#tw: depersonalisation

[ghostsandmirrors]

There was an undeniable pause, a moment of sheer panic that silenced every other thought, when he felt the hand in his hair. That initial feeling was what he was expecting, because assets didn't want and weapons didn't weep, and he was doing both as if he hadn't learned that lesson, as if it hadn't been forced into his brain in ways that could never leave a mark, but only because of the serum.

The combing, the relative gentleness of the feeling compared to the expectation, made his brain stutter. He was stuck between the spiral and the soldier, teetering between the two. The single word dislodged him, tipped him into the soldier and let him get air into his lungs with shaky, inconsistent breaths; it was a command, an order, and he didn't disobey orders. He breathed, between the returning sobs, over the pain in his throat, face pressed against Steve's collar and infusing every breath with whatever smells were on him.

There was silence as he listened, leaning a little into the hand in his hair but otherwise not moving while Steve spoke, not speaking, just trying to calm down enough that he could speak without sobbing, that his voice wouldn't be whimpered or whispers or pleads.

He needed to be able to argue, because most of what he said was wrong. He was broken, he wasn't his Bucky, he knew Steve better than he knew himself, he would've been miserable without the other man, and it was never Steve's fault. None of it. None of it could have been; did either of them truly know about the serum? Did either of them know that he could've survived that fall?

Did he survive, or was that the second part of the dismembering? The second time a piece of him died? Was that where his Bucky was? Lost to the water and the snow at the bottom of the mountains? Never found once peace reigned? His Bucky; a tragedy of the war, a memory, a statistic, a name put carefully to glass, to a wall, to a grave, with no effort by any authorities put towards finding him.

"S'not your fault." He hadn't been told to speak, with that voice like an empty vase that'd been thrown to the floor, and he hadn't been told to argue between small sobs that he tried to ignore, but he needed to. Whatever the consequences, Steve needed to know that none of this was because of him. He needed to know that he could never be blamed, would never be blamed. "Knowin' you's kept me alive, Steve." It felt manipulative to admit, and that was why he didn't like even the idea of uttering it, but it was important. It was true.

How could he commit Steve's face to his memory, every detail and contour, every small and perfect imperfection, the green in his eyes, the way his face relaxed into a smile, or the little movements when he realised he was being teased, if he was dead? How could he dedicate too much time to hearing Steve laugh, cherish that sound like it was the sweetest music, if he was dead?

He still hadn't mapped every curve and dip of Steve's back into his brain; still hadn't memorized the shapes of his chest, his arms, his legs, until they felt more familiar to him than anything else in his life. He couldn't trace his fingers over the creases of Steve's palms like it was second nature, still needing to think about where he was going. He hadn't learned the hills and valleys of any part of Steve, the differences of how any singular space on Steve's body felt against his lips. He hadn't explored that landscape, that beauty, in its entirety. He hadn't gotten lost in him in the way that could truly teach him everything he needed to know so desperately that it almost over-rode his training in that moment; assets didn't want things, but he needed it all.

How could he do any of that if he wasn't here, now?

"You didn't push me off that train. You didn't know I'd-…" He faltered, because all the need and want and longing in the world couldn't convince him that he'd survived. He was alive, he was breathing, but he was sure he'd been dropping shards of himself everywhere he'd been, sharp little pieces that settled into the soles of peoples' feet or cut them when handled, that continued his true legacy of harm and blood because he'd never chosen a way out of the killing. "I'd be at the bottom."

He breathed, because he'd been told to, because he couldn't barely get out of the spiral only to jump back in at the first opportunity, because there was a hand in his hair and a voice in his memories telling him to breath, because he knew what they did about forgotten orders.

The realization that they'd slipped into his thoughts made his breath hitch uncomfortably until he forced himself to ignore that hitch, to move past it, because it was them, not Steve. Steve wouldn't do anything. Steve was safe, and gentle, and warm. Steve was every happy memory, every feeling of home. He wasn't the buzzing of electricity, the screams echoing around cold rooms and hallways, the heavy thudding of boots, harsh words and harsher punishments. Steve was clear skies, laughter, the wind whistling through a gap in the window frame of an apartment previously forgotten, a pile of blankets and two mattresses in the middle of the living room, a train ride together.

