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Disclaimer: In this article, transient dissociation is used in a generalised sense and as a standalone experience. I am not referring to the traumaspecific symptoms of I or .

It would come on suddenly. I could be walking along the road thinking all sorts of to do list things, and then, out of nowhere, my innate belief that these feet are mine would be thrown into crisis. y vision would blur, and my balance would be like I was sailing a ship through stormy water.

If I was sitting down, it localised in my eyes. I would have to act against a heaviness that felt like something was pulling me downwards. y mind would start to spin, and I could not take in any more information from the outside world. I repeatedly blinked during these episodes and envisioned my eyes as akin to two hands holding onto a cliff edge.

pparently, these episodes of blinding di iness were actually transient dissociations, and they are very common. While only 2 of the world s population are diagnosed with depersonalisationderealisation disorder or if there were ever a diagnostic onomatopoeia, it is that) transient dissociation occurs in about half of the world s population.

Transient dissociation occurs when someone feels as though the continuity between things has come undone. Those things tend to revolve around one s thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The disconnect then manifests as a split between one s body, mind and surroundings. In the story above, the dissociative dimension would be that I lost the feeling that my mind and feet are connected. However, I would rationally know that they are connected. So, that dissociation would then trigger a subsequent over analysing of how I move my feet, which would create a sense of bodily alienation and lead to panic. It is akin to what happens when you repeat a word too many times. However, dissociation is not always accompanied by terror. For some, it invites nothing more than a kind of existential romanticism. In its milder forms, it can feel like you are watching your life from afar or as though it is a movie. oignantly, transient dissociative episodes are a normal phenomenon during childhood. The belief that this body is mine is something we learn during our developmental years. Thus, breaks in that link are far more frequent when the belief is not so ingrained. It is only when it returns as an adult that it can acquire its uncanny and frightening dimension.

Famous Scottish psychiatrist R. . aing argued that partial depersonalisation and dissociation are normal, even inevitable, consequences of 20th century alienation. For aing, most relationships are built on a kind of depersonalisation insofar as we do not acknowledge every human we interact with as who they are, but rather as another actor in a larger machine.

However, when that disconnect is directed inwards such that an element of someone s own self rather than a piece of their reality becomes strange to them then they could be in a transient dissociation. Essentially, we become alienated from ourselves, as if we were also strangers on the street.

I cannot help but think the increase in dissociative experiences is tied up with our ever evolving online identities and their emphasis on self reference. Firstly, countless studies show that excessive internet, virtual reality or social media use drastically increases your likelihood of experiencing a dissociation. For example, our image in the mirror enables us to perceive ourselves through someone else s eyes. ut now, we have this image in the screen, void of any corporality, doing the same. Secondly, we are quite literally connecting with people via parts of a machine. Thirdly, frequent transient dissociation is correlated with perfectionism and is often provoked by the fear that one has made a mistake. Those mistakes tend to take the form of not fully knowing ourselves or being in control of how others perceive us. The self reference and self-awareness that saturates social media could well be a breeding ground for these kinds of anxieties.

However, this is not to say that we should all ust ump ship there is plenty to be said about why our technology is a wonderful thing. ut I think if my dissociative experiences taught me anything, it is to lean into the idea that you do not need to know who you are, which is an idea that online personas tend to discourage. Inconsistency doesn t make for great branding, but we are not brands.

Instead, try to lean into the idea that our identity will always be in flux, and links will sometimes need to be broken. I think I repeatedly experienced these episodes because that notion that I can never really be certain of anything at all was precisely what I needed to learn.

Written by Molly Fitz

When people talk about baseball, they usually think of a or eague aseball in orth merica or even the leagues in Japan and South orea. ut you usually don t think of the etherlands producing the best of the best baseball players in the world. In the 1970s and 80s there was Bert lyleven who was born in the etherlands, then moved to anada when he was two then later to the nited States . ore recently, Rick van den Hurk from orth rabant, the etherlands, pitched in the and currently plays for Fukuoka Soft ank Hawks in Japan. nd the utch aribbean has produced a do en or so players, some of whom have made it all the way to The Show the nickname baseball players have for the a or eague .

ut none of them have had near the impact that one player from ruba has had. This is ander Bogaerts, shortstop for the Boston Red Sox. ogaerts was first signed to the Red Sox franchise in 200 and played in their minor league teams until he was called up to play at the end of the 2013 regular season and throughout the postseason, helping the Red Sox win the World Series that year. It was a special year, as well, with the oston arathon bombing happening ust after opening day in oston. The event, that shook the city and the subsequent Red Sox baseball season, coined the term oston Strong . ogaerts certainly lived up to that moniker when he was called up to finish off the season and helped the team take the championship. This would not be his first World Series with the Red Sox, as he was also a part of the 2018 team when the Red Sox won again. ander ogaerts was born in San icolaas, ruba, in 1 2, and from a young age he and his twin brother, Jair, were playing baseball on the island and throughout various youth leagues in the aribbean. He came from very humble beginnings his mother raised her sons by herself after their father left at a very young age, and though it was very difficult, she instilled a sense of responsibility, accountability and maturity in her twin sons that helped them become mature athletes. When the duo were in their teens, a oston Red Sox scout spotted Jair playing and was interested in his skills. Jair actually told the scout that if he liked what he saw in his own abilities, he should check out his brother. The scout followed Jair s advice and long story short signed ander to a contract that included a 10,000 sign on bonus. Jair also signed with the Red Sox but was traded to the hicago ubs prior to the 2012 season.

There have been four other baseball players from ruba to have made it to the a or eagues, but none have been as successful as ander ogaerts. ot only has he won two World Series with the Red Sox, but he was also a part of four All-Star Games, a part of the All-MLB Team (an honour given to the best players across both the American and National leagues at each position during the season) and is a four-time Silver Slugger ward winner an award given by coaches and managers to the best offensive player at each position. It s also said that his impact with his teammates is so good that he is often called team captain, though he prefers his nickname man! He also played for the utch national team in the 2011 aseball World up, helping them win the tournament. eing an excellent baseball player from the aribbean is a feat unto itself, but what makes ander ogaerts a hero is his commitment to his home island of ruba. He is a hero on the island and in his birth town of San icolaas, where an elementary school has been named after him. dditionally, with the outbreak of ovid 1 , ruba s tourism was hit extremely hard. In ovember 2021, ogaerts teamed up with E E ruba to launch the Happy to ive ack relief initiative in response to the outbreak and economic hardships that ensued. The program aimed to provide food, shelter and financial support to the island s most vulnerable people, who had lost so much during the pandemic many of them their livelihoods in tourism, with the drastic drop in visitors to the island. It was estimated that around 2 of rubans lost their obs when the estimated 1.2 million annual tourists were not able to visit this beautiful island in the utch aribbean. It is estimated that the program raised over half a million dollars before the end of 2021.

ocals on the island have said that ander Bogaerts is a down-to-earth person when he visits, and is their true hometown hero, having come to ruba s need during the pandemic, even building a state of the art baseball field in his hometown. The governor of ruba also awarded ander with a nighthood in the Order of Orange assau, one of the highest civilian distinctions in the Netherlands.