conflict and avoiding the feelings of anger it evokes leaves us with an unsettled feeling. What do we do with the bitter taste lingering in our mouths? We spit it out at a new target. We let the coworker, the love interest, or the new next-door neighbor stand in for the person whoâs truly wronged us. This step happens largely beyond our consciousness. We mishear and misinterpret the bewildered folks who have the misfortune to interact with us; we squint until they begin to look like our old adversaries; and shoehorn past conflicts into this fresh context. And, of course, whenever this new tension gets too taut to stand, we refer back to the beginning of the series and repeat steps one through four until nearly everyone has been bullied, bulldozed, or pushed far away. We repeat until the world confirms our ugliest suspicions.
6
I continue to take my homeopathic remedies throughout the deadlocked month of August. I donât really believe in them, but Iâm still hoping for relief. Iâm waiting for the remedies to make me feel better, or perhaps Iâm attempting to use them the way Iâd do with Western medicine. I wait for each tablespoon I slurp down to lift me up, blank me out, pry me from the iron grip of my mood.
Iâve long forgotten the words in Alyssaâs note. Homeopathy, sheâd written, will not mask angerâs symptoms: âThese remedies will not dispel your emotions. Theyâll bring about learning when you are ready for it.â
But so far I havenât learned much from my split with the Lark. Itâs not for lack of scrutiny. All day, every day, my mind turns over the facts of the summer, examining it from every angle before violently purging myself of all thoughts of the affair the way an exasperated child might throw some uncooperative object to the floor with both hands. Then, I canât resist picking the story back up and allowing the missing information to unhinge me again.
I stumble through the days, as if disoriented by a bright glare. I shield myself from sunshine, conversation, the smell of food on the barbeque, the bubbly sounds of pop music or laughter. Hours seem to pass at the pace of whole years.
Freud famously thought a healthy person was characterized by her ability to love and her ability to work. For the month of August, I canât do either. I begin to think of myself as a failed adult, a failing writer. Iâm a stunted twenty-seven-year-old in coffee-stained shorts and the same T-shirt Iâve worn to bed countless nights in a row, turbid, absent, and socially weird, pretending she doesnât hear the hushed, noble tones of her familyâs attempts to diagnose her.
One friend says itâs post-traumatic stress.
My sister insists itâs bipolar disorder, a family predisposition rearing its afflicted head.
My mother tells me her best friend isnât surprised when she hears the news of my breakup. âJane said she never really thought youâd find your match with a British rock musician, knowing everything you represent.â (By what I ârepresent,â I assume she means what a newspaper profile once called âthe face of teenage binge drinking,â or at least its reformed counterpart.)
Whenever someone insists that I must be mad at the Lark, I stolidly maintain that Iâm not.
The English word âangryâ isnât nuanced enough to describe the deranged jumble of pangs in my chest. All day long, my so-called feelings on the matter collide: Shock needles outrage; humiliation blindly nuzzles self-pity; regret falls lustily into depressionâs arms.
Neither is my demeanor that of a woman enraged. To see me slumped, glassy-eyed, holding a sandwich someone has cut for me into four âmanageableâ pieces, a person might tell you I look much more like a woman subdued.
7
When it comes to human emotions, Iâve become very picky about wording.
One afternoon, I find a word in my
6
I continue to take my homeopathic remedies throughout the deadlocked month of August. I donât really believe in them, but Iâm still hoping for relief. Iâm waiting for the remedies to make me feel better, or perhaps Iâm attempting to use them the way Iâd do with Western medicine. I wait for each tablespoon I slurp down to lift me up, blank me out, pry me from the iron grip of my mood.
Iâve long forgotten the words in Alyssaâs note. Homeopathy, sheâd written, will not mask angerâs symptoms: âThese remedies will not dispel your emotions. Theyâll bring about learning when you are ready for it.â
But so far I havenât learned much from my split with the Lark. Itâs not for lack of scrutiny. All day, every day, my mind turns over the facts of the summer, examining it from every angle before violently purging myself of all thoughts of the affair the way an exasperated child might throw some uncooperative object to the floor with both hands. Then, I canât resist picking the story back up and allowing the missing information to unhinge me again.
I stumble through the days, as if disoriented by a bright glare. I shield myself from sunshine, conversation, the smell of food on the barbeque, the bubbly sounds of pop music or laughter. Hours seem to pass at the pace of whole years.
Freud famously thought a healthy person was characterized by her ability to love and her ability to work. For the month of August, I canât do either. I begin to think of myself as a failed adult, a failing writer. Iâm a stunted twenty-seven-year-old in coffee-stained shorts and the same T-shirt Iâve worn to bed countless nights in a row, turbid, absent, and socially weird, pretending she doesnât hear the hushed, noble tones of her familyâs attempts to diagnose her.
One friend says itâs post-traumatic stress.
My sister insists itâs bipolar disorder, a family predisposition rearing its afflicted head.
My mother tells me her best friend isnât surprised when she hears the news of my breakup. âJane said she never really thought youâd find your match with a British rock musician, knowing everything you represent.â (By what I ârepresent,â I assume she means what a newspaper profile once called âthe face of teenage binge drinking,â or at least its reformed counterpart.)
Whenever someone insists that I must be mad at the Lark, I stolidly maintain that Iâm not.
The English word âangryâ isnât nuanced enough to describe the deranged jumble of pangs in my chest. All day long, my so-called feelings on the matter collide: Shock needles outrage; humiliation blindly nuzzles self-pity; regret falls lustily into depressionâs arms.
Neither is my demeanor that of a woman enraged. To see me slumped, glassy-eyed, holding a sandwich someone has cut for me into four âmanageableâ pieces, a person might tell you I look much more like a woman subdued.
7
When it comes to human emotions, Iâve become very picky about wording.
One afternoon, I find a word in my
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