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Who Needs a Therapist When (Pt. 7)

Even More Dissociation Time!

By Haybitch AbersnatchyPublished 5 years ago 2 min read
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Image Courtesy of Brunel Johnson CC

Me. I need a therapist. Thank you internet for being one. All tips will go to someday affording a real professional.

This is a follow up from last week's post about how some of my dissociative states are less toxic than others.

So, thinking about all this, I found a new dissociative state. And while I'm not sure how to apply it to other dissociative states so that they become less toxic, I do think it has clarified something else.

The key is in singing and writing. When I do either, it is a lot like my trance states. My ability to track details that aren't critical fades, all my anxieties are put on the back burner, and my emotions are distant roars rather than overwhelming seas. The difference is that when I'm done writing, I'm not crippled by all the anxieties and worries and emotions that have been held back. When that wall comes down, the waters on the other side aren't any higher than they were before it went up.

I think the key is where all those emotions go while I work. Writing and singing aren't like social endeavors. They aren't a speech that I just need to get through to survive. Instead, they are a channeling of emotional energies. Sometimes to the point that I can't sing or write because the emotions are too out of control, or too overwhelming, or vanished in a fog of dissociation. I need something steady to pull on.

So while most of the time dissociation feels like pushing back emotions until they can wash over me, writing and singing funnel that extra energy into something. Those emotions aren't loose and uncontrolled, but drawn out into exactly the shape and size that I need. By doing that I can maybe even lessen the force of the emotion that is on the other side of that fugue state, I can maybe even wrestle the emotions down to my size even when I'm not writing or singing.

Now, there is no way to be sure, but I think maybe the lack of writing and singing in my life might just be part of why I've been dreaming so much.

I've written before about dreaming, and how it seems to take over my life. It seeps into my waking world with emotions that I'd much rather leave on the back burner, or at least make wait until I don't have to be a human at work. It's been really, really bad lately. Bad enough to affect the quality of my sleep. Bad enough to make me question my reality. Bad enough to be the primary thing I was seeking care for (depression, anxiety, anything is better than dreaming until sleep paralysis sets in).

Maybe it is true that dreams are the way of the brain to process unprocessed emotions. If so, that would certainly check with the volume of dreaming that I'm experiencing. Because my emotions are wild and out of check. They come crashing every time I leave a fugue state—anxieties and sadness and despair that I just cannot handle on a day to day basis. So maybe, with no outlet, my brain has just been storing it up for the nights.

So maybe, if I can keep writing. If I can keep channeling these emotions on days when the emotions can be channeled, maybe I can convince my brain to just relax for one goddamned night.

Last Week's (Pt. 6)

Part 1

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About the Creator

Haybitch Abersnatchy

I'm just a poor girl, from a poor family; spare me this life of millennial absurdity. I also sometimes write steamy romances under the pen name Michaela Kay such as "To Wake A Walker."

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