Tag: creative writing

fucked up

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

my thoughts still feel much too messy for therapy

i thought the point of EMDR was that you don’t have to talk about shit

that’s what Kamala told me anyway

but the first part of it, “history” laying

just some fancy words for digging shit up

bullshit

if this shit were easy to talk about, do you think i would be here, asking for your help? fucking hell


There’s this safe place exercise i’m supposed to do

i try

but the first place i think of is a fictional RV i made up

okay try again

it’s the mountains where i grew up

fucking beautiful

i feel safe when i look at them

cradled

but my parents could be here at any minute

okay try again

the next place is a beach

indiscriminate

but here, I’m still me, ready to bolt at any second, always in fight or flight

never safe

so i try to go back to the RV

where i do feel safe

but apparently, i have to keep talking while i do

my mind short circuits

how can i tell you what it smells like if i don’t know yet??

how can i feel safe if you keep pulling me back?


why can’t i just be?


i slam the door on the RV

i will not

i refuse to

take anyone here

it needs to stay safe

you need to go


the exercise is called safe place

but i end it feeling unsafe

hunched over

clutching my shoulders

feeling once again too fucked up for therapy

because i didn’t fit into others’ ideas of what ‘should’ work

because i didn’t stuff myself into a box to make myself easier to manage


trying so hard

just to exist

the reality

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

11-29-21

“I loose touch with reality often”

It’s a question on psychological inventories, the intake form, the one they ask me to retake each new therapist’s appointment.

I mark it high.

It scares me. This slipping away. This unmooring from the physical world around me. In favor of my ever deep internal world.

But why is this – this nebulous emotional world – not reality as well? Am I dreaming without my knowllege or consent? Maybe the real problem, the real pathology, is that I let others define my reality, draw these subjective lines for me.

“I often let others define my reality for me”

Ask me that question. Be concerned if I mark it high.

snakke

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

a snake is very slowly squeezing its midsection around my neck

so slowly you almost notice nothing

but slowly and surely, you lose your breath, its pathway winking closed, constricting and the muscles of your neck crushed by the force give way to the crushing of your neck itself

You are afraid to acknowledge the pain for you fear it would consume you

and consume you it easily could

the antelounge

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

1/24/17

The table in the antelounge is always cluttered. Things just accumulate there: a prolific amount of origami flowers, a strange shape cut from solid steel that looks so important it hasn’t been moved in years, a tape measure that seems to belong to everyone.

People accumulate here too: people muttering over computers. TA’s waiting to be asked for help or hoping for a moment to breathe when it seems everyone’s code is throwing errors, picklocks asking to be handcuffed anywhere, boasting that they’ll get out in 10 minutes, fire spinners waiting until midnight to practice in the dark.

We passed through here when we were “going on an adventure” as you so wanly put it. When you told us to wear dark clothes and bring flashlights. We were looking for the one place on campus where only two people had been before, remember? We found the boiler room, left unlocked by accident where they kept the plans for the school, maps and proposals, things we probably weren’t supposed to see. Because we weren’t supposed to be there, that’s what Jamie, the surprised head of maintenance told us anyway.

You never found the secret location, roaming around with smart things to say as I followed and said nothing. I found it later in my own quiet way of overhearing, but I didn’t tell you. It had something to do with how I could never make an impression on you. But it’s okay because people accumulate here. All types. And none of them normal.