The feeling of being followed

Friday: By now, I can’t slow down. Did I write daily?

At least an entire 48-hours breathing only at the surface level of my lungs. Clavicular breathing, I remember from physiology. Structural dissociation, I remember from hours on the internet spent learning about why I feel the way I do. Or, why I am doing without feeling. When tasks are necessary but feel life-threatening, dissociation is a vital survival skill. I engage in a practice of maximum distraction to cope with the otherwise intolerable. PhD in Recreation, baby. I just want to feel safe. I came to Halifax with that express goal: be safe. And now, I am sabotaged whenever I try. I can’t imagine what about me is that interesting or compelling, and continue to try to make myself smaller in response.

I have always been avoidant of connection, but trauma has taken this to extremes. By someone credentialed, I am told I will find safety in connection, despite my fear. Against my intuition, desperate for relief, and in an ongoing bid for my life to continue, I make plans. I went out Thursday night to make bad art and be autistic/unmasked. I went out Thursday night in an ongoing effort to move on with my life—despite the dark forces that seem to prevent that from happening in any meaningful way.

Lately, I have the feeling I am followed everywhere I go, listened to whenever I speak, sabotaged whenever I try, and watched whenever I undress. To some degree, these things are truly happening. I think I am getting better at spotting potential private eyes—hired by my ex in Winnipeg, or some other entity equally nefarious and obsessed with me (in both cases, despite me not reciprocating the interest or venom). I want to move on, but I’m being watched as I walk away. The feeling of violation never gets better — gnawing at my ankles. Leaving to the feeling of being followed. I go faster and faster in response until I collapse. I’m tired now. The weekend will be spent in recovery. Two years or twenty — I live with trauma as a disability. I need rest but am not allowed, so I am ready and willing to work because what other option do I have?

Imagine having a bad week, going to make bad art to vie for life, and having your entire conversation potentially mined for intel that will be used to make your bad life worse. My life is filled with onlookers and inaction. There is no post-trauma for me. I am stuck in traumatic systems and situations that are unending while time passes. Time passes.

I wish you (individually and collectively) would move on and stop siccing your dogs on me, but you’re relentless. I just want to make bad art and complain about rainbow crosswalks on the internet. Remember, norainbows.net has no vision. No thesis, really. I practice radical detachment. I cannot make myself any smaller than I have; than this.

So, while clinging to life, I am teaching theory that helps me personally contend with the otherwise intolerable. I can never date again. I miss sex and intimacy. Now, thanks to onlookers, I fear connection, maybe more than anything. So, here: have an intro to queer temporality.

Of course, my brain is on high alert, and there’s always the potential I am misreading the situation. I audit my thinking: Am I being paranoid? Maybe this week, my social time and/or other supports haven’t been sicced with your dogs. And there’s tangible evidence.

The audit is important and would imply it is me who is unable to move on. Yikes. That would (and does) direct me to therapy, rather than to the internet to complain. But here’s the thing: My social skills read the room at a fifth-grade level… but my senses are acute. Dogs stink. I’m more than two years into sniffing them out.

So, I am breathing at the surface of my lungs. And when I am sitting at a table in public trying to make bad art, I am talking at the surface level of my deep. “Bad dog!”, I chide. Now, I’m insubordinate. I’m so over structured and super-imposed power dynamics. Regulation in authenticity.

I cannot have a life in public because my every effort is trashed and thwarted. I cannot date because I picture the ways your dogs would maul my new lover. I feel queasy at the thought, and so my new lover is non-existent. I worry for the safety of the one woman I kissed then couldn’t see again. It’s still me who is being punished—two years later or twenty. I won’t ever get to move on. “Bad dog!”, I chide from the bottom. I’m over it.

I wonder what kinds of people are brave enough to take the risk, and/or be with me in private. Fools?

Where the early part of the week I wasunable to stay awake, by Friday I am unable to sleep. Delayed processing is a bitch. I must force myself to slow down and feel for the weekend. Catch up to my doing. Feel violated. Feel angry. Feel horny, with no relief. Feel sad, with no tears. Feel lonely, with no real connection because you are still there. Feel the want for company in a quiet chamber. Feel the want to kiss someone and not fear for her safety or mine. Feel this is unending.

Mercy.