Depersonalization

You call it:

Depersonalization,

Dissociation,

Detachment,

Disconnection,

Or a Dream-like state

A Diagnostic criteria for the DSM-IV to the define the disorders of the undeselfed self

You describe the causation:

Deep trauma that results in a deselfing of the undeselfed self

Damage to neurons from drug use

I have lost connection with my self. I have no connection with my past experiences. I have no connection to the people in my past.

My past is every second which is not now

Your face is new,

It does not evoke an emotional reaction

It does not evoke a visual familiarity

You are not part of the deselfed self, you do not constitute a part of my deselfed self.

What we have shared does not constitute a part of my deselfed self

Then what does?

My memories are there, flitting across my mind’s eye like faces of strangers in the windows as I stand on the side of the Metro tracks

Inconsequential

This is not amnesia, I remember

Why does it scare me?

Why does it trigger paranoid ideations that I am another being in this body that does not belong to me?

In this life that does not belong to me?

What if I wasn’t scared?

Can I accept that this deselfed self is another fleeting manifestation of transience?

That what You tell you me the undeselfed is, is not?

Is not, that is why it doesn’t constitute my deselfed self?

If I know that I am deselfing Your construction of what my undeselfed is and not my self,

Then What am I scared of?

Rabid Special ver2.4

I did think I was a better and more evolved version of bipolar, the new and improved bipolar 2.4, a rare edition of the self aware non medicated calm maniac.

I thought it was one of those sometimes I’m not bipolar phases.

I thought I was better, because I knew my psyche and because I knew what the signs were.

I really did think I was better than the rest

Because I am not on medication,

Because I can articulate this obscure fluctuation

Because I can accept my loss of control without losing it

I thought I had beaten it, I thought I wasn’t another bipolar

I wasn’t another psycho freak

I thought I was special

I still thought I was special the limited edition version 2.4 as I gnawed through my arm like a hungry rabid dog

I thought I was special because I currently am going through a depressive episode and I am totally aware of it, I am working out my issues, I’m not just another bipolar, I am an enlightened bipolar.

I thought I was special because I understood that the rabid dog had to feed and I could control it with applied behavioural motivational therapy, no no no not control train through a series of positive reinforcements. I accepted my rabid dog and I respected my rabid dog.

And it respected me.

I thought I was special because I thought I was better

Better than you, better than every bipolar, better than you nonbipolars because I have the bipolar edge

When I cannot control my voice

When I cannot control my actions

When I cannot control my tears

When I cannot control my drama queen

When I cannot explain it anymore

When I am humiliated by a self that I do not know

I know I am not in control

When I am no longer there, but I am

When I cannot accept this part of me, but it is

When the rabid dog wants to feed and I do not want to give it an arm

When I want to put it down

I am not better

I am not special

I am another A bipolar

I am another A bipolar who cannot accept it because I think I am better

Because I think I am special but I am another A bipolar who isn’t better and who isn’t special but thinks there are, who cannot accept it they are A bipolar because they think they are special and that they are better,

when they are just another A bipolar who isn’t better and who isn’t special

(wow, I just realized how I have been using my "illness" to feed my ego, wow aren't I special, aren't I better?)

Contemplate Driving

You drive and you drive and you drive.

You see the shapes flitting across your windows.

You don’t feel your body but it moves in perfect coordination.

Foot, brake, hand gear, foot accelerator, eyes, rear view, foot clutch. You glide through the traffic jam.

Foot, brake, hand, foot, eyes, arms, steering whee.l

You glide.

Shapes flitting across your windows.

Your heart breaks inside of you, shatters in ways more dramatic than two long lost brothers in a bollywood movie who find out they love the same woman, who ends up being lesbian and hooking up with their long lost sister.
Contracts within your chest, tightening around itself, trying to make its self smaller.

You don’t like the drama, but what the hell are you supposed to do, you’re a superstar right now. You are evanescence in all her tragic glory.

Contemplate the physical sensations of emotional pain.

Contemplate driving off the bridge.

Contemplate driving into another car.

Contemplate driving off into oblivion.

Contemplate the transience of your neurotransmitter levels.

Contemplate your carbon emissions because that is way more long term than your little mood swings.

