emotional disidentification

There’s a strange kind of grief
that comes after the storm.

Not when everything breaks —
but when everything becomes… distant.

It’s called emotional disidentification —
The quiet moment when
the version of you who was hurting
starts to feel separate
from the one who’s still here.

It can feel like peace.
It can feel like disconnection.
It can feel like betrayal.
It can feel like relief.

Because for so long,
your pain was the narrator.
The lens. The architecture.
The reason you moved the way you moved.

And now that it’s quieter —
you’re not sure who you are without it.

You’re still healing.
But you’re no longer inhabiting the grief.
You’re observing it.

And that’s where return begins.
Not with a bang.
But with a breath
that no longer echoes in your wounds.

✧ quiet prompt:

What part of your identity has started to fall away… and you didn’t even notice until now?

🌒 go deeper:

→ read: grief processing, memory detachment, and post-traumatic perspective shift → chapter: decoding