My Planned Breakdown

S12

I finished the following essay two years ago when I felt I was at a critical limit. I’m at my worst when I feel trapped with few avenues out of a stifled existence. Most of what you’ll read is still true, only tamped down for the moment. I am no less closer to the edge, only sure that I have a choice to step back from the abyss.

It feels fitting though that I let this out, to reveal the darkness so that you can share in my joy and all the ways I attain it through my work. It’s a marker for how far I’ve come but a reminder that I am not a problem to be solved. I am a person who is in a constant state of becoming. Becoming more aware and better able to cope.

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One time I trashed my room as an experiment. I had seen it in movies and television shows before. Someone got upset and hurled their belongings into walls and onto the floor. The person may have breathlessly heaved in exhaustion and wiped sweat from their brow. The destruction got the demons out.

I learned very quickly it was a silly idea. I can’t even recall why I was upset, but there I was, growling and spinning up a tornado of mayhem. After all my beaded jewelry and poems lie scattered on my bed and the carpet and after I had gotten out the hurt, I had to pick those same things up and put them back. There was really no escape from a groundswell of emotion. The problems would still be there after you were done. The only way to get rid of them was to face them.