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Seltenberger’s SyndromeBy T. Alex MillerI don’t remember exactly when it was that I first experience drifting, nor do I recallwhether it came on suddenly or gradually grew until it became this regular thing in my life.I finally went to someone about it, expecting full well that they’d shrug their shoulders,ask a lot of questions about my life like depression or drug use or whatever, then maybesuggest I go to some kind of real doctor and get an MRI, or a CAT scan.While that’s more or less what happened, the person, a Roberta Someone-or-Other, diddo one good thing: She asked me to write down what drifting felt like. It read as such:“Have you ever heard the expression about whether someone iscomfortable or not in their own skin? It’s obvious when someone isn’t, isn’tit? Or when you look at someone on stage, a veteran performer, and thatperson is so at ease up there, they could be in front of thousands of peopleand they are just completely
on
, totally themselves. Or at least seem to be.So, in drifting, I’m like the opposite of that. And mostly it happens whenfacing a group or I’m with someone senior to me either at work or just in ageor status. I suddenly feel very self-conscious about what I’m saying, and themore I think about it, the worse it gets. And that’s just dumb anxiety, orinsecurity, right? Everyone, or at least most people, know what that feelslike. But the drifting is something beyond that. So I’ll be sitting there, say, inthe publisher’s office (I work at a magazine as an editor), and I get highly,acutely aware of the fact that I should be speaking intelligently or creativelyabout something, and the self-consciousness starts and then … I drift.It feels like an out-of-body experience, like maybe a little one. Not anepiphany, a big journey to some metaphysical place, but maybe just a shorttrip. And I have to reel myself back in. But that’s not always easy, andsometimes it’s impossible. A drift can last for hours, sometimes days, I’mnot even always sure when it begins, or ends.I know at this point I’m supposed to make some caveat that I know thissounds nuts or I don’t believe in out-of-body experiences or something, butsince you’re a shrink, I imagine you can handle that. Plus, I read a NewYork Times story not too long ago where they figured out some of thephysiology to the out-of-body experience, and also how there’s a brainexplanation for how people lose themselves and speak in tongues. I imagineit’s something like that, this drifting. But more low-key. I mean, I don’tspeak in tongues.Another way to describe it is this: Have you ever seen like in a film or acommercial where they use a special effect to make a person appear as if heor she is splitting into two people? And then one of them, usually a little onthe diaphanous side, drifts away from the other, and then the two mirrorimages sort of regard each other with this curious expression? That’s also
 
kind of what drifting feels like, although I don’t really see that mirror imageso much as feel it. I could be sitting still, but it feels like my body has shiftedan inch to the left. Or maybe it’s just part of my consciousness that’s shifted.So that’s drifting. There’s some other elements to it, like visual weirdnesssometimes, but those are the basics.”I e-mailed this to the shrink before my second and final visit. I’d spent a fair amount of time on it, trying to describe it, so I was anticipating that she would have spent acommensurate amount of time studying it, perhaps doing some research to see if mydescription matched anything anyone else knew about. The way I see it, people may all bedifferent, but we’re made out of the same stuff and go through a lot of the sameexperiences, so it stood to reason that someone had identified drifting before. It probablyhad some other name, like Seltenberger’s Syndrome or something. I don’t know; I justmade that up.But it seemed apparent to me that Roberta had hastily read the note just after her lastappointment left, and she didn’t have any insight or information. She asked me morequestions about it, like how drifting made me feel, how long it lasted, things like that. I waskeenly aware that she was trying to be all professional and smart, but that it wasn’t going tohelp. When I left, I resolved not to return. If she couldn’t be bothered to read myassignment more thoroughly and follow up in some way … that’s not going to work forme.The reality is, I think I know where my Seltenberger’s Syndrome comes from. I’mrecently divorced, separated from my three kids except for two weekends a month, brokefrom all the lawyers and child support payments, and I typically sleep only four or fivehours a night, if I’m lucky. Am I depressed? Of course I’m depressed, who wouldn’t be?But I’ve pored over pages and pages of information online about depression, and drifting,or anything like SS, is not implied anywhere that I could find. I have a new symptom of depression, one might be led to believe, but as I’ve already said, I doubt that’s the case. I
 
wanted to find a chat room or a support group filled with other drifters, maybe get sometips on how to cope.But I never found one, although I continue to look. Instead, I started making up chatroom chatter, featuring drifters who wanted to find ways to return to what they call “RealSpace” — or “RS.” (I was quite proud of creating my own imaginary piece of jargon.) Atypical exchange would look like this:“Ted123 writes: Whenever I’m in church, sitting there in the pew, I startto drift. It’s not simple inattention, because I can feel myself shiftingsomewhat corporeally. And no, it’s not religious fervor or anything.Anyone have any suggs on how to deal, get back to RS?”“Gina456 responds: I have the same problem in this reading group I’min. When I feel myself start 2 drift, I find it’s helpful to move. I’ll stand up,tell the other folks my leg is cramping or something, and I’ll stand behindthe couch a few minutes. That really helps put me back in Real Space.”I liked Gina456’s advice so much that I tried it at our last staff meeting. It was about 15minutes into it, and I started to feel like my brain was moving outside my skull, like a lumpof dough sitting in a bowl on a space ship, floating away in zero gravity. It was when I wasin this place that I dreaded questions or any attention directed at me. I’d be afraid I wouldopen my mouth and nothing would come out; or what would come out might be a high-pitched wail, or an animal sound – like that of a whale , or a marmot. And drifting is oftenpaired with a stiff neck, like my head is stuck atop a steel pole that can’t move. So if theperson talking to me is in a place that required me to turn my head to face them, I had tosort of move my whole upper body, which had the effect (I imagined) of making me look like a guy in a neck brace.I should point out that, so far as I can tell, my Seltenberger’s Syndrome is not noticeableto others. No one has ever said anything to me about what seems to me like aberrantbehavior. But, then, the strange behavior of many people is probably not described back to
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