Since being discharged from hospital I have been having some physical issues which I believe to be symptoms of dissociation (as I learnt from this journal article about the shutdown response). I have been dizzy, getting headaches a lot, and out of it. I had ringing in the ears while playing badminton one time, and had moments out in public when my anxiety was so bad I felt like I was going to pass out. Sometimes I suddenly become so heavy and tired I have to lie down and then I am late to badminton. My body is tense all the time. I’ve had sessions with my psychologist where I’ve felt so detached from myself it was like someone else was talking. Other sessions I’ve felt spacy and not really in my body. I had to put my feet flat on the ground and imagine roots achoring my body to the earth. While climbing up a hill yesterday parts of my body felt numb. When I got home I started playing with a knife, seeing if I could feel it against my skin. I later noticed a cut on my finger. I think I may have cut myself with the knife, but I didn’t feel it. A lot of these symptoms actually don’t bother me. I want to be numb. I want to pass out. When I was a teenager a dentist cut a vein while cleaning my teeth. The gum has been receding ever since, and now the root of the tooth is exposed. It is raw and uncomfortable. I am told I need gum graft surgery, but the procedure sounds horrible and I am terrified of dentists, especially as this problem was caused by a dentist. It is distressing when someone/something that’s meant to help you ends up injuring you. I find myself going through various stages of grief, from sadness to anger. I have medical trauma and I’ve concluded it’s better to stay away from dentists and live with this issue than get the surgery. I try my best to distract myself, but often I cannot take my focus off this, plus the other issues I have such as pain and a buzzing sensation on my head, all of which were caused by healthcare gone wrong.

Dissociation is nothing new to me. It’s one of the first strategies I used to cope with life. As a child I escaped into fantasy and video games. I had moments when I’d question over and over whether I’m really here, like this world was illusionary, or someone else was in the front seat of my body. There have been times I’ve done things that are very out of character for me. Things I’d usually be too self-conscious to do, such as screaming, throwing chairs, or lying on the ground in public. I was so distressed it all felt like a dream. Sometimes dissociation can be very scary. I usually experience this scary kind of dissociation when I’ve taken drugs such as marijuana, ayahuasca, or even Vyvanse, an ADD stimulant. I lose contact with my body and the world around me. Last year I experienced “Solipsism Syndrome”, a dissociative psychiatric condition which not many people have heard of. I believed all reality was internal and everything outside of me did not really exist, it was just an extension of my own mind. It is something astronauts living in space for long periods of time experience. I’ve never felt more lonely in my life. Or maybe I have, but I never let myself feel the full impact of those feelings. It was extremely distressing. I remember calling 000, all the while feeling it was pointless as help doesn’t really exist. I cried hysterically on the phone while the operator kept asking me what’s happened and do I have mental health issues. “I don’t know”, was all I could say.

Sometimes I hate dissociating. I want to remember things. I want to remember where I’ve put my belongings. I want to remember whether I’ve taken my evening medication, or what that pill is in my pill cutter I don’t recognise. I want to remember what happened in my childhood. I want to see the world clearly, rather than it all being a huge blur, and notice things in my environment. I spend my life out of it. I will just “check out” and I have no idea where I go or what I do. It’s like dying, a complete blackout. John McManamy writes about this in one of his books:

“It’s a profoundly overwhelming world out there, very difficult to negotiate, and most of the time very frankly I don’t want to be in it. Certainly, I spent a good deal of my childhood wishing I was very far removed from it. I found refuge, instead, in my own inner world. Over time, I succeeded in tuning out just about the whole world around me. Engage me in a conversation, and sooner or later you will pick up an odd mannerism: My eyes glaze over, I’m unresponsive. I am not present. Literally I am somewhere else.

This planet is simply a challenge for me. Always has been. Sometimes, my mind has to flee. Where it goes I have no idea, no recollection. I like to think it’s back to the planet of my birth, a place where I belong.”

While it can be frustrating and scary, I’m starting to be grateful for my dissociation. Lately I’ve even been thinking of taking drugs again to push me out of my body as it’s so uncomfortable.

Something I’m learning is that dissociation can be a part of mania. This makes sense, as we are in a heightened state of arousal, which is often why we dissociate. It was during my manic episode last year that I experienced Solipsism Syndrome. I have been getting a bit manic again lately. I didn’t know I was heading this way. It sort of crept up on me. My mood’s been a little better and I’ve had more energy to do things. I started making plans to go to a special gathering for women, something my soul craves. I started inviting people, and felt like the stars were aligning. My playlist changed to ethnic electronic party music. I started sending more and more emails to my psychologist, telling her that I wished we were friends, and that she would see my wild side then. I invited her to go camping, go to ecstatic dance parties, go to Confest, dance, swim and run at 1am, shop for crazy wigs. “I confuse professionals,” I wrote. “That time I was taken to Box Hill the triage nurse said she’d read my notes and was expecting someone completely different, someone more “animated”. Bitch. I was born on full moon and I change phase like the moon. They can give me as many labels as they want but they will never pin me down”. Quickly, the night took a nasty turn. While mania can be fun for a while, it can quickly turn into paranoia, extreme anxiety, scary dissociation and depression. My psychologist might argue that mania is a form of dissociation where another personality takes over. I know I certainly act and speak completely differently when manic, and sometimes I barely recognise myself afterwards.

John McManamy, who I quoted earlier, writes about the relationship between bipolar and dissociation. I will finish up with his article, which can be read here.