When Dissociation Feels Like Dying with Your Eyes Open

And the one-page tool I used to come back into my body when nothing else worked

You don’t forget the first time you dissociate and know it.

For me, it wasn’t some soft fade. It was like the lights cut off behind my eyes but the show kept running. I could still move, still speak — barely. But I wasn’t in there. I was watching myself from somewhere behind glass.

I remember standing in the kitchen, after getting off a phone call that s…