vanishing

wake up

There’s something I want to tell you but I can feel myself starting to dissolve again. Like the unbinding of a book or the disintegration of sandcastles on the shore. Whatever deity carefully sculpted me used the softest, most malleable sand, leaving me vulnerable if left unprotected. I’m afraid if the unwavering tides were to crash down upon me, I would disappear in an instant — as if I never existed in the first place. Isn’t that a fear we all have? For in some way or another our existence to be utterly forgotten? I think we all want to be witnessed – To leave an impact on those we have loved and things we have touched. Leaving messes in spaces I feel safe in is my way of proving I was alive. Almost to say I had a body that was awake and well-loved and these are the stains and scars on my heart to prove it. I’ll blitz my perfume on the pillowcases of lovers so that even if they clean my mess, my scent will linger. Perhaps I’ll haunt their dreams if I never see them again and they’d remember me in that way – a projection of a fantasy that is, which, is as close to reality as we can get sometimes. 

I think that’s the thing that stirs me up the most – how two people could be sharing the same moment experiencing the same thing, yet walk away with entirely different perceptions of it. It’s like art. The way we make sense of the world is through filtering our observations and personal experiences through our lens. My intentions with this piece may not be what you take away from it, but I think there is beauty in that. Take truth and honesty for instance. My dad says truth and honesty are starkly different from one another. Truth is fact, honesty is what the truth looks and feels like to you. But what do you call it when you don’t trust your honest truth? What do you do when you can’t decipher your honesty from that of someone else’s? What if they clash? Where does truth stand in between all of that? I think we all hold truths we’re afraid to admit to ourselves, but these will always find a way to show up in our dreams where there is no escape, no room for denial. Our subconscious forces us to confront the truth our inner selves hold. And what do you do with that truth? 

The thing about dreams is they’re elusive, like trying to hold water in your hands. slipping through your fingers, leaving you only with a faint feeling of an image or emotion. Some dreams cling onto your heart like a stubborn stain, refusing to fade. they haunt you, carrying a weight that lingers long after they’re gone. those dreams have a way of leaving you questioning your own reality, your own truth, blurring the lines between what is and what isn’t. They become uninvited guests of our innermost thoughts, slipping in unannounced, most times when you least expect it. They twirl and dance in our minds, casting shadows of your deepest fears, desires, and memories onto your consciousness. Lately, I've found myself having the same type of dreams over and over, replaying the hauntings of their hidden meanings in my mind, trying to decipher what is so desperately calling for my attention. While driving to the coast one day, I tell my friend Bryanna about some of these dreams. 

I tell her about the one where I’m left behind at a party and a kidnapper takes me away. The one where once I escape and reunite with my friends where nobody even noticed I vanished in the first place. The one where I just wanted someone, anyone, to notice me, or should I say, notice the absence of me. Left without a trace, I hadn’t the time to leave a mess, to prove I was alive there. Maybe I wasn’t. 

After sitting in silence for a second or two (I can’t remember) Bryanna asked me if I have a fear of abandonment. 

I wanted to tell her the thing I learned recently about how baby animals learn their most vital skill for survival first. Infant giraffes, just hours old, run, newly hatched snakes bite, and humans? We cry for help. Our most vital skill for survival is that heart-wrenching cry. We cry to be held, we cry to be seen, we cry to be noticed. Humans are inherently social beings. Any notion that seeks to isolate us towards “total independence” or shame us for seeking help or social connection directly conflicts with our most successful survival adaptation. Yes, I fear abandonment. It’s my instinct to. I remember my ex-boyfriend telling me one time I shouldn’t have needs. I shouldn’t ask for reassurance. I shouldn’t cry for help. Maybe he thinks that way because nobody heard his cries. Or they did and nobody listened. I think we’d all benefit if when we’d cry we’d be met with love, not shame. 

