“writing through relaxation” but instead i think i might have an anxiety attack

i’m not sure why i can’t remember most of my childhood.

it feels like a poem / broken up / like this / all scattered / shattered like a mirror / each different part of me staring back / distorted and distended / and i have to remind myself / who i was before / cannot haunt me / if i do not let her.

i didn’t realise until we started this exercise that i held so much tension in my body - a tightly wound ball of nausea under my sternum, a shaky, nervous one between my shoulder blades, something sharp in my lower back. i also didn’t anticipate what trying to release it would do, how when tension dissipates, it leaves something raw and harsh in its place, something that bubbles over when you least expect.

anxiety is a bitch, and you don’t know how bad it is until you try to release it and end up crying on the floor, trying to scroll through memories that you can’t find or can’t face. you don’t know you’re running from your past until it’s shoved in your face - when you have to remember how your hair looked or what you wore or what you used to do, and realise exactly how much it hurts you.