Round the Corner

I'm driving too fast
I know its round the next bend
I want to park here
But I can't
There are no parking spots

Cheese from the heart

I am silently screaming to you
Please love me indefinitely
Despite fears of looming inevitable endings
I will presist to love you
Like the fruit flies in my kitchen
From the hole made by my cats in the screen
It feels bipolar in its fluctations
and dramatic determinations
to endlessly challenge me
Indefinitely
(both the love and the fruit flies)

Define: "Body Issues"

My stomach tightens, I am a flower that sings and dances circles around Snow White. I wanted to be a dwarf, I wanted to be Dopey, but I got stuck being a flower. Pink paper petals surround my face. My mother on the side watching our Kindgergarten Snow White performance. I watch the witch’s mother, skinny, in tight clothes. Snow White’s mother in a short white skirt, skinny as well. I look at the mothers, all are skinny with one chin. My mother the size of two or three of them and has two or three chins. My stomach tightens. I can hear their thoughts when they look at her, “The elephant lady”, I’m telepathic, my grandmother taught me. She’s there too. She’s overweight, but that’s okay, because she’s a granny. She’s (my mother) in turquoise with golden sequins and turquoise eye makeup. Telling everyone look at me I am a circus elephant. I do not want to talk to her when the play is over. I am hoping no one will know she is my mother. She is an elephant. Age 4

My third hot dog dripping with mayo and ketchup. My stomach hurts I cannot eat anymore. I look at the two hot dogs left on my plate. I stuff the third one in my mouth and swallow. I shovel the other two faster than my stomach can tell my brain that it will burst

H shows me where he will build the glass elevator in our garden. He is white, like a moving piece of lard. He eats meat for breakfast, rare and loves the fat. His skin smells like uncooked meat. He shows me the wall where the glass elevator will be. He grabs my bony wrists and pins me up against the wall. Pressing his mouth on mine, his cheeks cover blocking my nostrils when I try to inhale. He lifts my shirt and traces my jutting ribs with his tongue. His hair smells like fat. My ribs remember. Age 7

Holed up in our darkness, we quarrel. She leaves for class. I call Pizza Hut, they will not deliver till another hour. I order a New Yorker with extra cheese. I finish it in 6 minutes. I lie down feling the energy pulsatting in my stomach, radiating all over my body. She comes back to our darkness, she touches my breasts. We quarrel, she leaves. I order another New Yorker with extra cheese. I lie down by the door next to two empty boxes of pizza. I touch my stomach. I touch my breasts, I close my eyes and I rest

I am the daughter of a red indian. Like the chief from Peter Pan. I have a long headdress with red feathers going down my back. I am wearing a leather vest opened. My chest exposed but its okay because I don’t have breasts yet. I am tied up, wrists behind my back to the bed post. H is a cowboy he has a beard painted on his face. His hands touching me all over feel like they don’t have bones just flesh that smells of fat. Age 8

She ties the strings of her leapord print corset, tightening them around my waist. She traces her fingers across my clavicle. My pussy dries and her’s drips I held my breath and her’s got heavier. “You look so sexy”she looks at me, I look away. The door is locked so her father doesn’t come in, I can’t get out.

Pink with golden glitter and a frill around the waist, the swimsuit around my body. French cut. I feel my like everytime I walk I’m going to get a wedgy. My uncle in a black tight swimsuit is on the chaise long. He has boobs that he doesn’t cover. I have boobs too. He has three stomaches when he sits down, I have only one. My boobs are the size of pingpong balls half embedded into my chest. I cover them. “You look so sexy”.

“What’s sexy?”

“It means people want you”

“What does people want me mean?” Age 11

A boiled gray chicken infront of my mother at the dinner table, my father and brother’s plates overflowing. Everyone has breasts and their bellies are hanging. A napkin is laid out on my lap, I secretly drop the food on it. I have no belly and I have no breasts.

I wore my mom’s bikini from the 70s, its cool. It has these funky circles and its yellow, green, purple and orange. Its not much just a few strings tied together around my body. My breasts fill the cups. The bottoms are a little bit loose. I wander as I always do, my diary and a pencil. I am trying to find a special place. Somewhere no one has seen. Somewhere I can record something profound and significant. I find a pool and next to it a big net. The kind you can fish things out with. He comes up from behind me. I don’t know him. I feel his arms around my waist I look down his hands are dark and his knuckles are chaffed. The synthetic material of his shorts makes the skin on my back itch, but his belly cushions my back. One hand cups my breast the other one slides into my bottoms. In broken English he says “You are so sexy”. I don’t record this in my diary, but I never wear a bikini again. Age 14

Not a paperclip

This is not a paper clip

It’s a plate

With white rice, ensheathed with oil

Catching

A reflection of light, but nothing

Else

Compacted grains

I take a forkful then

Push

The

Grains

Back

To

Maintain

The shape

This time I don’t watch my hands

Because this is not a paper clip

It’s a 4 fingered metal extension of my hand.

It has a pattern

It’s made in Japan

And it doesn’t have scars laced with memories

Its pretty dumb this whole utensil thing, except right now it’s saving me from having to wash my hands.

A cafeteria means:

Someone cooks and someone cleans

And that someone is not me

I just have to stand behind the counter load my tray and pay

Find a table

On any other day I would have probably ranted about our alienation from our food, today, I’m just fucking happy that I don’t have to do jackshit