are you dissociating?" and I came back. "I was," I said.

It happens a lot (though not always) in times of fear, panic, pain, or stress. A defense most likely borne from growing up the way I did. From seeing. Over time it grew and changed and now I feel almost a complete seperation from my body. I am not my body. I am trapped in here.

In the last of these long waves, eight years ago, I remember noticing for the first time the total seperation (though looking back I do see at least a handful of other occassions that had happened before that). I remember being there, inside, and just watching my body move and reach and touch and I was only observing. Indifferent. I was not moving, or reaching, or touching. I wrote a little about it elsewhere, but we don't need the details here. The point is; it's a problem. There's no way this is healthy or sustainable if I plan on living much longer. And I suppose I do plan on it.

But, I've always felt alien. I've always felt detached. Outside. 

Because of this I've also put a lot of effort into reinforcing a very social and personable persona. Loud. Funny. Flirtatious. Large. It really came to life in my alcoholic years, but even now, diminished, it remains. It's the only way I can get through interactions with people who are not intimately close with me ("intimately" meaning a number of things here). When I am away from that scene though, it slides right off of me. The person you may have met is almost certainly not the person writing this. Recently I was told how disappointing it was to find that out. 

I'm sure it is.

Can I reconnect with my body? Can I see myself as more than an imprisoned conciousness? Can I show you what I really am? 

I want out. I want to feel like a person. I want to look in the mirror and see me. Not this shell. This other thing. I want to take control and reconnect and feel a part of you. You all out there, living and in love and in pain and part of it all. I want to be a part of you. 

Or nothing at all.