time
2 march 2026
this is a pure stream of emotion, please don't take any of this as something i've thought my way through. writing this post is that very process of thinking it through.
most of my friends have dissociative identity disorder in some way. most have one or two alters. one of them has over 100. i don't know why this makes me feel so strange, because i strangely feel left out. most cases of DID manifest because of some major trauma in childhood.
thing is, i don't know when my trauma has ever stopped. i'm constantly in a state of being traumatized in some form. i'm just really bad at compartmentalizing it like everyone else under capitalism, i guess. if you'll allow me a little indulgence, i'm gonna make a quick parody of dr. manhattan's soliloquy from watchmen issue #4.
A world grows up around me. Am I free to make choices, or is my entire life predetermined by a guiding hand?
In 2013, I am searched by the school's security guard for any weapons in my bag, the world refuses to mourn Sandy Hook, seeds of the future sown carelessly.
Without me, things would have been different. If the counselor hadn't asked me how I felt, if I had known what not to say to mental health workers.
Am I to blame then, or the counselor? Or my parents, for moving to this place?
Which of us is responsible?
I am standing in the parking lot in 2017, telling my father to get his hands off me, a popped tire preventing him from getting to work because I am learning to drive, crying at the damage I've caused and desperate to undo it.
But it's too late, always has been, always will be too late.
I am across the hall from my roommate in 2025, sobbing into my pillow, choosing not to eat as penance for getting into a mild argument she doesn't remember, wanting to go back before it all began and transfer out of her life.
But it's too late, always has been, always will be too late.
I am a little child, too young to remember the exact age, and I am called a freak for the first time by a group of girls, singing "she's a freak" over and over, I am an adult still worried I misunderstood them singing a popular song, a single cloudy playground day torn apart, the image of the playplace seared into my mind, a brand on my memories still burning, the world of making friends something I still cling to that is destroyed more each day.
But it's too late, always has been, always will be too late.
Above the Rocky Mountains, the stalwart observers of all our faults, the snow waits patiently to melt in the morning.
at what point is my dissociation a true break from reality? i am never in the present moment. i am always deep in the folds of my memories, picking away at them and the scabs they've left, always bleeding, never healed. the trauma is constant, and persistent, and forever. it has crossed a line into a preemptive hurt, always interpreting every negative interaction as something i have personally done wrong.
sometimes i wish i could let it all be something an alter deals with. let them take all the pain and disappear into my mind, an unconscious repression of all my pain. i am tired of it all. my memories are pockmarked like a lotus pod, holes in my tapestry leaking out what little remains of my life.
i don't know anything anymore. i cannot remember anything from my life that is useful for keeping a conversation with friends. only interests and memes. without media, i am hollow inside, and i don't have anything to talk about aside from strange animal facts.
i have grown up, but i don't feel any different. i am still the same young boy that wanted to make friends on the playground, i am still the same teenager sobbing as he enters high school after popping a tire, i am still the same adult that can't keep a long-term job, i am still the same man that will never truly have a choice in his life.
working in a christian bookstore has moments of clarity to the way they think. multiple items regarding stress relief bring up biblical scripture reinforcing predeterminism, the idea that all our lives, all of history, is predetermined (by god, by random chance, by a simulation, what have you) and your choices ultimately don't matter. this is shown in these books and daily calendars as a good thing. as something to bring you relief from stress. god has already predetermined your entire life, so don't worry: you don't have a choice, so why worry?
after struggling for so long to get to make my choices for myself, i don't know how anyone can see a surrender of autonomy as relieving stress.
i grow tired of this life. so very tired. perhaps the pain will slip away in time as well, the scabs of memory finally fading. i have already forgotten the faces of those who hurt me as a child. their names will leave soon, too. i only remember a few first names and one full name. in time those will fade too. it has been twenty-five years since i was born. through them all, the pain has stayed. the pain of perpetual trauma, of living in a world that does not care to want me.
my friends want me, but for how long? when will the inevitable date come, the day all autistic people know, where they get sick of you? your behavior never changes because you are wired differently, so you watch as you are too much and not enough, too loud and yet too dumb, too knowledgeable in a topic no one cares about, too broken for them to ever truly love. even other autistic people get sick of you. being alone as a result of your own actions, the crime of being comfortable, is inevitable.
it is 2023. i am in a discord server with some friends. we are talking about our ocs and fanfics. it is so, so wonderful.
it is 2026. two friends have left the server after we fought. i am sent into a panic attack for two days straight because the emotions keep coming back up and i keep reading the messages and having to explain myself over and over.
it is 2016. a longtime friend has blocked me on skype and given me a handwritten letter cutting me off, despite my attempts to communicate and learn what i did wrong.
it is 2014. i watch my grandfather exit the car, and his hand leaves a deep, deep print in his thigh fat, like a concrete imprint. he dies a month later.
it is 2007. i lay on my belly in the nursery next to my brother, who kicks his little legs as he turns to look at me. his blue pacifier has a green flower.
it is 2026. my brother turns 19 in two months. i think of the last time i held him.
it is 2013. i am cruel to my brother, in ways i don't remember but i know he does.
it is 2026. i am in bed, waiting for the cannabis to hit my brain to help me sleep. all these memories blend together in my mind at once, pain and joy and wonder and despair all at once.
i don't think i've lived a good life. i hurt people and i'm not even aware of it until it is far, far too late. i am not fully human. i don't think i ever was.