I wasn’t living; I was just existing behind a pane of glass. This is the reality of dissociation—my brain’s desperate attempt to survive the unbearable. As my life collapsed into addiction and grief, the world began to feel like a staged production where everyone had a script but me. From the bizarre, unexplained deaths of my grandmother and father to a home that felt increasingly artificial, I lived for years as an invisible extra in my own story. I was numb, disconnected, and trapped in a nightmare that felt rehearsed. But that numbness was a shield. It kept me breathing when the truth should have stopped my heart. Now, the fog is lifting. This is the journey of coming back to my own body, moving from a cold survival to the painful, beautiful freedom of being fully alive again. "Dissociation kept me alive when the world fell apart. Now, I’m finally learning how to live."