Open Journal #13

full collection links 1- 10 . 11-20 . 21-30

Disassociation is something I was aware of before I rocked up here. I knew the term, I knew what survivors meant when they referenced it, and I knew that I did it. Had it. Suffered from it. Caught it. What is the right term? Live with it. I live with disassociation and it with me.

This is fresh, ink-not-dry-on-the-page stuff. I am just starting on this winding road, who knows where this will end up. A thought process followed over the last few days has led me to some understanding of how disassociation resides in me. It has also gathered a whole slew of new questions, so there’s that.

It has been with me from the age of five. Various factors lead me to that conclusion, could possibly have been around even younger, but I am confident I can place it there. I didn’t call it that, not sure I called it anything. If I had tried to identify it I would probably have called it fear. Then again, it was a part of fear, one of the aspects of fear. A jagged edge of fear, it is hard to tell. I know I can identify it really clearly around seven or eight — there is violence and I know that I am sometimes not there in the moment. I feel distant from the anger and the shouting at me. I am accused of not listening but I am not being. I am not being here and I am not being me.

It doesn’t really develop; it is just a tool to use in moments of stress. And the only moments of stress are caused by my father’s anger and temper and explosive violence. It is always on stand-by and only really switches off when I am in my bed and alone. If you are alone there is nobody to hurt you, so you can relax.

Then there was the sexual abuse, and there it was, shimmering and safe and easy to digest. I knew this feeling. I still didn’t have a name for it but I started thinking of it as “the feeling.” The problem was that it seemed to slide in alongside desire and lust. I started to think of it as part of the complex mix of feelings and chemicals that was part of being turned on.

It was a comfort that it was there. It was safety and calm and it was just let it happen, just go with the flow. It allowed me to not be there and meant that I allowed things to happen. No resistance because I wasn’t there. No fear because I wasn’t feeling. Sex made powerful feelings and they could be felt and experienced but everything else was neutral and dark. Orgasm would switch it off, and post-cum bliss I would be back in the room.

As I start to learn about this weird part of me, it is by now a strong part of me, almost like another emotion. I have to concede that I am left with more questions than answers. I just can’t fathom that not once have I ever resisted it, if anything I welcomed it, allowed it to take over when it needed to. I have never made a single attempt to stop it or slow it down or not do it. Once it kicks into gear I always just let it flow and go where it takes me.

Now I am asking if it can be controlled, or stopped, or changed, adjusted, or am I just subjected to its whims and have no choice.

Post the season of abuse I entered the period of an endless stream of boys at my school involving me in sex. For that period it became a little refined and highly tuned. Boys could flirt and seduce and look and suggest — nothing. The moment they touched me my cock would instantly erect and the feeling would swamp me and I would have no more control. I would allow anything, have no thought of escape, no ability to intervene or make a better choice. It just was.

Looking back now, in the light of what I am learning, I start to ask myself: was it keeping me safe, or was it making it easier for me to be abused? I will get back to you when someone spells it out for me. I agonise over trying to see clues, and I search the memory banks for patterns of behaviour and understanding of what makes the feeling work.

It is integrated into that heady cocktail of sexual feelings that in hindsight it is difficult to work out if it is good or bad. If I disassociate am I in some way contributing? If it makes me submissive and pliable does it mean I am allowing for abuse, encouraging it even.

I trust it. I know how it makes me feel and I prefer that to anything else that might be on offer. It is still here. It is always here. It still kicks in. If someone touches me it is on alert, if a hand touches my bare skin it kicks in fast and starts to swamp me, or if anyone makes a clear sexual suggestion. I still don’t have an off switch. It recedes if I realise quickly that it was a false alarm.

Smoking was useful. If something was said or done that triggered it then I could slip outside and light a cigarette. People were used to me doing that so it was a useful and actual smokescreen. If I was spotted through a window pacing the garden and blowing plumes of angry smoke it was a familiar pose and raised no questions. Nobody asked if I was ok. Nobody needed an explanation. I could take a beat and allow it time to dissipate and clear. Vaporise with the smoke and leave me alone with thoughts, recede into the background and move on.

As an adult it stuck around and came into play whenever it was needed. Parties, weddings, crowds are fraught with danger. Drunken people who have lost their awareness of boundaries, theirs or yours. Prowling predatory people.

It has become over-sensitive and is a little bit trigger-happy sometimes. I explain that away — that the job is unusual and requires me to interact with more strangers and unexpected curve balls than most.

I have no idea where I am going with this. If there is an end game I can’t see it yet. I am already worried that I will have to survive without it. Someone asking me to give it up — the idea of that is enough to start the panic rising. It is early days. Nobody knows about this yet. I have time to adjust.

I keep thinking, saying, repeating the mantra, don’t take this, please don’t take this, take vodka. If I have to give up anything let it be vodka. I had no idea it mattered. Not that much. It might not. Given time and understanding it might be one of those things that just falls into disrepair from lack of use.

I haven’t reached any conclusions. I don’t even quite understand its inner workings yet.

If it is that common, if so many of us have a form of it, albeit named something else, how come we don’t know more about it? Or do we and I just haven’t been listening again. That keeps happening. It’s almost as if I was trying to avoid the issue.

The latest, hot off the press twist is that there is a distinct possibility that it has been messing about without me even being aware of its movements. Now that does freak me out a bit. It was bad enough when I thought I had a handle on it.

Oh and breaking news, there are two types, and it looks as if I have both of them. Well, isn’t that just fine and dandy.

There’s no simple answer. That’s what I’m starting to learn about abuse. No fixes. No neat stories. No good reasons. Just pieces. Just mess. Just a life you have to find a way to carry. no punchline no clever sign-off no simple answer.