Dear dissociation,

I understand that you're doing your job, protecting me from things I can't handle but you're making my happy ever after so much worse. I'm safe, I'm happy, you're the only one holding onto the trauma now. I mean, obviously that's a lie or you wouldn't be here, but that's how it feels.

Simple pleasures aren't pleasurable anymore and the new anxieties you've brought into my life are utterly unwelcome. I am bogged down by enough, why add to it? My body isn't my own, my thoughts aren't me, and interactions with loved ones are stilted and tiring. Checking to see what my face is doing and zoning out while someone talks, forgetting the nuanced word I was about to use, coming across as sarcastic. It shouldn't be this hard to use my own body, it's not a puppet . Where did these strings come from? And who's in the mirror? They look sad and tired and empty. I hate them.

It's been two years of living in a dream with consequences. Do I have to die to wake up? This isn't living regardless.

Signed, the shell