Is Dissociation Silently Robbing Our Lives?

When checking out can help and harm: reclaiming ourselves in the midst of detachment

Dearest Reader,

Welcome to Wildflowers Grow. I’m Alice Wild, inviting you on this wild journey with me: seeking truth beneath the surface. The place you’ve arrived is a soft landing for women just like you and I, who have walked through challenge and are learning how to live—and write—their way back to life. This is a place to remember who we are beneath what the world asked us to be.

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Alice Wild

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My body felt like it was floating.

Above the car.

The feeling was strange—bizarre even. It was like my existence was inside a video game or a movie, the controls were being pressed and vaguely, I was aware of the actions.

Steer straight. Stop light.

HONK

Oh—it was green. When had the light turned green?

The time between my home and the therapist’s office was a mere eight minutes. A straight shot by all purposes. And situated on one of the most well-known and central streets in the small town I lived in.

Eight minutes. And yet time felt suspended.

Blinking, I realized my car had passed the office, as if in slow motion…How did I miss it?

This happened not only once, but three times.

“What you are experiencing is called dissociation,” my therapist said when I finally made it inside. I remember the concerned look on her face, but little else from that session. It felt like weaving in and out of consciousness.

I vaguely remember her asking about suicidal thoughts or ideation. I felt like the answers I gave were not my own. As if my being had been tucked away into a tiny corner of my brain—my life stolen without consent.

I felt my head bobbing a yes.

Looking back, and at the numb state I was in—I can say that it felt eternal, all-encompassing as if life was simply too much and it would never get better. The pain had swallowed me whole and I saw no way out. The trigger that was “the last straw” happened in the kitchen earlier that day.

In that therapy office, some deep part of me believed dissociation was the only safe choice—and that coming fully back to life was far too dangerous.

My mind had quietly decided that the risk wasn’t worth it.

A few days later I would find myself in the hospital…

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash