Oh jeez, okay mortifying humiliation ritual story time!
Back in the ancient times of like, 2015 (when the west was weest and dino nuggies roamed the hot topic aisles), i was having a ROUGH time. Just off the tail end of getting out of my abusive parents grasp, figuring out gender stuff, got married and divorced and homelessed then rehomed and finally, finally had enough stability that my brain went "hey, now seems like a good time to process all that trauma at once." So i got a little psychotic break, as a treat!
A lot of it was stuff like not sleeping for weeks at a time, hallucinating that red chair room from the matrix... definitely had a day where i thought i was in the Last of Us and desperately, *desperately* needed to collect all the rusty scrap metal i passed by in case i needed to make a scrap grenade... it was.... it was wild.
Part of that complete derealization involved me conflating my insecurity and now-apparent neurodivergent inability to interpret sarcasm with "some people i know arent really who they pretend to be and are agents of the universe"(or something similarly overcorrecting in the ego department, it was more a vibe than a well-thought-out concept on account of the whole "not experiencing reality" thing) and so i did this. I sent out a whole ass multi-paragraph survey to every single facebook friend (including the absolute nobodys from the days of zynga games i had never cleared out, because back in the day, it was normal to just keep strangers in your private feeds if it got you extra idle game rewards, apparently). It read something along the lines of:
As you may know, i have been doing a lot of soul searching and self knowing and my reflection no longer shows who i know myself to be; i recognize my self but not myself as many others see the not-me, so i posit to you: who do you see my self to be?
...or some such word salad. (Fun aside, i was later diagnosed with DID and reflecting on this brings a lot of light onto that subject!)
Brain soup-writing aside, though, i got a lot of interesting responses. Trans ally friends from queer support groups and the like sent lots of gender affirmations. Folks i knew from my childhood church gave answers around faith and servitude. Coworkers gave work-related answers, etc. No one seemed to think i was in crisis, or said anything to that effect. No one really stepped outside of the pre-established relationship boundaries we had already established (yeah, if you do this, dont hope too hard for that crush of yours jumping on this as an opportunity to confess their feelings, that just... isnt a thing. Confess your own feelings first and accept their response!)
The most common response was "read." And further comms (both during and after the psychotic break) were similarly unanswered, curt, or coldly unfamiliar. It didnt feel it at the time (it felt isolating and world-shaking then, tbh) but it was super helpful in pruning down the list of folks i thought i could rely on back then to the few i still remain in contact with today.
It's scary, at first, because you think everyone secretly hates you. Then it's embarrassing because you realize you were more invested than so, so many more people. And then, it's freeing, because you finally give yourself permission to feel content not being entangled and enmeshed in the lives of others.
After a few hospital visits, a lot of therapy, and a long-ass journey, i found myself just... not using facebook anymore. (I know, im sooo cool for that, everyone clapped, etc). I also found myself actually getting to know how i/we viewed my/ourself/ves, and doing "i am cringe and i am free" internally instead of as some protective masking performance.
Funny... i started this embarrassed by my psychotic episode and the cringe of it all, regardless. Maybe it is a bit of a mask, still. But I'm also recognizing so much pride in how far I've come from that time in my life, and thats pretty neat.
So would i recommend doing it? No. And god, definitely dont do it lifeblogging style, especially not with folks who you'd feel uncomfy asking to hand you some TP from the other room through the crack in the door --which often is similar if not entirely equivalent to "dont ask people whose answers you dont already know."
But also, maybe do? It might just be a canon event. And if you need to ask because you literally dont recognize yourself in the mirror, your surroundings, your own name... well, maybe ask yourself first, and see if anyone besides "you" answers. And like, consider therapy, if available, in that case, cuz HOO BOY system discovery is a TRIIIIIIIP
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
areudirty
snowghoul
janainaart
vaporwave
