Daily Updates on Whether or Not I'm Dissociated

I've been watching too much TikTok.

I never wanted to be on TikTok because I know it's a good way to lose a lot of time and I don't need any help with that. I can do it on my own.

But my sister has been using it in a way that she hopes will be a healing experience, so then I had to make an account so I could attempt to cheer her on in that endeavor. And I was OK at first, but then the dissociation and losing hours and hours of time.

I guess I'm trying to wrap my mind around the cause and effect part so that I can figure out how much to punish myself. Did I dissociate because I was misusing TikTok, or did I misuse TikTok because I'm dissociated? I'm learning to stop that.

Some of my favorite TikTok-ers will have a kind of eclectic blend of topics but certain consistent points. Like they end with some kind of message of compassion, or they'll have some key phrases that come up in almost all of their videos. 

Anyway. It led me to wonder, if there was one thing about me that I need to get out of bed and tell the world every day...what is that?

There's a Facebook Page called Daily Updates on Whether or Not it's Christmas. Someone gets online 364 days a year to remind us that it is not Christmas today. It is very funny to me (and a lot of other people apparently). So that's probably why the phrase that occurred to me starts with "Daily Updates on Whether or Not" and the rest filled itself in.

It's not funny at all. In fact, as I heal my traumas and improve my health in general, my dissociation is more and more uncomfortable. But it is a goal to be able to wake up nearly every morning of the year and say to myself, to the people love, to the world "I am not dissociated today."

But that day is not today.

Inside My Head

Some weeks ago, I saw or read or heard about someone having a set of toy figures of the characters from the movie Inside Out. Like an adult person. I don't remember where I found this or what their purpose was, but it occurred to me that this might be a tool that would be helpful to me in my quest to remain connected to my emotions. To help me identify and feel each feeling. So I took to the internet and found myself some toys to play with.

The set comes with 6 figures. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Sadness and Bing Bong.

I enjoy Bing Bong as a character, but something about his presence in my set of emotional support toys, just frustrated me. He's not an emotion. He doesn't match. I don't want him. So I bought the set anyway and I began carrying them in my bag, but I left Bing Bong sitting on the dining room table. I guess I hoped that one of the kids would take him and lose him somewhere.

I always struggle with the holiday season. But the depression and/or dissociation doesn't usually hit me until mid-December or even sometimes into January. This year it hit before Thanksgiving. And I wasn't ready. So I started winding myself up about whether or not I bring these episodes onto myself.

I think it's because the first thing I notice is that I'm not doing all my daily routines. The routines that I think are healthy things that I want to do, that I need to do. The things that I know I feel better when I do them. 

Am I dissociating because I'm not taking very good care of myself? Or am I not taking good care of myself because I can't?

It feels like it hasn't been that long since the last time I was trying to make sense of what dissociation means for me and whether it's the right word to describe me and how much is it a thing that I do vs a thing that is done to me. I know that I have people in my life that I can ask for help. I mentally listed them out and realized that last time I did ask them.

But what did they tell me?

I think they gave me wishy washy answers. I don't remember anyone giving me a solid yes or no. Just maybes. One of them has a habit of asking me questions like "Why is that important to you?" I don't think he asked it about this topic, but here we are.

Why is it so important for me to know if I do this to myself or if it is something that is happening to me? What difference does that make?

I always want things to be under my control so that I can pretend that I have the power to singlehandedly change them. But mostly I just want to know how much I deserve to be punished.

What if Bing Bong is my dissociation?

I probably wouldn't ask him how he got here. I would just try to deal with the fact that he's here.

I might ask him why he's here. And he would probably say that he's just trying to keep me safe in the only way he knows how. And since my brain built itself a Bing Bong to protect me beginning at a very young age, he doesn't know what a grown up me needs.

I guess that's ok since grown up me still doesn't always know what little me needed. I should probably ask Bing Bong. I bet he knows.