LIfe After Grace (a depersonalisation disorder story)

Prologue

Do you ever have trouble just feeling? Feeling anything, any emotion at all.

I do.  It’s like you disown all capable emotions and feelings but for some reason your heart keeps beating. You know you’re not like yourself, but you can’t seem to bring self to care. You walk around like your soul is hidden so deep inside you and it can’t be seen. You’re lifeless.  Sometimes, I’m lifeless.

I stared around my room wondering and contemplating where my emotions go when I can’t seem to find them. Maybe they disappear all together and then get reborn.  Seems unlikely. I think I must have a hidden pocket somewhere that I can’t find.  Do people even notice? How would I know? It’s not like I’m going to ask ‘oh hey mum, did you happen to notice the last week I’ve been walking around with no soul, I doubt I would even care if you died.’

Of course I remember the whole time clearly, but its like I’m watching someone else’s memory from inside their body.  I remember the first time I became lifeless. I was eleven. Afterwards, I had a panic attack and my mother rushed me to the hospital.  I was so scared. Scared that all of a sudden I wouldn’t feel anything again. I had curled myself up so hard in a ball screaming, like I was afraid of my soul being ripped from me. I was a mess for weeks. When they asked what was wrong, I shook my head and cried. I refused to say a word about it because I knew it would feel more real if I did.  From the constant pestering of my mother and the crummy therapist she hired, after the first episode, I knew it would be wise to keep the second episode to myself.

So my ‘lifeless days’ continued, still are. To be honest, I’m still as terrified as I was five years ago. I still dread the days I no longer love my mother, I’m still petrified of the things I could say, the people I could hurt in my soulless state.

I am dead scared of being lifeless