Repersonalizing the High Status
In studying dissociative disorders, I came upon depersonalization, a symptom where someone feels detached from themselves, either mentally or physically. The world begins to feel dreamlike, or less real. For someone experiencing depersonalization, this may feel the case all the time, whereas a highly anxious person may feel familiar with this state if, for example, they have social anxiety and freeze up around people they don't know very well. But even less anxious people have spoken of seeing themselves in third person or feeling like time has gotten slower when anticipating embarrassment, especially in front of someone they want to impress. In these cases, we are not only feeling separate from ourselves, but we are also detaching the public face from the real person in front of us. When I was in college, I was part of the local poetry scene. I remember standing in line waiting to get in to a show, when a hooded figure jumped out of the van parked out front, took a picture of m...