“Oi. Give me a proper hug. And none of that toe-grabbing crap.”
That’s how I have to talk to Dan to snap him out of a dissociative reverie. It’s also how I have to talk to Dan to get him to stop an endless loop of negative self-talk.
He’ll chuckle at my pretend callousness.
Not that he tells me what he is thinking or feeling. I look at the scowl on his face and use deductive reasoning to formulate theories about his inner monologue.
Considered along with his tendency to blather when he’s trying to get the bullshit out and observing how he operates for the past 16 years, I think I’m not too far off the mark.
Plus, I’ve been analyzing my own brain a lot lately, and he and I have a lot in common. The human brain functions similarly from person to person, even if the details are different. We’re unique, but also we’re not.
I’ve been thinking about how the priest asks Fleabag where she’s going when she breaks the fourth wall, and she looks at the camera like, “What the fuck? He can see that?”
Similarly, someone recently disarmed me when I was coming down from a panic attack by asking “What’s wrong?”
I was taken so off guard by the question that I time traveled into the present.
I’m used to being asked, “How are you?” which we all answer robotically and assume no one wants a real answer to. (I kind of hate the question, to be honest.) I can remain detached until I feel seen. And once I feel seen? That feeling of exposure is intensified when someone is genuinely looking for emotional information, not just going through the motions.
There’s a whole post in this about me not wanting to be noticed. Maybe later.
But this person listened to my shaky voice and saw my contorted face and rigid posture and knew me well enough to know I was not myself. He shocked me by asking an Earth-to-Emily question. It brought me into the present moment, so I thought I’d try a similar strategy with Dan.
Lo and behold.
I am not afraid of being understood, but I have a lot to learn about communicating things I have no words for. What I’m finding is that it’s easier for me to find words with my whole self in the present. So maybe I’ll keep trying to jab a stick in Dan’s spokes and see if I can send send him flying over his handlebars.