Feeling stuck, I use an old Star Trek episode to ponder my situation and consider a way forward

Engage

I think maybe I’ve been slipping in and out of some dissociative state. And/or depression. In the first month, I was able to keep busy with organizing the memorial for my beloved and doing some work (as in, my job). Since the memorial, it’s been much harder to keep busy. There’s no pending project deadline for anything related to my beloved and it’s gotten harder and harder to do work.

That first month, I alternated between the intense anguish and the busy-ness. Now it’s intense anguish and depression and/or dissociation. In both cases, there’s been the intense anguish and my strategy for avoiding it.

I feel stuck in my grief, and it is more than I can bear, so I regularly oscillate between feeling it and avoiding it. That may be normal. But it doesn’t feel ok. It’s confusing. It messes with my sense of self, because each state is so encompassing as to feel like it is all there is, the one true reality. 

So I also feel like I’m search for or waiting for something. Some sort of understanding or event that will allow me to move forward, ideally with purpose. A resolution, I guess. A sign, a revelation, contact of some sort with my beloved or a message from some higher whatever. Many grieving people talk about having such experiences. 

My logical mind tells me what I’m waiting for doesn’t exist. My emotional side insists it must exist, because otherwise reality is to horrible to bear. 

There’s an episode of the original Star Trek series where Kirk is onboard a ship that is phasing in and out of our dimension or universe (sorry, the specifics elude me at the moment… my loved one would know… I think the episode was The Tholian Web?). The Enterprise crew are trying to beam Kirk back before the other ship phases out for good. 

Things get complicated. Kirk gets stuck in a weird in-between and nobody knows it right away. They think he’s gone entirely. Scattered atoms in the vacuum of space, perhaps. But then Lt. Uhura sees Kirk in a mirror. No one believes her, they think she’s delusional, until other people start seeing Kirk as some sort of apparition. Well, they get him back, of course.

So it’s like I’m waiting for someone to come tell me they’ve seen my beloved in the mirror. He’s still out there. We can make contact and we can be connected and someday we can be together again, somehow.

My logical mind raises it eyebrow and say it’s fascinating. My emotional side gets all riled up about the human heart, you green-blooded, pointy-eared, blah blah blah. It’s the never-ending battle between Spock and McCoy. Logic and emotion.

The action-oriented part of me that brings those two together and finds a way, a solution to whatever ails me this week, month, or year, my inner Captain Kirk, is grieving. Maybe he’s the one phasing in and out, waiting to be found and rescued. Or maybe he’s just trying to come to terms with the idea that Edith Keeler must die.

But then, I don’t like that conclusion. Maybe there’s any number of universes and timelines out there, countless Captain Kirks, some of whom don’t have to let Edith Keeler go. Maybe Wesley Crusher and the Traveler, Q and the Continuum, the worm-hole aliens and the Emissary and all those alien species that found us so primitive are all as real and true as much as Kirk and Edith Keeler. Maybe the nature of time and space and reality just isn’t what we think it is.

I’m reminded of an idea I encountered in college – homo narrans, humans as storytellers. The stories we tell ourselves help us preserve (a version of) the past, understand our present, and shape our future. They also help us navigate and determine a sense of self and perhaps a sense of meaning or purpose, both for life in general and for more discrete occurrences.

Using Star Trek to think about what is happening with me is an attempt to find a satisfying narrative that will allow me to feel better, and perhaps even move a step forward. It’s hard to move in any direction when there’s no understanding from which to proceed.

[tangent]

This plays into why I desperately want to see the note my beloved left when he chose to leave this world (I currently don’t have access to it, and don’t know if I ever will). It’s a significant piece of the puzzle, the story, and not having that leaves me with too much uncertainty as to whether or not whatever narrative I come up with works. It’s possible this wouldn’t be a problem for some people, but it is for me, with my particular mind, with its particular manifestations of neurodivergence. I need all the facts, ma’am. How can we be certain, otherwise?

Granted, it would only ever be a relative certainty, but the more information the better. For my brain, anyhow.

[end of tangent]

While I haven’t had a momentous occasion like my beloved appearing in a mirror, or his apparition hovering in the engineering room of some starship, I have had a dream that gave me comfort and a narrative that helped, if only for a few short hours. It was a much needed break. 

I need a more powerful understanding, a far-reaching and persistent narrative, that will carry me further. It’s very challenging, phasing back and forth between the anguish and the depressive numbness or dissociative detachment.

Let’s hope I can treat my writer well enough to avoid a strike. You know, with respect, consideration, and a fair deal.