“when I stopped living and didn’t even notice“

---

I didn’t realise how long I’d been drifting.
Routine is sneaky like that, it camouflages dissociation quietly and politely, almost responsibly, while you’re disappearing in plain sight.
Somewhere between the motions, I stopped being.

I didn’t have language for it yet, just the feeling of drifting, catching my breath.

I’m showering.
Twice a day, even.
The water’s hot, but it might as well be a memory of heat. I register it, but I don’t feel it.

I’m brushing my teeth. Replying to emails.
Making ambitious to-do lists I ignore, but still feel strangely proud of.

So I must be fine.
Right?

And yet, between typing haha sounds good and scrolling through other people’s perfectly curated lives
(while saving hundreds of posts I’ll never open),
I think I quietly ghosted myself.

Not dramatically.
Not a runaway-in-the-night kind of thing.
Just the slow fade that feels normal until you realise you haven’t actually been here in a while.

It took time to see that this wasn’t collapse, but that slow, quiet drifting.

This looks like functioning.
Fresh clothes. Good skincare. A convincing smile.
Health check-ups, dentist visits, making sure at least my body looks fine on paper.

The lights are on, but whatever makes me me is somewhere else.

My journal entries read strange lately:

“Didn’t feel much today.”
“Everything’s ok, I think?”

They sound like someone trying to prove they still exist.

Meals appear. I swallow them.
I don’t remember making half of them.
And this is coming from someone who used to grind every spice for Thai curry paste from scratch, both green and red, mind you.

Life goes on around me, everyone hitting the milestones we’re supposed to hit as adults,
and I’m here double-tapping like applause from the audience.

Messages from people I love sit unread.
Not because I don’t care, just because being a person feels like a lot.

So I keep conversations soft. Shallow. Manageable.
Pretending everything’s fine while feeling even further away.
Even more disconnected from everything and everyone.

Even the healing things, journaling, meditating, breathing like a normal person, feel like I’m watching myself through fogged glass.

I’m not breaking down.
I’m not falling apart.
I’m just… somewhere else.

There’s a dull ache where joy used to spark.
Maybe this is what dissociation becomes when the body keeps going
but the soul quietly clocks out.

Whatever it is, it’s quiet.
Heavy.
Hard to name.

But I’m still here.
For now.