Blurry

When someone asks me about myself, I can answer without thinking. Not because I know who I am, but because I have the stock answers all lined up: my name is [redacted legal name], I use any pronouns, I like books and nature and Minecraft. Usually, that’s mostly true, or at least true enough not to cause any real distress. Sometimes, in spaces where I can be open about my plurality, the answers might be different. I might give a different name or pronouns or list of interests. But most of the time - even as I sit here and write this - those go-to answers are just something to cling to, because beyond them I don’t even know who I am. It’s deeper than the uncertainty about goals or hobbies or moral dilemmas that I sometimes hear people without dissociative disorders talk about. It’s my own existence as a person that’s foggy, or muddy like every colour of paint mixed together, or gone entirely. I can think of all the names I’ve gone by, the identities I’ve claimed, the things I’ve enjoyed or disliked, the people I’ve had relationships with, and I can’t figure out how I feel about any of them. When I do figure out who I am, it’s like the first time I put on glasses after years of the whole world being blurry. Wow, everything is so clear! I can’t believe people actually feel this way! Sometimes this blurriness is uncomfortable, even distressing or infuriating. Sometimes I feel like a collection of tissues and nerve impulses with no personhood. But most of the time it’s just normal. I’m used to it. I fall back on my prepared answers and look forward to the next time I know who I am.