Dissociation: Living Outside My Body
There were years when I lived like a ghost in my own skin.
I moved through the world, but the world could not touch me.
I smiled, I spoke, I worked —
but somewhere inside, I was gone.
It’s hard to explain dissociation to someone who’s never felt it.
It isn’t sleep or death.
It’s the space between —
a quiet severing,
a gentle detachment so complete it almost feels peaceful.
Almost.
I used to float above myself —
watching my body move through rooms,
hearing my voice as if it belonged to someone else.
My hands would tremble and I’d stare at them like foreign things.
Even my reflection became unfamiliar:
eyes I recognized,
but no one home behind them.
That’s what trauma does sometimes.
When the pain is too much,
the mind pulls the spirit away from the flame.
It’s a mercy —
a small act of protection.
But when the danger passes and you try to return,
you find the door back into yourself has rusted shut.
So I lived that way — half-here, half-gone —
for longer than I like to admit.
Numb became my safe word.
I didn’t want to feel.
Feeling meant remembering.
And remembering meant drowning.
But the body is patient.
It waits.
It whispers.
And mine began to call me home in quiet ways:
the warmth of sunlight on my bare shoulders,
the rhythmic breath during training,
the way my heart quickened when a song reached the part I loved.
Each sensation a small knock on the door:
Come back. It’s safe now.
I started with touch —
pressing my palms to the ground,
feeling the dirt,
the solidness of being alive.
I learned to breathe with intention:
in through the nose,
out through the mouth,
counting heartbeats until I could feel the pulse return to my fingertips.
The first time I felt fully in my body again, I cried.
It was terrifying —
and miraculous.
Reconnection wasn’t instant; it was a courtship.
I had to earn my own trust back.
To show this body I wouldn’t abandon it again.
Through movement, through stillness, through grace.
Through the slow remembering that I was not the things done to me.
I was the one who survived them.
Now, when the old numbness creeps in —
when I feel the edges blur and the world begin to fade —
I place my hand over my heart and say softly,
Stay.
Stay here.
In this breath.
In this body that carried you through the fire.
The crow watches from the fence, head tilted,
as if to remind me:
flight begins with returning to the body,
to the ground beneath your wings.
And so I return — again and again —
to this skin, this heartbeat, this home.
🖤 Reflection for Readers
What moments or sensations help you feel present in your body again? When have you noticed yourself beginning to drift away — and how might you gently call yourself back? Can you thank your body, not for its perfection, but for its persistence?
Crow and Flame 