He breathed, because Steve had nothing to be sorry about; because Steve had nothing to worry about; because he needed to convince one of them that he was still fine and he knew he couldn't convince himself when he was staring into that spiral, looking at the bait in those depths, realising that the bait wasn't for Steve after all, watching the spiral loop back to the start because he'd been here before, before he became the bait, before he became the depths, before his chest had hollowed itself out.

He breathed, because he had to; the spiral seemed so distant now and he couldn't drag Steve back into it, he couldn't do that to him again, ever. He hadn't wanted to do it today, had tried so hard to stop it that it felt cruel for the dissociation to only kick in now, when the red alert had been screaming for too long, his emotions finally cut off to save them from the fallout, like he was a bomb that'd been difficult to diffuse, a weapon that couldn't weep.

"Stop." Before it'd been broken, the first time he'd said it. Now it was empty but calm, hollow but with some amount of strength. His voice was still in pieces--it'd probably take longer until the sting in his throat stopped showing up in his voice--but it was stronger. "Stop takin' all this on; s'not your fault. I'm not your fault."

The amount of apologizing that was coming from Bucky just broke Steve completely. He knew he had been holding this great weight in his chest. This great burden of knowing who the blame really lied with. He knew that the tears on Bucky's face could break his heart faster than anything else.

The way Bucky yearned to be his former self for Steve made his heart just quiver and writhe. It was like he was physically being hurt in that moment. All the things that collected together to form a miserable Bucky sobbing into his shirt and begging to be someone he use to be made Steve want to hurl himself off a bridge.

He didn't want to see his best friend shattered like glass on the tile floor. Porcelain pieces even. He could watch him cling to him for only so long. He brought a hand to snake through the man's hair. He combed through it with his fingers as though to soothe them both.

"Breath." Was the only thing he could think to say in that moment certain that Bucky unraveled himself so far that he was almost deep into an anxiety attack or a dark sobbing fit that could be turned easily into hyperventilating.

He wanted to think. He needed to think. What was the best way to get through to him? What was the best way to get him to stop going deeper into that deep cavern of sorrow and misery.

"You need to calm before you get yourself into a fit. I understand that you feel broken. You don't feel like him anymore. Maybe you don't even feel like you know me as well anymore but the thing is....the thing about Bucky that you still have in you is he would never give up on the people he cares about. And neither do you."

Steve paused, considering his words carefully. "Don't be sorry. You have nothing to apologize for. This was my fault. I never went looking for you after you fell from the train. The responsibility is on my shoulders. You have done nothing but been forced to follow orders because I failed to look for my best friend and I had just written you off as dead from a fall that we could have survived. That you did survive."

Steve's tears spilled down his chin. He looked at Bucky knowing that his own tears were now soaking his curls. "If it wasn't for me you'd have a dame under your arms right now and a smile that would be so infectious. If it wasn't for me, you'd be whole and it ain't nothing I can do to change it because you feel like this....it's my fault. You were stolen from me because I was negligent. Because I was stupid. I didn't take care of you when I could have."

"I want to take care of you now. I'm so sorry."

[canichangemyblogname]

When I started therapy, I was actually hung up on the fact that I didn't seem to have ever experienced dysphoria, which is a lie that has its origins in part in the fact I had no fucking clue what dysphoria actually is. I've since found that it's actually kinda hard to explain, and that's why these narratives that dysphoria is when trans people are revulsed by their body and agab, or when they "hate" their past self, persist. It's also why these "trapped in" bodies and "wrong" bodies narratives exist.

Like. I'm in my body. My body is my body. My consciousness isn't in another person's body; it's in my own. And I know myself. I know myself well enough to know that I am not a woman despite society telling me that my bits, pieces, and parts "make" me one. And how else do I explain this to someone with no frame of reference for this? I liken it to "Freaky Friday," despite the fact that's- technically- what it isn't? It’s like having an out-of-body experience. You're looking at your body. You know it's your body. But there's also a disconnect. Something's missing, and something's there that makes no sense.

