I’m writing without regard to chronology. Whatever comes to mind first is clearly what needs addressing. I do not “consider this therapy.” That’s dilettante shit. Besides, I’m resistant to therapy, according to my therapist. So here’s a little piece I tossed off in the bathroom one night while recalling some of the things I’ve tried subconsciously AND willfully to forget.
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A freelance content creator once wrote an article about my medical problems that was a bit trite and poorly executed. Even for an insurance company blog, it lacked empathy. It lacked empathy not only because insurance company blogs pay jack, but because getting inside suffering of any kind goes against our primal instincts.
We try pretty damn hard to avoid suffering. We pretend it doesn’t exist when we see it in others. It’s normal to whistle past the graveyard. No one wants to fully realize they’re going to die for any length of time. It’s depressing.
Evolution favors optimists and the deluded.
This is a type of disassociation that allows one to go about the day oblivious to the fact that mortality awaits and that the universe could give a shit less about us (partial credit to John Green and Neil deGrasse Tyson on that one).
Disassociation is a powerful survival mechanism. It operates as a continuum of responses. In layman’s terms, disassociation means going to your happy place. This is occasionally correct, but not the whole story. A better way of understanding disassociation in slightly more complex layman’s terms is that it means going to the place in your mind that let’s you survive the experience you are having, or even the memories of that event. It could mean zoning right out or just going for that complete break with reality. It could mean experiencing religious ecstasy. Or it could mean going to Disneyland inside your head where it’s always 80 degrees, the streets are clean and everyone is always nice.
The skin came off like a glove showing a dead black corpse digit underneath. And yet, I did not go to the emergency room immediately.
My most profound episode of disassociation occurred when I was having part of my left foot cut off after it had begun to rot several days previously. I don’t know for sure on the time frame having failed for at least a week to check my injured foot or remove my surgical boot. During that time, I had been zombied out in a massive depressive episode. I was not taking care of myself. Every moment was hopeless. I was a shut-in with cardiomyopathy, diabetic neuropathy and foot ulcers waiting to die. Or worse.
I was washing the gangrenous part of my left foot in the bathroom sink hoping that fishbelly white pinky toe just needed a cleaning, maybe a little alcohol or peroxide. The skin came off like a glove showing a dead black corpse digit underneath. And yet, I did not go to the emergency room immediately.
For a moment that lasted long enough for me to remember it as significant, I thought I would go see the 2009 Star Trek reboot and then go to the emergency room.
And that’s what we call a break with reality. But when reality is a shame-filled death spiral, what is there to embrace?
End of Pt. 1
Greg Jerrett 