depersonalisation

Dissociation and Gigs

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Gigs are a confusing place to be when you experience any form of dissociation. For me, there are two likely outcomes. Sometimes I feel the barriers between me and everything else reduce, so I feel closer to seeing the world as a typical person does. But sometimes I instead feel more aware of the dissonance between what I’m perceiving and what I’m experiencing, and so I notice those barriers more acutely.

This isn’t an aspect of dissociation that I’ve talked to anyone about before, but it’s been on my mind recently while I’ve tried to figure out which elements make the good outcome more likely.

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My Diagnosis Experience, Part 5

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Yesterday, I finally had my appointment with C3.

Leading up to yesterday, I’ve been nervous about going back, more so than if I was seeing a stranger. The nerves are mostly from not knowing how she would interpret me, based on her unexpected assessment last time. Because all I remembered from before was the more negative parts, like the conversations I ended up confused by and L’s reaction to meeting her, I was expecting a bad experience. Instead she was friendly, and she remembered me to some extent; asking about church and uni.

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The Lion’s Den of Broadcasting

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This week has been bad in terms of anxiety and depersonalisation; simple things like a busy bus or a doubting thought, that normally I can deal with absolutely fine, have been sources of fear and thought-loops instead.

Considering this was also the week where I started the Broadcasting module, I was worried. While the course as a whole is outside of my comfort zone, a module where I’d potentially have to appear on microphone and on camera is lightyears away from comfortable.

But today, I woke up feeling calmer. Then something happened that put the last few years in perspective.

Today was the second day of our broadcasting group, and we were focusing on radio. Our first task was trying out voice recorders to interview a classmate. I returned our voice recorder to my lecturer as we were finished, only to find the next task was analysing an interview as a full group.

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