A present absence

When I approach or talk to someone I sometimes feel I have to reach over my stammer, depression and Parkinson’s to engage with them; as if I hold in front of me a life size cardboard cut out of me but featuring only my disabilities. This feeling of detachment and disengagement can intensify as I hit a particularly bad stammering block, waves of depressive negativity wash over me or the physical symptoms of Parkinson’s become markedly overt. It then feels like my body with its disabilities is encountering the person but my mind and my sense of ownership is shoved into the corner and held there. I am present and absent at the same time.