Living the Dream

WRITER MEERA KUMAR GRAPHIC DESIGNER RINO FUJIMOTO

It started in the 9th grade. A rush of emotion followed by shortness of breath. Blurred vision and a rapid heartbeat. I had no idea what was happening—all I could think about was my recent breakup, final exams, and my grandmother. It was the first time I’d experienced that feeling, the one that would become so familiar to me. That feeling that I wasn’t quite there all the way—like I wasn’t quite in my body, wasn’t quite on the ground and wasn’t quite okay. Each time I experienced another bout of panic, I would feel that strange feeling and each time it lingered just a little while longer. Until eventually, that feeling just stayed. My eyes would constantly seem out of focus but my eyesight was fine; my friends would be talking to me and it’d sound like they were a mile away; my words were slurred but I wasn’t tired or drunk; I couldn’t remember something that happened to me five seconds ago. I didn’t have a name for that feeling, all I knew was it was terrible and it was there all the time. That was when I figured, I’m truly losing my mind.

It wasn’t until, in the rush of discovering a new content creator and gulping down all the content they made, I found a video with a title I couldn’t help but look twice at. It was by a person I still love to watch to this day—Dodie Clark. Coming across her video “depression, anxiety, and depersonalization” I thought, what’s the harm in giving it a watch? I didn’t necessarily know what she meant when she said depersonalization, but I had plenty of experience with the other two. I started watching the video with the hope of hearing another account of how depression and anxiety felt to her and learning what depersonalization even was.

My memory was always perfect and all of a sudden I can’t tell you what I said two seconds ago.

I can’t remember that I told you I can’t remember.

My life feels like a dream and I feel like I’m going mental.

The things she was feeling sounded familiar in a concerning yet comforting way. Hearing that she thought she was going mental made me feel a little bit less like I was going mental. It didn’t necessarily make my weird nameless condition any better knowing that she was experiencing the same as I but it made me feel slightly less alone. Like her, I too ruminated on how difficult it would be to live the rest of my life like this.

To constantly be in a state of confusion, never really living my life. I would always be detached from every experience I had and from every moment that passed. I would never fully experience my first day of college, my first concert, my first time having a drink. I would never have those experiences to keep with me in the way that everyone else would. I tried telling as many people as I could about what I felt in the hopes that it would lessen the burden even just a little. It didn’t. All I would hear was I’m sorry and all I could think was me too. I’m sorry to myself that I have to live the rest of my life in this weird limbo I’d never quite understand.

I’m sorry for myself that I can’t stop spacing out and that I can’t remember the wonderful day I had yesterday—all I have is a trace of that happiness. I’m sorry for not listening to what you said the first time and for forgetting that thing you asked for ten minutes ago (was it your phone you left in the other room?). All I could ever think about was how dreadful it was that I couldn’t recognize my body or my face, how I always felt drunk and how I would constantly live my life as a bland and detached haze of events. I was too preoccupied with thinking about my horrible condition and my horrible life to actually experience the things happening in my life.

I started therapy and I told them about what I felt. It’s just part of the anxiety. I knew it was the anxiety but why is it that I can never shake myself free of it? Why don’t the coping mechanisms I learned help with this feeling or make it feel less dreadful? They put me on medications and I told them I still had that feeling. Eventually, they seemed to give up and I was just about ready to as well. What would that even mean for me? Would I have to spend the rest of my days resenting my own brain for making me experience this dreadful feeling every day?

What if that wasn’t how it had to be? What if Dodie, the one who told me what I was feeling, also told me that there was a way for it to get better? Mental illness isn’t something you can wish away with a good attitude and a couple of rainbows. It takes work and it takes time. So work and time I gave. I worked in therapy on my emotions, I took my medication, and I changed the people I surrounded myself with. However, my daze didn’t disappear because of all this.

The condition has been called things from depersonalization to derealization to dissociation and a bunch of other “de” words. With time, I learned to coexist with this weird feeling I always carried with me. I realized I’d spent all those days and months feeling sorry for myself but never quite realized how the feeling sorry was what wasn’t letting me experience my life. Now, I can’t imagine living a life without this insane and weird condition. I can’t tell you the exact name of it but I can tell you that if you’re feeling it, you’re certainly not alone. I hope that those living with it know there is most definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. Getting to this point wasn’t an easy journey and I apologize but I can’t really remember how I got here. All I can say is that living the dream isn’t quite everything you might think it would be but it isn’t quite terrible either.