The Day My Brain Clocked Out

Day 16 — December 9, 2025

Today was a fever dream.

Not bad.
Not dramatic.
Just deeply, profoundly feral-brained.

I woke up, took one look at my coffee, and my body said, “Nope.”

Didn’t finish it. Didn’t even make eye contact with it after the first sip. That alone should’ve been my omen. Like the universe whispering, “Sweetheart… brace yourself.”

Meditation? Gorgeous.
Workout? Great.
Productivity? High enough to impress any therapist.

My mind?
Absolutely not.
She was OFF.
She clocked out.
She left an away message.

She put up a little sign that said: “Be back never. Good luck, bitch.”

I spent the entire day in this bizarre half-lucid state. Like a cute little character wandering through a video game, aware that I was supposed to be doing things but absolutely unclear on what those things were.

Zombie mode, totally.
But not Walking Dead — I refuse to associate myself with anything flaky, crusty, or giving “hasn’t moisturized since 2012 vibes.”

No.
I was a Warm Bodies zombie.
The hot, confused variety.
The “I have a heart now and feelings are terrifying but also kind of cute” variety.

I was basically R today.
Roaming through the day like,
“I know I was doing something… Something meaningful? Something important?
oh look, a candle.”

At one point I caught myself staring into the void like the universe was giving a TedTalk titled:

“Dissociation: Congratulations, You’re Healing (We Think).”

I kept putting things down and losing them immediately. The ADHD girlie in me was thriving, the traumatized girlie in me was trembling, and the inner academic in me was like, “Ah yes, neural integration. Fascinating.”

My thoughts were doing drive-bys.
Showing up, waving, disappearing before I could catch the license plate.

But here’s what made the whole day feel unhinged in the best possible way: I wasn’t scared.

Not even a little.

That alone feels like a rebirth. A plot twist. A spicy season finale reveal.

Last year, this level of dissociation would’ve launched me into a full psychological tailspin. Today?

I just sighed, shrugged, and said, “Oh. Her again. Slay.”

This is the part I want people to understand. I wasn’t “checking out.” I wasn’t “losing control.” I was healing. I AM healing. Trauma brains do this fun little trick where, once you stop drowning, they begin rearranging the furniture. Reprocessing memories. Reorganizing neural pathways. Running background updates like an iPhone that waited until 3am when you’re vulnerable.

It’s chaotic.
It’s confusing.
It’s also, ironically, progress.

There was sadness today. Not the dramatic, cry-on-the-floor kind. The quiet, grown-up, “Wow… I really lived through some hell, didn’t I?” kind. But there was pride woven through it, too. Like gold thread hidden in a dark fabric.

Pride that I kept going.
Pride that I stayed present enough to notice the slipping.
Pride that even in zombie mode, I was still building a life that fear doesn’t get to touch anymore.

I built a whole damn website this week.
I’m writing like my soul is kicking down doors.
I’m healing in ways that feel both feral and intentional.
I’m becoming someone my past self wouldn’t recognize.

In the best way.

Today didn’t break me. It didn’t even bruise me. It just reminded me that healing is messy. And weird. And sometimes looks like putting your keys in the fridge and calling it personal growth.

So yes, today was chaotic. A brain-out-of-office day. A “my mind left the chat but my body kept hosting the meeting” day. A day that made zero sense and also made perfect sense.

Because even when I glitch, I rise. I return. I rebuild.

Chaos in one hand.
Grace in the other.
And a brain that occasionally abandons me but always comes back with new wisdom —
and probably snacks.