Dissociation Association

I was at my rock climbing gym last night, and a small popup makers market was happening. One of the vendors was selling sweatshirts branded "Dissociation Association: Physically here, mentally not". The design reminded me deeply of my experiences: of active addiction, of the nature of my ongoing recovery, and of evolving understanding of what it can mean to be me.

I've been sober for almost 4 years, long enough to start really getting that I have many character qualities and ways of being that I can't blame on being transient effects of being high or coming down from being high constantly for ~12 years. They are patterns that continue to recur.

One of those patterns is a tendency towards and skill for dissociating. I loved getting high not because it allowed me to dissociate, but because it made the dissociating that I was already doing feel great, completely natural, lacking effort, to a degree where I could taste, ephemerally, but distinctly, the feeling of being whole.

Before discovering weed, my behavior in most social circumstances could be a beat or two slow, as I consciously tried to calculate what to say. I was known for speaking in a monotone, because there may not have been much of me in what I was saying. I recall it all feeling exhausting, and that I believed that the "real me" was something that only existed as inner dialogue and inner imagination, and that what I revealed externally was just a mask. I remember that keeping that mask on constantly as tiring.

Weed, and the world of sensation and altered perception that it gave me, provided relief from that work, or it made the work feel lighter, or it helped me to see that the work did not need to be constantly and compulsively taken on. And it worked, until I became unable to extricate myself from the privately defined world that cannabis use helped me to create.

I'll save a story of my addiction and entrance into recovery for another post. Right now, I want to examine how my nature as an addict shows up a few years into recovery.

My active addiction and recovery neither made a desire or reflex to dissociate from the world around me. They have given me color into its nature and into the less obvious ways I try to satiate urges to not be fully present.

I've been sober long enough to no longer remember the exact feeling of being high to truly crave it. But I still find myself symbolically craving it, a way to escape from my present circumstances, to tune my present way of being to feeling more agreeable without materially changing the objective reality surrounding me.

Over time, I have become better at recognizing these moments for what they are when they occur. At my best, I appreciate those moments, and am able to sit with the underlying feelings of discomfort, and use them as vehicles to look a bit more underneath my surface to try and see what really might be generating them.

When I'm not my best, I hope at least to have enough grace to be gentle with my imperfections, and not be harsh with myself if I indulge in something relaxing or distracting.