The Automatic Self

My teenage years were marked by depression – an isolation that I felt and observed from the differences between myself and my peers, and even more crippling, the claustrophobia of being a person trapped inside myself.

An introvert’s life is one of self-reflection, whether accurate in its assessments or not. From the start of high school until graduation, I observed and fed off of the ways in which I was both different and distant from these people. I lost my religion in a private, religious school. I lacked interest in competition while playing sports. I found parties exhausting (due to the energy of the people and the people, themselves).

I disagreed with John Donne’s assessment that “no man is an island, entire of itself,” like my life depended on it.

I was forging myself into a unique person, at least in my mind. In order to understand who I was and who I was forcing myself to become, I had to make myself inimitable, while denying that the people around me had anything I could possibly find interesting or relatable.

I isolated, internally and sometimes externally. I desperately wanted to be that island, because then my emptiness could feel whole, because whatever it was filled with, was all because of myself.

Depression played a part in this, but to what extent, I’m not sure. It’s what depression does. Was my ambivalence a sign of a splintered psyche or the cavalier attitude of a sixteen-year-old asshole? At least a bit of both, surely.

(And for those of my “friends” from high school reading this, I’m sorry – I didn’t understand. But, to be fair, neither did you.)

The attitude of my teenage self slowly (too slowly) changed during college. With new friends, a new environment, and a new diagnosis, the teenage self and the young adult self became two distinctly different persons. And that is nothing revelatory or unique. It’s what growing up does to a person. Change, over time, is not only necessary but compulsory.

Over the next several years, I both intentionally and unintentionally separated myself from the arrogance, terminal uniqueness, and obsessive self-reflection. Schizophrenia changed me in nearly every way. At this point in my life, I’m happy with the changes. I’m healthier and just an overall better person. But, the whole point of this post is to talk about something that did happen, or something that’s still happening within me.

Depersonalization. The automatic self. Life on auto-pilot.

Depression was detachment from others and my own feelings.

Depersonalization is detachment from my entire self, from my thoughts, from my personhood.

I get praised for my self-awareness. This blog, the way I talk about my illness, my recall of my life. I’m glad I have this awareness, some people living with schizophrenia aren’t as fortunate. And a lack of awareness can create barriers in life I don’t have. My conversations with doctors and friends can be productive because I can remember what has been happening or happened a while back. It’s helpful, but it’s . . .

Fake? Sometimes fake? Disingenuous? A movie script? A history book?

My life is a movie I’m watching. It’s not real. It’s not me. It’s often just the actions, behaviors, thoughts, and words of a person that’s running on a script. It comes and goes. Somedays you get the real me. I’m there. I’m inside my own head. But, sometimes you don’t. You get my body, but my mind, whatever the fuck that is, just gives you whatever it feels like.

It’s a sensation not unlike I’m watching myself from above, just not in any type of artistic fashion, dream-like, but very real. It’s a movie, my movie, and it goes on even when I’m not really around for it.

It’s not psychopathy. There is not a lack of a conscience or empathy. However, there is sometimes a lack of personhood.

It’s detachment, plain and simple. It’s not controlled, but, thankfully, it’s pretty safe.

Teenage me struggled with emotions. Struggled with finding a unique self, one that could stand up against questions and disagreements for who he was.

Adult me isn’t focused on that stuff, or at least, not nearly as much. I’ve realigned myself in a myriad of ways – all of it centered around being okay and finding the calm in life. So, in some ways, the depersonalization fits right into what I’m consciously pursuing when I’m there enough to be pursuing anything at all.

Depersonalization, and thus myself, just comes in and out.

Nathan. Present and then absent. Without a choice. Without a notice. But, thankfully, without much of a care. No longer isolated, but simply away.

There, and then suddenly, not.