How It Feels

This is dissociation as I experience it~

Sitting with a group of friends, I'm surrounded by their familiar laughter. I vaguely feel the muscles of my face contort into the shape of a smile, although it feels somewhat ghoulish, and I'm aware of a floating sensation in my limbs, hollow, and yet strangely weary. The rise and fall of conversation is barely an echo that I'm desperately trying to grasp a hold of within my mind. I am a stranger in these moments of separation, watching with detached curiosity before I slip into oblivion... 

I'm learning to catch myself before falling...

Counting the length of my inhales and exhales, or naming everything I see that is the color blue, anything to remind myself that I am a part of this world. I've stopped asking myself why because the reasons are many, and complicated. I can't always figure them out, and sometimes I think they are more internal than external. If I tried to avoid the triggers, I would be a recluse, and even that wouldn't solve the problem. I think that part of the reason I love yoga is because the teacher is constantly cuing you back to your body, back to your breath, and back to the sensations within and around you. I need constant reminders or I drift away. I daydream, fantasize, or catastrophize, and I wonder if it is because I somehow think this will help me control my environment, or prepare me for any and all situations. FYI, it does not! It only causes crazy amounts of anxiety and stress! I think back to only a few years ago, when deep depression was all I knew, and it is a different beast. I will take this over depression any day, but I'm one to never be satisfied. I always want more, or better. I often beat myself up because I think I want too much, but I'm working on challenging those thoughts. I'm always telling my yoga students that they are deserving of care because I know how deeply those words touched me as a student. 

We are deserving...

I am deserving of a life free from dissociation, depression,  and eating disorders.  

I'm finding a way. 

It isn't perfect, and that is also okay. 

I'm on a journey...

an adventure,

 and like all adventure stories, there are monsters and dark nights. 

There are also beautiful winged creatures, 

and one day I trust that I will fly...

 "Since the earliest period of our life was pre-verbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were." ~John Bradshaw-"Healing the Shame that Binds You"