I’ve worn the nickname “cry baby” like a badge of honor for the majority of my life, right there on my chest, right above the metaphorical sticker reading "handle with care." My therapist refers to people like me as Highly Sensitive People, or HSP for short. HSPs are acutely attuned to the world around them. Their senses are like finely tuned instruments, picking up on the nuances that may escape others. They experience not only emotions with an intensity that can be both beautiful and overwhelming but just about everything is in black or white. Gray doesn’t exist. Some believe these sensitives are a curse, others believe it to be a superpower, but I’ve come to feel more neutral about the kaleidoscope of intense hues that are my emotions and feelings. I did not choose to be sensitive, I was merely born this way. It’s something I can’t turn off or tone down like a light switch. I have about as much control over my emotions as I do over the color of my eyes. I simply am. 

The little things would make me cry the most – like how the sun peeked through the leaves, or laughing with my friends, or the ending of a movie (whether it was happy or sad). Life, in all its sacredness and sorrows, would move to tears again and again. I say would because I don’t cry as easily anymore. My therapist pointed out to me that instead of feeling, I’ve begun to intellectualize my emotions recently. Therapy is like this magical little lifeline I keep in the back of my pocket to help provide language for thoughts I experience and to keep me grounded and not dissolve into the fog of disassociation.

Just as the depth of emotions I experience can lead to moments of big joy and love, they can equally lead to profound shame and despair. Everything stings with the intensity of a thousand paper cuts and fills me up and swallows me whole. Those dark moments are when I turn to metaphorical and abstract words or concepts that help me regain a sense of control which is one of the main things I’m working through in therapy.

The dangers of being a highly sensitive individual, my therapist once warned, involve a vulnerability to the predations of energy vampires. No amount of garlic could deter these creatures from being drawn to sensitive souls like moths to a flame. It is our empathetic nature and our innate impulse to mend, uplift, and restore balance in those we are around. It’s like an ingrained instinct we can’t shut off. Our desire to extend our nurturing hands makes us particularly susceptible to those who feign vulnerability or who need constant emotional support. We cannot bleed ourselves dry to save others who don’t want to be saved. 

The thing about energy vampires is they are emotionally hurting in some way and I think what they ultimately want is for someone to bear witness to their pain. To validate their sufferings through the reactions of others. To know it’s real and not just a figment of their imagination. Perhaps it’s not real, but who I am to question someone’s honesty? That’s why we tell stories, right? To be witnessed? To be understood? Is this not what we’re all after in some way? 

But what distinguishes energy vampires is their insatiable hunger; no number of witnesses, validations, or accolades can ever satisfy their longing. I must remind myself that it is not my burden to mend those who are unwilling to see themselves in the light if they are more comfortable in the dark. Setting a boundary with them feels a lot like viciously puncturing their heart with a wooden stake. Everything about it goes against my desire to please and avoid conflict, but I cannot give if I am depleted. It is not a selfish act to say my time, energy, and well-being are precious and deserve to be protected. I have to remember that. I have to. Without distance, they would inevitably suck the energy right out of me. And I’d start to dissolve. If you loved me you wouldn’t let me vanish I want to say.

When it gets to that point, you can only watch the world from outside of yourself. Disconnected from it all. It’s days like today I have a hard time staying in my body and I wonder if people notice me as I walk by or if I’m completely see-through. I suppose I could spend time wondering why I think this way and why I feel that way, but that is not the point. The point is not in the doing or thinking but in the being and feeling. My teacher from middle school, now friend, reminds me to stick to my practice when it all gets to be a little too much. That I have no choice other than to do, because choice incites burden, and doing is being, and being is in the doing. So I listen, and I do, and I breathe it all in, and then let it go. But you can’t stop the rain from coming.

I’m afraid I’m in danger of vanishing again like when I was 13 and laid outside in the dead of winter after I couldn’t fall asleep, wearing nothing but the clothes I’d dress myself to bed in. I closed my eyes out there but don’t remember opening them. I vanished.  

When I start to dissolve I turn back to the trees. I am reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem:

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

The universe got a few things right when it comes to trees. Surrounding myself with the goodness that is comprised of the same starry stuff I am remind me I too am alive, that I too am good, and there is nothing that is needed of me except to exist simply as I am. Sometimes I am the sand on the shore – gone without a trace, erased by the tide, manipulated by the hands of another. Other times I am the trees that shade you from the sun and provide shelter and nutrients. sometimes I am both, other times I am nothing at all. And sometimes, it’s all just a dream.