February 15, 2018:
I said to myself, again and again and again and again and again and again, day after day after day after day after day, This is not my life.
The same distancing mechanism people use to survive rape and other traumas: This is not happening.
The upside is it gets you through the moment.
The downside is that when the moment lasts for years it alienates you from your life, where "alienates" here means removes. You're not internalizing your experiences, 'cos, you've told yourself in advance that they're not real. So that years and decades go by whle you repeat This is not my life, until, almost by default, it truly isn't, because you don't honestly have a life. Not one you're aware of living.
The outcome is that you've become Rip Van Winkle and a Half, asleep thirty years, so that when you suddenly awake — thanks Big Pharma! — you're not certain where you are, and you're for sure not certain who you are, because the people all treat you differently than you remember. They treat you like you're old, when, far as you can tell, you're about thirty.
And so there's the identical visceral insight you've internalized since fourth grade. The overriding sense that, no matter where you are, you're in the wrong place. Only now it's the wrong time, too.