I also don't think I could ever hate the girl my parents tried to raise or the woman I wanted so desperately to be. That wouldn't be very kind to me. She really tried her damnedest. And she's not "dead" because she's a vital part of my past. I, quite technically, wouldn't be trans if "she" never existed. I'd be a cis man if I was never afab. "Trans" is an important part of my lived reality.

Was I ever a "girl"? A part of me still has no idea. I know I truly believed I was, but the reasons I believed I was weren't healthy.

I held on to a lot of sex-essentialist ideas for a good portion of my youth. Why? It was all that connected me to the identity society and my family was trying to raise me into. When my cousin gifted me a uterus pin with the words "Women's rights" on it, I wore it proudly. It was a very tenuous connection to womanhood, and it was a connection I needed to critically rethink when my mother and grandmother were both diagnosed with cervical cancer (I was 11). I knew that it ran in my family and that, one day, I might need to go through the same surgery they did just to live.

I asked my mom what connected her to womanhood, and she replied: motherhood. I was never, ever going to be a mother, so I returned to the drawing board. I asked my grandmother what connected her to womanhood, and she replied: standing up to violent men and men who denied her and other women the opportunity to work; community. And I realized that I had never been extended the same community my grandmother always had been. Part of the disconnect I felt was due to violence (sexual and not) I had experienced in single-sex, "women's only" spaces. Girls in "girl's only" spaces made it clear that I was not welcome, and, at the time, I didn't understand why they singled me out and picked on me.

Even though my family was trying to raise me as a girl, the society around me saw me as nothing more than a "failed" girl. I was an "unwoman," not "woman enough," for reasons such as what I preferred to wear. But it's not like in marking me as "unwoman," they made me into a man, far from it. They sorted me- on the basis of my queerness- into some other third category. Something of a eunuch.

And it seemed like the only thing I had was some sex-essentialist, cisgender pretense (I absolutely loved the linked blog post as I found it quite striking, even though I was *never* trans-exclusionary, and I never supported those ideas about trans people) to sort of reassure myself that I belonged in society. Every time I usurped or rebelled against our sex/gender norms, I would work to distract myself from how I constructed my body into a binary and thus ignore how being made into a girl was wrong for me. I literally disconnected myself from parts of my internal self & internal thoughts, and I denied myself the opportunity to construct an identity. I was constantly gaslighting myself and consistently engaged in thought-stopping. In part because I was terrified of being "different."

I so desperately wanted to be just like every other girl that I ignored the fact that I likely never was (and that there is no such thing as universal woman/girlhood). With that realization, I could hear the words of my school-yard bullies from years ago, words which, it seems, many trans masc people have heard in their lifetime, "What's wrong? We're all girls here, aren't we? We're all alike."

I've been unable to recognize my own dysphoria because I have spent my whole life purposefully ignoring and distracting myself from those moments of "huh. something's off." I spent some 23 years of my life essentially disassociating from myself (I'm 26 now). I felt detached from my body and detached from the world around me. It felt as if everyone else was moving, but I was floating in place. I disconnected myself from my thoughts and emotions in an attempt to be accepted by a society that finds queerness disgusting.

I literally felt like I was watching my life and body unfold without my consent rather than me unfolding it myself. So, I liken my experience to "Freaky Friday" because that's also what it is.

[bothfeetinthegrave]

I don't know how clear it is sometimes in the way I write, especially lately because I write a lot of early timeline versions of him, but

Eden doesn't think he's real .

Early timeline Eden doesn't suffer from this as much because he's busy re-learning to have a physical form and trying to reconcile a dramatic shift in his understanding of reality, so a lot of big immediate feelings get in the way of worrying about whether or not you count as a person that exists.

[sage-hazeline]

how do you reconnect to life after being disconnected for so long

[ghostsandmirrors]

He only barely heard the apology, if he were honest; he was floating back into dissociation and hearing his own name when his brain was struggling to remember that he had one wasn't helping all that much. Some small part of said brain was grounded enough to make him say, "s'fine. Don't worry about it," as if he was fully aware of everything around him and not drifting between derealization and depersonization.

