I Didn't Recognize the Person in the Mirror: Continuity Trauma

When we wade into the depths of illness, we can find times when we no longer recognize ourselves. Things have happened that I didn't choose, that don't feel like me in any meaningful way. That loss is immense. And I'd argue it's more than loss. It's trauma. Not a metaphor for trauma. Not "trauma adjacent." Trauma.

Here's what happened for me: something traumatic occurred, and at the same time, I had trouble remembering it. Later, I had to reconstruct the events, piecing it together like a detective investigating a crime where I was both the victim and the prime suspect. That reconstruction came with real social and emotional consequences. My world fell apart. The core injury wasn't just the event itself, it was the destruction of my continuity of self. Somewhere, a record skipped. And nobody handed me an explanation, a warranty, or even an apology. Just the skip, and me, left to reckon with it. How do you reckon with a version of yourself you never met?

Then I had to build a story about myself, to myself, one where I had to sit with the fact that I'd been a perpetrator, even against myself. Try holding that thought at 3am. All of this led to trauma symptoms: hypervigilance, self-stigma, the whole miserable starter pack.

I'm not alone in this. And if it's happened to you, you're not alone either. This is happening everywhere, quietly, in the space between who people were and who they woke up as, but there's no language for it yet. Somehow we have a thousand words for the heartbreak someone else can cause and none for the heartbreak you can cause yourself. It's time to start talking about it.

For me, this happened during manic episodes. But I suspect this is happening for a lot of people, at different points in their lives, and at different stages of different mental health conditions. Waiting, like I was, for someone to name the thing first.