Trapped amid wavy
quavering mirrors, bouncing ideas between warped
reflective surfaces, distorting
themselves, recording in cells
and bolts of electricity (invisible
to the eye) reinforcing, sly,
jolting me from any errant
moment of safety;
the current flow crackling
steady, threatening to
arc free: is there something in
this life for me?
How has trauma changed the way you think?
Are you able to identify non-constructive thought patterns?
What helps you re-create your mental processes?
I debated whether to revise the last line, so I want to clarify its meaning: this is not a reference to self-harm or suicide. I’d tell you if it was.
When I saw which of my randomized words was assigned to week 21, I almost laughed. Think. I do little else. Easy one, right? Maybe. Maybe not. When your first image is funhouse mirrors, it’s *possible* that what’s going on in there is challenging.
I understand intellectually that my mental wiring, not only the parts of my brain that run various parts and systems, but the mysterious alchemy of thought, isn’t serving me. I’ve talked through these patterns and belief systems (as biological and real as the ones that run my heart, my lungs, the organs that sustain this machine of me) for enough years that I can identify them. I can stare them down, chart the place where reflection bends an idea into a shape it was never meant to hold. I understand what they’ve kept from me, what they’ve kept me from. I even understand that they’re not fixed, that they can change, that I can change them.
Intellectually.
I’m facing a potential new reality that could change a lot for me; not everything, but enough that life may look noticeably different. (I can’t be any more transparent than that right now, but I promise to share if and when I know more.)
And the part I have to prepare for most isn’t the external change. It’s how I think about myself. How I think about my Self.
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