Depersonalization:
I have a word now to describe how I felt
Today I learned that what I experienced in the months after Jeremie’s death has a term.
There’s a word for it.
I thought of it as being disembodied and all I could ever say about that time period was that everything felt very surreal.
But what I was experiencing was actually depersonalization.
Depersonalization can mean that you don’t feel in control of your speech or movements. It feels like you’re not real, like you are outside of your body or parts of your body, or detached.
You can feel like you’re in a bubble or behind class, like the world is not real. Sometimes it involves a distortion of your perception of time.
It is accompanied by a confusion by your reflection in the mirror along with emotional (or physical) numbness.
That’s how I felt.
Kind of float-y.
Like cold-medicine head.
That was another phrase I used to try and describe that time and how I felt.
It was like a much less fun feeling of being high.
Because you didn’t imbibe anything and you knew that you shouldn’t have been feeling that way.
It’s different to feel high and disoriented when you didn’t plan to be.
When you’re trying to function.
Then it’s not fun.
But, it serves a purpose.
It usually happens because of some traumatic experience and can be associated with PTSD.
It was so disconcerting, but it is—at least—a relief to know that what I was experiencing had a name.