My voice is sounding weird to me: like I’m in an echo chamber.  I’ve been isolating and don’t feel like talking to anyone or seeing anyone.  Of course this isn’t possible in everyday life so part of me disconnects and makes me feel separate.  I’m in a weird place where I’m personable and carrying on conversations but I’m closed in this chamber that is set apart.  I am hearing myself and seeing myself acting normal but part of me is lost – it doesn’t recognize me.  I am a silent bystander as this person’s voice drifts into this chamber and lasts eerily long and sounds strange as it ricochets around me.

It is slightly different than my normal derealization – it is the depersonalization element of this maddening experience.  Instead of my surroundings being strange and separate it is mostly me – and especially my voice – that feels strange to me.

I am thankful that I am able to at least connect with my kids.  It is not easy because  they require constant care from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep.  It is important for me to slow down and reach for them outside of myself.  Because their needs are so constant it is difficult to not always be in “task mode”: moving from one diaper change to the next and refereeing and chauffeuring.  The echo chamber silences and I feel more whole when I can just . . . be.  I push them on the swing, sit down with them and dig in the dirt, tickle them and sing them songs but I return to the chamber all too quickly and I am struggling to make sense of it all.  Struggling to silence the echoes and breach the walls.  Be here.

Writing helps.  I am reaching out to you and hoping that you can do the same if you are stuck, separated, feeling like your voice or your surroundings or the people you see every day are strange and somehow out of reach.  It can be so maddening to be able to see what is happening before my eyes yet feel so strange, sound so strange.  Perhaps you are experiencing this as well.

My heart goes out to you, Friend, if you are in a similar place.  Hang in there.  You are not alone.