Derealizating
Sometimes you don’t feel like a person. Sometimes you feel like you’re asleep and the people around you are guests on a podcast you forgot to turn off. There are a lot of words for this feeling, and most of them are long words starting with D: dissociation, disassociation, depersonalization, derealization. No one ever bothered to decide on one term. This is because people who derealizate have bigger nothings not to worry about.
Derealizating is portable. You can take it anywhere. As long as there’s a spot in the distance to stare at, you can peel yourself from this plane of existence like a contact lens. Over time, though, seasoned derealizators will develop a preference for where they do their business.
Personally, I can’t recommend the shower enough. The water pouring endlessly onto your head really simulates the feeling of learned helplessness. The stream, the weight of the world, keeps falling onto your shoulders, but you don’t move. You simply gasp for air and look at your hollow-eyed reflection in the dirty metal knob.
Sitting down in the shower is an advanced move, but if you have some experience already, I suggest giving it a try. A word of warning: if you sit on the floor of a communal shower, the people in the stalls next to you will get a full view of your personhood. Before you try that, you must be extremely detached from your physical body.
Shower sitting is not for everyone, but I love to derealizate this way. It feels amazing to relieve yourself of the effort of standing up. Why struggle under the weight of being alive when you can simply let it bring you to your knees (or to your butt, I guess)?
Derealizating does have some side effects. You might spend years of your life trapped in a fog, looking at the world through a condensation-covered window you never bothered to wipe off. Or you might touch the pube that’s been sitting on the shower wall for three days. I can’t promise you that there won’t be any risks, but what’s the alternative? Soaking in the realities of life with every fiber of your being? Feeling every moment deep in your heart, from the highest highs to the lowest lows? That’s for lamoids. Watching your life in the third person as tepid water rains down upon you is way cooler.