Thanksgiving and Dissociation

I’m sitting here not knowing what to write. My mind feels blank, empty. I’ve been in this place before, many, many times. I have always come up with something, and most of the time I was satisfied with what I had written. That doesn’t mean I’ll be able to pull it off today, of course.

It’s a very familiar feeling. There is a pane of glass between me and the world, and whatever is “me” has stepped back, several steps behind the glass. Quiet, unengaged, just looking outwards toward the world. No judgment, no reaction, no words, no thoughts.

It’s dissociation, of course. At this time, for whatever reason, I am more dissociated than usual. If I fight it and scold myself for being so unengaged, so uncaring, it is unpleasant. I start brooding on what might be wrong with me, and why I haven’t fixed it once and for all after all these years. This leads to a fair amount of self-hatred.

If I just experience it without all that useless self-improvement chatter, it isn’t all that unpleasant. It’s nothing – no pain, no anxiety, no pleasure. Isn’t this what you are supposed to achieve when you empty your mind during meditation? Just observe the thoughts as they float by, don’t try and catch them and remember them, just observe without judgment, and then let them go. When the thoughts have gone, isn’t this what is left? Probably not, but it’s the closest I can come to describing what being dissociated feels like to me.

Dissociation, of course, takes many forms. It simply means that things that were once together have gotten separated. One’s self can be split into separate parts, each holding a part of the original self. A memory may be split, and parts stored separately so that only a smell is recalled. Or an image, like a still photograph. Or the emotion that was felt at the time the memory was formed.

We all learned to dissociate as very little kids. It was the only way we could survive what was done to us. We learned how to ”leave our bodies;” that is, we separated our bodies and our minds so that we could be unaware of the pain and the threat to our very lives. We floated up to the treetops and looked at the stars, or floated into an angel’s arms, or became a little bird perching on a branch, ready to fly away at any moment. Or, like me, we became nothing.

Thanksgiving has always been difficult for me. I think that is why I am so disengaged. I am re-experiencing the state I was in during those childhood Thanksgivings.

It’s interesting – I only have one memory of a Thanksgiving up until my twenties. A little glass bowl was filled with celery stalks and olives. I have memories of Christmas, Easter, and my birthday, all difficult days for me throughout adulthood. But Thanksgiving remains a blank. The celery and olives have no meaning, as far as I can tell. They are neutral, neither liked nor disliked, with no attached symbolism. Probably that is why they are remembered. I focused on something banal to protect myself from whatever was happening around me or to me. As neutral as leaves on a tree.

Today, despite feeling totally detached, I am making a point to see that the plants are watered. The cat will be fed every day this week, and the litter box will be cleaned. I will pet him every time he asks for attention. I may feel that I don’t care about the plants and the cat, but the plants won’t notice, and the cat probably won’t either. I will try to get a few things done, just not as much as usual.

And I will try and accept this eerie, quiet feeling. Not accept as in, “fuck it, it’s here, so I shall put up with it until lit goes away.” More like, “Gee, this has some advantages. The little voice that says, ‘hurry, things need to be done, important things. Stop daydreaming!’ is quiet. It feels sort of nice to float along, not caring or worrying so much.”

Thursday will come and go, and I will come out of this stasis and start feeling again. Meanwhile, I have ordered 120 bulbs on sale for my spring garden, cooked four artichokes, and eaten one. I made my bed and my laundry is done. I have actually been taking care of myself without thinking about it. Friday, I will feel good about the things I did while I was sleepwalking. Today, it is enough to just notice them.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been hard for me because it was awful in my family and because I got married the Saturday after Thanksgiving. (We had chosen that date because it was a long weekend and we thought more people would come.) It’s a lot better now. I had been invited to a friend’s house but I declined because there is going to be a crowd of people and I am sure I would be overwhelmed. So it’s lovely Chinese food – I will be content.

I only have one memory of Thanksgiving from my childhood, and that was of staring at a plate with celery sticks and olives on it. I hated celery and loved olives but I was expected to take one of each. It just wasn’t worth it. In contrast, I have many clear memories of my wedding day and I fondly remember Thanksgivings from my adult years. Childhood amnesia for what should have been a memory-filled day says a lot to me.

The first year I was alone I bought myself a Cornish Rock Hen, made a wild rice stuffing, and sobbed through dinner. The next year I accepted an invitation and was totally miserable in a group of about thirty strangers who all seemed to be having a great time. Now I know myself better than to make those mistakes again.

I think Thanksgiving is a horrible holiday for most cult kids.  It’s so easy to turn Thanksgiving upside down and, in Satanic cults, give thanks to Satan for all the opportunities we had during the year to gift him with sacrifices, pain, and fear. It’s not a traditional Satanic holiday, so there is the freedom to design new rituals that satisfy the leaders’ particular sadistic desires. It’s also an extra long weekend, so there is a lot of time to abuse kids, animals, and weaker adults.

My guess is that there is more variability in Thanksgiving traditions among the different cults than there is for the other major holidays. I also imagine that it is not celebrated in most other countries; perhaps only in Canada. Lucky countries!

I hope all of you can prepare to deal with flashbacks and to be extra gentle with yourselves. Do things that soothe you, do things that have worked in the past to avoid self-harm, either to the body or to your soul. If you find a voice saying awful things to you, try talking softly to that voice, saying that it has done a great job all these years of putting you down and you think it was a way of hurting you before the cult members hurt you. But it isn’t necessary any more.

And those of you who are still being abused, I hope that you can protect yourself as much as possible and keep alive the hope that you will be able to escape. Try and remember that leaving a cult usually isn’t an abrupt break. It usually is a series of attempts until a time comes when you have tried  often enough, learned enough, and gotten strong enough to leave for good. We all are cheering you on!