Hiding Feelings: Rage, Outbursts and Coming Back To Reality

Scene 1

The bed died when I tore it apart,

Whining sheets,

Bare bare dead flower mattress,

The bugs hang in the cobwebbed window frame

While racoons scratch on the walls

And I’m watching the rust-brown

Cranky armchair

Watch me.

I used to sleep in that corner

When it was a cot,

My brother’s in the big bed,

My grandfather, Zeidy, sitting at the edge

Of my shifting springs

Telling us cautionaries

About a young bitch

Named Gloria.

Not even Zeidy’s stories can help me sleep.

The window is watching me, I told him.

And he’d say, it’s nothing.

Go to bed, Rachie.

I suffer from some kind of innate physical

Knowledge

Of what’s dark

And what’s coming

I knew someone would break through that window one day and take me.

This room unwelcomed me

And one day it would kick me out.

As kids, we stayed here because my mother was sick and my father was busy.

I’m here now because the world is dying and I’m too afraid to be stuck in a tiny room alone,

in downtown Toronto with the bats and the bedbugs and the beaten.

I’ve leaned into privilege and now I’m tearing it apart.

Why do we do things? Why do we really do what we do?

To impress my dad.

Until I can’t stand him

And then I destroy the bedroom.

The worthless feeling I have comes from knowing that this will happen again.

Here’s how to come back to life after a fit of rage

Sit on the floor.

Put two hands on the ground.

When you’re ready, stand up.

If that exercise isn’t accessible to you, change your position in any way. Smell something new. Look at something new. Put music on. Turn around. Close your eyes. Anything.

Do it and then go back to your original position.

Do it again.

Sit on the floor.

Put two hands on the ground.

When you’re ready, stand up.

Or your version of that.

Do it again.

Do it again.

Now, take a cold shower or open a window or something to change the temperature.

Now hug, hold, or admire someone or something.

And when you hug, hold or admire someone or something, listen, for the answer you needed in that moment of rage.

Listen for the, “hey, it’s going to be ok”, listen for the “I love you and if something happens, I’ll be here.”

It’s so important that we hear the thoughts that are trying to break through.

If you exhaust your body, and then sit still and focus on hearing exactly what you needed in that moment of rage. You’ll hear it.

This is Scene One on the topic of Hiding How We Feel: Rage, Outbursts and Coming Back To Reality.

I wrote an essay about it yesterday but the essay felt inauthentic and wrong for this blog. I’m going to split it into scenes and let more of myself come through because I want you to be able to connect your experience to mine and also, I want to be free.

Thank you for reading.

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