Dissociation

Sometimes the world seems wide and lonely, and the gap between myself and others too great. I've stepped out of my body. I'm just watching myself go through the motions. I say stupid things that I would never say if I was in my skin. I watch myself get scolded and withdraw further behind these panes of glass separating me from other people. I'm so disconnected and fragmented that I am watching myself watch myself. A dissociation within a dissociation. And when they scold me, I feel all three layers of shame and embarrassment.

And so I drink, heavily and often. I've gotten skilled at hurting myself. Through the haze of whiskey in the early hours of dawn, I tell myself that they are amateurs. They lack finesse. They don't even come close to the pain I can and do inflict on myself, so they cannot truly hurt me. I am immune.

So why, then, do I still feel the burning? Why do I still feel the heat from their reprimands? I want to take those words back and swallow them so that no one can dare read them again. I want to force every letter down into the bile of my stomach and drown them so they can never rise and be born from my lips. I want to scream and cry at my own stupidity. I want to curse my parents for making such a child.

These words I uttered, this behavior of mine, all came about from a body that had no one in it to give it direction. Is this truly who I am at my core to be this way when I leave myself in some hidden plane to watch the world pass by? Is this really what I'm like when I'm not there to tie up my tongue and analyze every word ten times before I speak?

This thing, this thoughtless being - I reject it. I do not want to go back into my body. I do not want to become it again. But what am I without a body? Who am I without a vessel?

Do I really exist at all?