#he's disassociating so much at this point he's on the verge of a total mental break down and i cannot watch

[malepresentingleg]

someone please get pat in therapy and asap

[wthidekwidwml]

Alright, time I talk about this because I need answers and don't know where to go anymore.

Hey there. I haven't talked about this before because I don't know how to talk about this without co-opting language from another mental illness but my therapist didn't let me talk about it. There are two people in my body. I don't know his name or anything about him but I know that there isn't just me here and I need help. I'm going to try to start from the beginning because that seems like the best thing to do.

In 7th grade I had a rather normal event happen to me that caused me to disassociate for 7 days. I have no idea of what happened, but as far as anyone else was concerned, I seemed normal but a little less "myself". I don't think about too much and time moves on.

A couple years go by. I keep getting older, traumatic stuff happens, idk. We move on. Then I hit college. I disassociate. I call it "riding shot-gun". Essentially, any time I disassociate, I change which eye I look through. I don't have control of my body or my thoughts but I'm watching out of the eyes like a car ride.

Then one day, I'm at work and I notice that I'm slipping into riding shot-gun and think "Alright body, this seems like some pretty easy work I'll let you have the go ahead." Body works on whatever we're doing and it's fine until I notice that they (they were going by the same pronouns that I do at the time) dropped a pen and thought that we should kill ourselves. I had to fight to stay present and get control of the body. That's when I noticed that body and I were too different people. I was a little more weary of body having control after that.

Now this part might not be in order but I hope it make sense. Since quarantine, I've been really trying to be more in touch with him (found out he has he/him pronouns when I actively started asking him questions). It feels like he talks more in grunts and feelings than anything. I know that he can talk, I know that he has preferences. I just don't know him. He likes when our voice is deeper, is left handed instead of right handed like me, can drive rather well, prefers different food, and more. He's his own person but I've never been able to meet him because he's only out when I'm not.

At the beginning of quarantine, when I was going through some shit plus the added stress of the world, I kept asking him to come out. I begged and pleaded and he never listened to me. He refused. I was frustrated and felt stupid for yelling at my body to do anything so that I could take a break from being in charge.

Earlier I called it riding shot-gun, but I can ride back seat too. That's when I'm totally entrenched with a day dream that I don't know what's going on in the outside world. Body has full control at that point. He watches different things than I do. He's swiped on people on tinder that I never would have. I don't know how to explain it but we're just not the same at all.

The last time I let him fully out, we were at work (like 2.5 weeks ago) writing emails. And when I came back to the surface, we were standing in front of the work fridge while humming John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, with the microwave open, and the electric kettle going to make a cup of tea.

Thanks to a therapist, I'm always on the verge of disassociating now. My perception of sizes gets weird. I feel soft like I'm about to fall asleep which is very new. Since before it just felt like I was being pulled under into a preset day dream layout.

I'm getting to know him more but I don't know what to do. He can't be trusted to do the work that we need for the job because of the humming incident. I don't know how to help with this issue. And if he can't be trusted at work, I can't have him driving the body at all because I don't know how long I'll be gone for when I do disassociate. I don't even know his name and I hate saying "the body". I don't even think there is an answer but I'm just so very tired.

This isn't the first person in here either. They're was a girl but she was buried alive by the others because she wanted to tell me what happened and they didn't think that I should know. I have no idea what she's referring to but the others wanted to stop her.

What do I do now? What can help? Please, anything.

[cardio-maegaly]

The other day I had a woman come into my store and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I work at a Starbucks with a very, very high proportion of customers struggling with homelessness and houselessness. That’s it’s own can of worms I have a lot of thoughts about. I have had a lot of really enlightening experiences listening to the locals and the people living around the beach, those who are in permanent housing and those who aren’t.

