Pain always finds the surface - full series, Vol. I

This series is a visual distillation of how I feel when I go into a dissociative state due to the impact of my medically induced PTSD and ASD intersecting. They are self-portraits that delve beneath the surface and into the vast, dark realms of my mind. Once there, I can no longer be found in the mirror of my eyes. I lie deeper than that, deeper than even I can reach. ******** I have had many medical interventions in my life and have been consumed by pain with only the briefest, sweetest exhalations of relief in between. Nine surgeries, organs removed, things sewn up. One thing ‘healed’ leads to two more things to deal with down the line. No one knows what is wrong with me, my body refusing to divulge its secrets, even to those with the greatest of expertise. The thought of receiving medical treatment quickens my heartbeat and restricts my breath. Memories from the past begin to surface and burn within my body, a painful reminder that they never truly left. It triggers an overwhelming sensory response that leaves my nervous system raw and exposed. And so my mind begins to shut down, dissociating to protect myself from what has been and what is yet to come. It isn’t voluntary, I just lose my grip on reality and am birthed into another place. But it isn’t a place. It is a nothingness, limitless, soundless and without time. Eight hours moves like one hundred, or like one, it is hard to tell when you have disappeared. I become no one and nothing and I never want to come back.