Myla Falik

Three Years in the Blur

     For three years, I have lived in a world that feels slightly misaligned with reality–An entire existence shifted a few inches off center. Everything around me is visible, reachable, almost mine, but separated by an invisible membrane I can’t push through. Dissociation is not a dramatic collapse or a cinematic spiral; it is quieter, stranger, a subtle slipping away that you don’t notice until you’re already gone. It’s waking up each morning feeling like someone has peeled you away from your own life and set you back down just slightly out of place.

     Every day begins with that soft hum, a kind of buzzing behind my eyes. In homeroom, I answer roll call with a voice that sounds correct but feels detached, like it’s being projected from somewhere behind my shoulder. My body sits in the chair, my legs crossed neatly, my binder open to a crisp page–but I hover inches above myself, watching as if I’m the understudy for a role I never meant to audition for.

     People say I seem so mature. So disciplined. So composed. They don’t know that “composed” is just another word for “contained,” and that I’ve been containing a storm for as long as I can remember.

     PTSD doesn’t always burst open. Sometimes it lives behind your ribs like a quiet tenant, rearranging your insides when no one is watching. Sometimes it shows up in the way you forget entire chunks of time. And sometimes, it hides inside straight A’s and honor roll certificates–because if your life is unraveling internally, it’s easier to disguise it with perfection externally.

     In my honors classes, I take meticulous notes in handwriting that looks like it belongs in a textbook. I participate with well-timed answers and annotated quotes. I get high marks on essays that I wrote while feeling like my mind had drifted halfway into a different dimension. Sometimes I read paragraphs three times, and still they slide through me like water. And yet, I continue–because academic structure feels like one of the last things still anchored to the earth.

     Then there’s volleyball. The one place where I want to come back into my body. 

     Where I try.

     But trying isn’t the same as succeeding.

     During drills, my muscles remember who they’re supposed to be, even when I don’t. Pass. Set. Rotate. Transition. My legs move before I can think. My arms form the platform automatically. My body dives for a dig like it’s following choreography on its own. Sometimes, for a moment, the sting of the ball pulls me into myself–the sharpness, the contact, the urgency. Sometimes it makes me feel real.

     Other times, I watch the version of me on the court like she’s a stranger I admire from a distance. I see her laugh with teammates, I see her sweat glistening under gym lights, I see her celebrating

a perfect pass–and I feel nothing but the faint echo of what joy should feel like. The team cheers, and the sound arrives to me muted, like it traveled through a long tunnel to reach me.

     And still, the world applauds.

     Awards. Compliments. Accolades. 

     “You’re so talented.”

     “You’re so unstoppable.” 

     “You never crack.”

     But I do crack.

     Just silently, inwardly, in ways nobody sees.

     Perfection is not pride for me–it’s armor.

     It is the scaffolding I cling to so I don’t collapse completely.

     The truth is less glamorous: I work so hard because the grind keeps me tethered. Without routines, I would drift off into the fog entirely. Being busy is the only way I know how to stay here. Being excellent is the only way I know how to keep myself from disappearing.

     But even in the thick of the blur, there are moments–tiny, bright interruptions. A joke from a friend that makes me laugh before I can think. A serve connecting so cleanly it vibrates through my palm. Rain hitting the sidewalk in a scent that slices through the numbness like a blade of light. Someone saying my name in a tone that feels warm. These are the clickers. The sparks. They do not rescue me, but they remind me that something inside me is still capable of waking.

     Everyone loves a recovery arc. 

     The grand return.

     The breakthrough moment where everything snaps into focus.

     I wish I could say I’ve had that moment. But the truth is harder to articulate, and even harder to admit:

     I am still in the blur. 

     Still drifting.

     Still half here, half elsewhere.

     Still learning how to breathe in a body that doesn’t always feel like mine.

     But I show up.

     I show up to classes, to practices, to conversations, to moments. 

     Even when I feel like a ghost, I show up anyway.

     There is a resilience in that–

     not the glamorous kind people put on posters, 

     not the kind coaches praise,

     not the kind teachers write

     recommendations about–

     but a quiet, stubborn resilience that grows in the cracks.

     The kind that says:

     Even when the world feels distant, I will not pull away. 

     Even when I cannot feel fully alive, I will keep choosing life. 

     Even when the blur stays, I will stay too.

     Everyone believes strength looks like certainty, or confidence, or fearlessness.

     But sometimes strength is just the choice to keep waking up in a life you still feel outside of.      Sometimes it’s the courage to keep moving when you’re not sure where the solid ground is.

     Sometimes it’s pressing your palm against the glass between you and your life and whispering, “I’m still trying. I’m still here.”

     Healing has not found me yet.

     But I haven’t stopped searching for it.

     Maybe one morning, the world will come into focus again.

     Maybe one afternoon in practice, the sound of the ball will crack the window open. 

     Maybe one test, one conversation, one laughter-filled hallway will put me back fully.

     But today, the glass is still there–

     the permanent fog of my breath clouding its surface–

     and I am pressed against it, watching, waiting, 

     trying to believe that one day I will step through.

     Until then, I am living.

     Half here, half not.

     But living.

     And sometimes, that has to be enough.