Out of Reach
fog.
I have had many doctors in my time of being in active treatment. The one who diagnosed me with dissociative disorder in 2023 said that it was specifically my severe dissociation that made me unable to work regularly. He deemed my capabilities of any labor without proper treatment and therapy as next to none, especially due to all the cognitive delay and decline dissociation has caused me ( and continues to). Dissociation as condition is very complex and not straight-forward at all, which is why I turned it into a separate CHAPTER of the project. But the simplest way of describing what dissociation does to my brain is leave it completely empty and unable of responding or registering anything around me.
About a year after being diagnosed with dissociative disorder, I went to a general practitioner for all of the physical symptoms I’d been experiencing for several months or even years until that point. This doctor, after talking with me for a good our or so and doing some basic check-ups, diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition that affects the entire body and system, starting from the nerves and going all the way to your muscles, joints, and noggin as well. It is a chronic illness that has disabled me as the symptoms have gotten worse and worse despite the medication meant for increasing my pain tolerance and therefore easing out the pain in my body. But because fibro doesn’t just wreck your physique, its impact on me has reached my brain too.
People with fibromyalgia often experience something that is commonly referred to as brain fog. It is a different kind of feeling separate from dissociation, one that’s more in line with the description “it feels like your brain is fogged up by a cloud that your head is in”. You can’t think clearly, you might not be able to understand speech as well, everything feels heavy and dark, almost. Whereas dissociation is a genuine lack of connection to reality, brain fog leaves you with a sense of confusion and inability to formulate coherent thoughts.
Dissociation and fibro fog together are soul-crushing. They carve out the insides of my body, drain out the fluids and thoughts floating around in my diseased mind, leaving it dry and hollow, with nothing there to occupy it but the ever-present numbing pain of existence. They close up the reception of my brain, making it impossible to reach anybody, especially myself. My heart is beating way too fast, desperately trying to get some of the blood flow back into my head, but if there is nothing there to receive the message, what difference does it make at the end of the day?
A lot of the times, I genuinely feel like there really isn’t anything else left in me than my trauma and illnesses. They have occupied all of the space in me, taken over every nook and cranny, leaving out nowhere for a healthy personality to reside in. Instead of developing into a whole human being, I got this bitch ass of a personality disorder and multiple comorbidities along with it. My head is filled to the brim with cloud-like substance, and I can’t help but wonder how in the hell I am supposed to exist in this world without any support from the system? I don’t even remember what I said to my girlfriend two hours ago, sometimes I forget my name and the year we’re living in. Because the very core of my being is far too busy with contemplating ways to terminate this miserable life of mine and all the traumatizing shit I was put through as a Kid.
But sure, hand me the job application, I’ll see what I can do!
With bitterness,
ichigonya