My Dissociated Life

I’m in a choir and every year we hold placements. A supposedly non-intimidating way to determine if each singer is still in the best voice-part for them (alto, soprano, tenor, base etc). Every year I’m terrified of placements, I seem to be convinced that even though I auditioned and was accepted into the choir I don’t belong there and am going to be found out that I can’t really sing at all. I can, I know I can but not *everybody* knows that.

On this particular day, I was triggered by something on the way to placements. It was at a different location than our regular rehearsals so I didn’t even have location as a grounding tool or trigger to get whoever sings closer to the front. As we were about to begin the conductor asked “is everyone here?” to the section heads. Keep in mind that this is a large choir with a lot of people so it’s not always obvious if someone is missing, and placements are mandatory. All I heard inside was a panicked “does he know we’re not here!?”…. but of course he doesn’t, because we are here, technically.

When the music started whoever needed to show up did, and the placements went well, but looking back that was such a funny, classic DID moment! “Does he know we’re not here”. It’s moments like this that the denial I have DID at all really just goes out the window.