dissociation

These experiences may involve frightening and anxiety-ridden experiences like hallucinations, or things like the dissolution of the ego, which can be disorienting and lead to a feeling of dissociation with oneself.

While inhaling it, nitrous oxide can cause “dizziness and dissociation, where people feel essentially that they’re not in their bodies,” Hurley said.

"I lived a dissociation effect. I had difficulties recognising myself from the start," she says.

The side effects included transient dizziness, dissociation, disorientation, loss of balance, impaired memory and cognition, and weakness in the legs.

Today, the once-controversial jokes of the online sad girl are ubiquitous far beyond their original little corner of the internet, with people posting casually about depression and dissociation on their otherwise professional Twitter accounts.