Going back to series of posts about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms or criteria, I needed to refresh my memory before posting about the Thousand Yard Stare. A Wikipedia page about that took me on a journey to depersonalization. That brought back two memories. One was from late 1970s or early 1980s.
I can not say for sure that I was at Tinker Hollow Ale House and Restaurant, but think that was where I had the experience. I worked at Tinker Hollow for several years as lunch time waitress. After I left my husband, I was allowed to work band nights. Great tips and I loved being able to listen to the bands while I worked. I also went out dancing there now and then. Dancing has long been my favorite past time. Love dancing, anywhere, anytime; except now.
There I was dancing and laughing, or smiling, enjoying the fun, when I began watching us from above, looking down, thinking how very silly we looked. Maybe that is what depersonalization is like. It happened at other times, I could see myself floating in the air, though fully aware of what ever I was doing at the time, almost as if I had two selves. Perhaps, at those times, I thought it was my soul looking down at my human self.
The other experience was when a big erasure came down out of the sky erasing me. I felt this erasure, more than seeing it. I only vaguely recall what that was about, circa: mid 1980s. Thoughts that the big artist in the sky made a mistake drawing me and was erasing me out of the picture. I guess that was actually a sensory hallucination. I felt myself being erased. Felt it. Body disappearing, thoughts of me being wiped out of minds of those around me.
Which, just now, brings back another memory when I worked at Jamesway in New Jersey, late 1980s. I was talking to a belligerent older man, a customer. Looking in his eyes, I suddenly saw a young man I worked with at Bainbridge. Can not say I "saw him", it was more like he was watching me through this man's eyes. Hard to explain it. I felt as if our two souls had connected and he could experience what I was experiencing at that moment in time.
Was that also an act of depersonalization? I do not know, but do wish I could have discussed all those things with a therapist, especially back in 1998...
2 comments:
Are you still having these episodes?
No, I am not. I seem to stay solidly inside my body, rather than splitting off into two, the doer and the one observing from above.
Its probably been a bit over a year since I had "those nightmares" where I felt I was actually having out-of-body experiences.
Likewise what I could label "visions". I would feel I had left my body and was viewing a scene elsewhere, very real images, sort of like watching TV or watching the people across a street getting into a car. Hard to describe; well aware that I am lying in bed trying to drift off to sleep.
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