☢ A Self Called Nowhere ☢
About "Me"
My name is Salem / Matt (collectively), and also Salem, Delta, Topaz, Kitty, "Red", and "Blue".
I am a multimedia artist and linguist (MS soon to be completed). After I graduate, I want to become a teacher.
This is a space for me to make sense of myself. It hosts my sketch diary and long-form blog posts (see above links). For shorter and more spontaneous posting, see my Tumblr and BlueSky.
Collectively and individually we use he/him and it/its pronouns, except for Kitty who uses she/her and it/its. I do not specifically identify as plural or a system, but this language is fine to use for me. All of us either prefer to be seen as parts of one person rather than separate people, don't care at all how we're percieved, or don't really understand it. We also prefer not to be seen as human; we are a feline!
The body is 29 years old, but internally its more complicated than that. We are still trying to work out the exact timeline. Our memory is poor and inconsistant, but we think we've established a general order of events.
Using different names, colours, and symbols is an easy way for us to differentiate internally and externally while we attempt to break down some previous communication barriers. For safety and privacy, "Red" and "Blue" will be referred to by aliases.
I don't currently have any specific diagnosis for dissociation beyond having it be recognized as a symptom of anxiety/CPTSD. I am also not currently recieving professional treatment, but this may change soon. You may ask questions, but please do not give me unsolicited psychiatric or medical advice. I cannot do the same for you, either; I am not an expert I am just some guy.
Warning for dissociationposting and potentially upsetting content — trauma, extreme bullying, self harm, suicide attempts, eating disorders, sexual assault, and other mental health struggles may come up.
My Untangling
I've been living with severe dissociation and other mental health struggles for most of my life. Recently, I had a bit of a breakthrough moment, and what was meant to be a single comic to humourosly depict the experience quickly turned into several more comics, side accounts on social media, and now a website.
I've attempted journaling, sketch diaries, and other forms of art therapy in the past, but I would always end up getting frustrated by my conflicting thoughts, feelings, and even memories. It would immediately become an overwhelming mess and I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. Now, I think I understand why.
Let's use a metaphore. Imagine a spool of thread. Most spools can roll along a surface with no problems and keep all of their thread together.
Now imagine that this particular spool is rolled along a rough surface that slowly wears it down. Eventually, it gets enough wear that its thread starts to become loose, which causes even more friction in its movement. Then, it hits a particularly sharp obstacle which slices through part of the thread, and suddenly it doesn't even have a continuous strand anymore.
But still, the spool has to keep rolling. But the further it goes the more sharp obstacles the spool hits, and the thread becomes even more segmented. Over time they fray and tangle and tie themselves into knots. Part of it may even get left behind. What was once one long thread is now a lot of smaller threads, but they're so tangled up that they can't tell which is which, and their own damage is worsening that of the others.
Even when placed on a smooth surface, this spool can barely roll at all. When the surface inevitably becomes rough again, it is so difficult to keep moving that it just wants to stop completely.
Once I recognized myself as the spool, I knew I had to untangle it if I ever hoped to keep rolling.
The first step was surprisingly — unnervingly, even — easy, but also somewhat counterintuitive: identify the threads for what they are rather than trying to treat them like they're still one single strand, and then slowly start to pull them apart so they can be understood. This is what I'm trying to do here.
Just getting this far has quelled a lot of my internal chaos and I feel like I can think much clearer than I have in a long time, but it seems that this is only the beginning. There is still quite a bit of inner dysfunction, unaddressed problems, and interferance from other neurodivergencies and mental illness.
[As an aside, after coming up with this analogy, I found out that there is actually a self-help book called Untangling, which was recommended on a reading list for coping with dissociative disorders. I'll have to check it out eventually.]
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