But I had one interaction that’s really been troubling me. Sometime a few weeks ago, this woman came in with her dog. It was very early in the morning. We open before nearly every other shop on the boardwalk. The woman was dressed pretty normal, and had a big backpack on. She seemed like an ordinary customer. At first, we all did the standard barista “oh cute dog!” and smile at her, but she seemed really intent on comparing some of the sandwiches and prepackaged “lunch boxes” we sell. Ah well, no offense taken, it’s early & nobody’s super sociable in the morning.

I was working register, and she finally had made a decision on what she wanted. She brought a lunch box up to the register, and mentioned that it had a lot of protein in it. “20 grams of protein, that’s almost half of what you should have in a day. That’s a lot, right?” I didn’t think much of it, just conversation. 

“Oh, yeah, I get that one a lot myself, it’s pretty healthy.”  “...is there on that maybe has more protein?,” she asked, then she glanced back at the display case. “I think that one has the highest amount? Not sure, but you can take your time & look as long as you want!” She said the one she’d picked out was fine. Then she ordered a flavored latte.  “No problem,” I said, “what size would you like?” “How much are they?” Still a very normal order so far. I told her the different price points for the different sizes, and she waffled between a medium and a large. She kept staring at the point on the customer facing screen that shows you your total so far. Everything in this city is fucking expensive, and so just those two items were well over $10 at this point. then she said, “...this is a working meal, right? This is a lot to get you through the day. It’s a lot of energy...” The pauses between everything she said were starting to get further and further apart. It became awkward. It was at this point I realized she was homeless. Her backpack was completely full, not like the tourists’ empty or loose backpacks carried in the mornings. Those are meant to be filled with souvenirs later. Hers was packed with all the belongings she could carry. And I suspect she might have been newly homeless. She didn’t behave like the more “experienced” homeless, who are often jaded by their situation or strung out or high or all of the above. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, just completely disassociating right in front of me. She wan’t trying to convince me that what she was buying was worth it. She was trying to convince herself (and, by the looks of it, failing). I told her her total. I didn’t know what to say. I worried that asking about her situation might make her more upset. I thought to myself, maybe if I treat this like as normal an interaction I can, and just stay friendly without prying, maybe that will make her feel better? Like everything is normal and safe right now? Or maybe I’m wrong about her situation, and I’d offend her by assuming?

She dug through her wallet, pulled out her card, and then completely froze right before putting her card in the chip reader. She just...stared at it. “It’s a lot of energy...” she said again, to herself. I just tried my best to give her a sympathetic smile.

My first thought was that I should give her the meal for free, mark out the whole box as a “sample” and give it to her. But I’ve known of people getting fired on the first offense just for entering their own employee discount code for customers. I can’t afford to lose this job right now. I considered the stories I’d been told about how simply giving away samples at this store led to days of the less mentally well people who are homeless harassing the rest of the staff. I didn’t want to instigate that again for the baristas. Then again, I’ve seen enough people grifting by now to know a grift. This wasn’t it. This was a woman that was going through trauma checking out at a goddamn Starbucks because it was still cheaper than the only other place in walking distance. She was hungry, and she still felt like she shouldn’t be buying it. I felt conflicted.

“It is a lot of energy to start the day...” was all I could end up saying. I felt terrible about that. I still feel terrible about that. I don’t know what that money meant to her right then. I don’t know if she was overdrafting her account. Maybe she was waiting for me to talk her out of it. Maybe I should have told her get something cheaper.

After an uncomfortably long pause, she did, eventually, insert her card. It was accepted. I told her where to get her order when it was done being made. She, very slowly, put her card away. She walked to the bar. She stared out into space. She just...stayed dissociated through the entire ordeal. I wish I had tried to talk to her longer, to ask her if she needed help finding resources. I don’t know what kind of help she needed at that moment, but I didn’t even ask to find out. I asked the barista making drinks to “accidentally” make hers a large, which he did. It was the absolute bare minimum I could have done, and I still feel a lot of shame that it was all I did. I haven’t seen her since. I hope her and her dog are okay. I’m sorry I didn’t do more for her.