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I had a rough patch for a few days. Therapy went hard and I went into a spiral and for some reason (I’m sure therapy could explain it) I became almost intolerably self-critical for several days.

And I know it’s easy for people to scold or dismiss my self-criticism. It’s easy to say, “You’re too hard on yourself,” or “Why are you being so mean?” or “Don’t do that…”

The thing is, it’s a disease.

And I think even I forget that too often.

This week, when this hit me, I had an episode when I was putting on clothes (my ordinary clothes that I wear all the time) and I just looked terrible in everything. EVERYTHING. I looked huge! I had rolls of fat hanging out. I was soft and bulgy and I was repulsed at my own reflection.

My weight was exactly what it had been two days before when I didn’t see that in the mirror.

I, justified, that somehow without gaining weight, I had nevertheless become more fat. I decided I was… bloated… I’d lost muscle mass in favor of fat (thus the even weight), I’d… I don’t even remember my logic, but the thing is, I literally saw. Saw, felt, in every way knew that this image was reality.

Two days later, at still the exact same weight, I put on a fitted T-shirt, and jeans, and looked down and saw a smooth line from my chest to my belt buckle. I hadn’t seen that two days earlier. I had seen fat.

I’m not thin, I’m not remotely close to my goal. But I am twenty pounds thinner than I was, and it shows. Sometimes. When I can see it. But I can’t always see. Literally.

I am like a dimension hopper. I jump between realities, except I’m the only one who sees them. And everyone around me is befuddled or frustrated or angry or fed up or resentful or dismayed… but they can’t see. They can never see what I see. Never feel what I feel. And because they can’t, they think it isn’t real.

But it is real.

It is real to me.

It is real to me when I feel things crawling on my skin, even if no one else can feel it.

It is real to me when shadows move just beyond my line of sight, even if no one else can see it.

It is real to me when I touch my body and feel rolling folds of fat… even if no one else can feel it.

And, this isn’t casual, habitual self-criticism. Sir calls me on that all the time. And he’s right. I have a critical inner voice. It comes from a lot of things in my upbringing, and I’m working on it. But this is something else.

This is dimension hopping.

This is painfully real delusion.

Sir’s response when I dimension hop: “I don’t share that perception.” Because that’s the only thing he can say that is true. And I love him for that.