content warning: mental health, feelings, emotional writing.
I've struggled for a long time with how to describe to people how it feels to be me while I'm experiencing depersonalisation and a total loss of my sense of myself. Today, I found the words.
The feeling of depersonalisation is like living inside a mirror.
It's like being a reflection, living in the world of glass. Everything around me is in motion, and it seems like it should be real, but it just glides past my body with a glossy sheen, unable to be felt.
My eyes can't look, and my mind can't think. I'm a reflection, acting automatically, moving on a separate layer to the world rather than truly living within it. Reflections don't see. Reflections don't think. Reflections don't feel, reflections don't live.
I'm not tangible. I have no impact on the world, nor can I be affected by it. I reflect what's there, without understanding why, without caring why.
One day I want to place my hand on the mirror, melt down the glass barrier with my touch, step through and feel my body fill with colour, my long legs carrying me forward into rays of sunshine. The rays hit my face and I feel their heat on my skin. I feel the world moving around me and with me now, everything so vibrant and tactile, free from the cold glass prison where everything is smooth.
I look up at the sun as it blesses me, and finally, I smile.
Cadence