Ok, I was not entirely ready to speak of this when I joined in. But now I am trying to make a better sense of it, and I need to share.
Last summer, on June 29th, I woke up completely depersonalized, not remembering the night before. It was our marriage anniversary the day before, and we made love, and somewhere in the middle of it I heard a child screaming inside my right ear, and I left my body. I do not remember anything afterwards, taking a shower or whatever else that I did that evening.
The next morning, I was not even aware that I did not remember that evening, because I woke up in a state that does not resemble anything else that I had prior to that. I had dissociation before, as well as depersonalization and derealization, but this feeling looked exactly like this image: there was the body, consisted of the skin on the outside, and resembling a dark cave from the inside. I – whoever I was – was in the body, more precisely in the left heel of the cavernous insides that were mostly in dark, as only here and there the orange-red hued light would come through the body’s skin. I was 15 cm high, holding onto a straw, or whatever it was, hanging above the abyss that stretched forever beneath my foot.
Body moved that day, but I could not produce one coherent thought. I spoke automatically, unable to convey anything to my husband who was with me. I was in a state of panic inside, but could not do anything about it. As if all the lights were off, and I was waiting for the moment I will lose my hold of that straw and disappear forever.
I could not talk, or write, but I had the urge to draw. I bought a notebook, and a pen. We spent the day at the beach, and I was drawing, as if my life or my presence or my sanity depended on it. It was the most desperate day of my life. I didn’t draw anything significant. I had no comment to make, and I was unable to produce a thought or a symbol or a metaphor. I could just draw what I saw in front of me, as it convinced me that I exist.
Later that day or perhaps tomorrow, I think that I remembered that I have forgotten the evening when I blacked out. The next couple of days I held my breath, hoping for the best. I tried to walk, to talk, to behave like a person. But it exhausted me, and I fell ill on the evening of the July 1st.
I thought I was dying, in all seriousness. I could not cool myself; it was very hot. I had an image in my head, like the most realistic image if there was any: there was a sickly baby, or perhaps a toddler, laying on the sandy ground, atop of a cotton diaper, in the backyard of the house we used to spend summers in, when I was little. It was under a carob tree.
Next to the unconscious baby there were two girls, me as a 5-6 year old to the left, squatting, and me as a 8-9 old to the right, leaning over. They were taking care of the baby, and I was the baby.
Behind them, to the left, was a boy, 3 year old, looking translucent, like a ghost, or a projection. I knew that was me as well, but I could not identify with that child in the same way as with others.
In front of them, as if I were looking over their shoulders, were four grown-ups, that I recognize as my own “programmes” of behavior in the world. From the left to the right they were very familiar to me, with dominant behaviors of an intellectual, a sexualized programme, a protective programme and a curator – one who archives things, sorts them out and put them in relation with one another.
I keep regaining the sense of this image, and then losing it again. I struggle with dissociative amnesia. I don’t know exactly what is going on with me. When I tried to talk about this with my T, he just stopped me, telling me that I am a “structurally normally developed” person. I think I don’t need anyone anymore to tell me what is going on. I think I know. I am just not able to know it all the time, but perhaps I will be, if I give myself more time to embrace it all…I do not feel like a number of people, but I know that I have parts, and that is all I need to know rn.
Thank you for reading
A.