He could act, though. He could pretend that faceless agents whose names he never learned weren't in the back of his thoughts, lurking in the shadows of his memories; Milo didn't need this and he refused to be a burden. So he looked in Milo's direction and gave a simple and casual, "you didn't mean to." It sounded wrong to him--he knew what to listen for, that hint of detatchment--but he hoped Milo didn't notice. This wasn't the place nor the time.

With the suggestion, and a growing awareness of his surroundings that made everything feel unsettlingly real, he shook his head. "I should… go home." Terrible idea, really, and he knew it. He truly didn't want to cause problems, though, and the easiest way to avoid that was to just go home, to shower once he got home, to lie in bed and feel wholly surreal until he woke up, if he went to sleep. He'd cross that bridge when he got to it.

"I don't w-w-… I don't-…" There was a small, frustrated sigh and silence as he tried to figure out the way to speak while avoiding the word 'wanna', the idea of wanting or not wanting something; lessons he was always sure he'd unlearned did like resurfacing at the most inopportune moments. "S'impractical." The empty, hollow tone momentarily tensed his shoulders before he forced himself to relax. "No change of clothes." His voice was warmer, gentler, better, and he didn't have to word the idea that he didn't want something. Better.

Bucky inhaled a little strong, and froze, which gave Milo pause, himself, and he stopped dabbing the ointment, looking up to Bucky's face in the mirror. "Did i hurt you?" he asked, assuming that might be the reason Bucky froze. But his friend had a distant look on his face, and Milo turned to look at Bucky directly. As he turned, his hand bumped the man's shoulder, and suddenly his vision went white.

In less than a moment, Milo found himself in an unfamiliar room. No, it was familiar, but not to Milo. It was clinical, and full of negative, hateful energy, This was a place that Milo knew to be torturous, mind-numbing, and horrid. The chill of evil started to pierce Milo, sending spikes of terror deep inside him, and he cried out, as his sight shone bright again.

He was back in the bathroom, Bucky in front of him, and he had tears wet on his face. He knew he'd tapped into a memory for the man, by accident. He knew what the place was. He knew what it meant to his friend to have to be burdened with those memories. "Oh Buck... I-I'm sorry." He looked down, and wiped one of his cheeks dry. Looking back up, he gave Buck an apologetic wince. "I uh... I saw your memory just know. I didn't mean to," he added, quickly. "I-I would never... You know. Use my powers, not without your permission." He shrugged, embarrassed. "But sometimes people's emotions can be high, and if I'm touching them... I can't always control it."

He leaned over and turned the temperature dial up a bit. "Maybe you should get in the shower? The hot water might really sooth out the pain," he suggested. Maybe more than just the physical pain, too, he thought to himself.

[jack-the-killler]

[httpskulz]

I’m a disaster… I’m a fuck up… I’m a disappointment… I’m a disgrace… I’m a poor excuse of a person…

[rapturepoetry]

wretching and vile unbecoming and disgusting look in the mirror and see your body

and you feel sick to your stomach you have the audacity to tear up as if this isn't you

because it doesnt feel like it is

it feels like you're looking at a monster a pitiful shell who is crawling their way through every day in a body that doesnt feel real

in a body that isn't theirs

[bl0w-m3]

All I can think about is what I don’t wanna think about. All I can do is try and get relief.

Relief never comes.

I’m walking around, not even real.

This all feels like a bad trip.

I can see it. I can hear it. I feels like it already happened.

I’m screaming for help. I’m begging and it feels like I’m in a soundproof box.

[ghxst-system]

derealisation is so fucking scary

what do u mean nothing feels real, time doesnt make sense and i cant even understand that these hands are MINE

i feel like i cant even see clearly like everythings foggy

[7nvk]

the world stopped being real to me two years ago

[strongtowerluxuryapartments]

gorgug thistlespring; dissociation // dimension 20: fantasy high

paul rogers // unknown // georges bataille // refiningfire // the killers - boy // unknown // unknown // orla gartland - why am i like this?

[weirdcoredpdr]

[flesh-andsoul]

why my face change every fucking time I look in the mirror?

[possibly-a-secunit]

[t1r3d-0f-3v3ryth1ng-02]

I love seeing my scars, or others. Not in like a fetish way of course, it's nice to see i am not alone? i find them pretty.