I watched the movie Youth in Revolt yesterday, and in
addition to glowing in the enduring adorableness of Michael Cera, I was very
taken by his character’s separate self. For some reason, I have become preoccupied
with my own separate selves, and am finding it much easier to see where I have
been able to integrate myself into myself, in the past and the present.
There is one separate self I have that is all about shutting
down and staying over and to the left of what is happening. I’m beginning to
recognize how that part of me used dissociation to get through painful
experiences – I actually have tons of flashbacks at the dentist, when I am on
my back with a man holding me down (in my mind, that’s what it feels like and I
itch my nose or something over and over so that he will have to lean back and
get out of my face when I need him to), and doing things that hurt me. This is
one of the very few times I use the floating above and to the left kind of
dissociation in the recent past.
Also, maybe I should get a dentist who is not a large man. Hm.
Another part of myself is when I have a very distinctive
feeling of switching off my feelings, and just moving my body along. That’s
what happened that day when I was terrified to go into school (having aborted my
father’s embryo three days before, doing something as normal as going to school
was not actually within my concept of reality) and he made me go anyway. Like with
the staying to the left kind of dissociating, I could feel this separateness of
myself, and I could feel cement in my chest instead of fear, and I was surreally
aware of what was going on, but I just was separate and away from myself.
It’s actually really difficult to describe. I don’t feel
like there are separate versions of myself that take turns dealing with
whatever crisis I may be experiencing – it’s all me, but separate. Like I am
composed of fragmented stone, all the smaller bits getting together to make the
one me – the smaller bits are still the smaller bits, but they are also all the
one person that I am.
Anyway.
It was just kind of comforting to see what I can’t really
describe about myself on my tv, in the form of Michael Cera. I feel like it’s
easier for me to accept my separateness.
Today I’ve noticed that it’s been difficult concentrating on
where I physically am and things of that nature. I literally could not spell
virus or obnoxious – I had to look them up. I was stopped at a light this
afternoon, and when the light changed, I suddenly realized I was supposed to be
turning left, and there were multiple lanes, and I had to finagle my car over
and to make the turn.
Except that I wasn’t supposed to be turning left; I had made
that turn onto that street about five minutes before that. It’s kind of
jolting, and can be very frustrating to deal with this shit, but today I was
able to see where my separateness is getting kind of crossed over and
intertwined, and it’s overwhelming and makes it hard to just be aware of what’s
going on around me, but feels really good to be merging into a less separate
person. Or maybe it’s just getting more familiar with how I operate, and can
accept it all as who I am.
Getting more familiar with all of that means having to not
only accept the things that happened to me, but to get comfortable with it all,
too. All of that stuff is never going to change – all that stuff in the past. I’m
stuck with it. Its what has made me who I am.
This is all so existential. I feel like I should be sitting
around a campfire, smoking peyote and binging on philosophical philosophies. Thinking
about all of this really clouds up everything that is going on around me, like I
am having the “good trip” I never experienced when I was actively seeking it by
eating LSD.
Okay, enough thinking for today. All of the parts of me are
going to get a bowl of cereal and watch The Office with my man.
No comments:
Post a Comment