I snapped suddenly into disassociation yesterday in the middle of a difficult session and almost walked out. I finally reached the buffer limit, the point at where my will could no longer overcome the emptiness of my last reserves. I had a few self-harm urges, but luckily the disassociation set in without it.
Instead of trying to do anything else, I basically gave up, and I self medicated with muscle relaxers plus pot plus anxiety meds. It felt like a cop-out after my normal discipline of just bearing the pain and exhaustion as it is, but at least I didn't go get the bad drugs, walk out into traffic, bite myself or any other destructive measures.
I'm not myself again yet. The disassociation is heavy, and it cuts me off from my awareness of who I am, what I'm supposed to be doing, the unbearable nature of the pain burden I have to carry, and indeed most things other than immediate sensory input. Even that feels like a dream, like I'm not really here, like whatever "I" is, it doesn't really exist.
I truly can't do anything or go anywhere until my psyche recovers. My plan is to crawl back into bed soon and write today off as battery charging time.
I've been working harder and harder to do all the things that stave off this kind of psychological break, but it just wasn't enough in this case. There is no "me" left to fret or plan fixes for it right now.
I imagine eventually the captain will return to the helm and this ship will keep sailing on through the storm.