the Storm

I’ve learnt to observe this storm within. It is literally a storm, rocking your insides and threatening to tear you down. And boy, has it torn me down! I have lost track of the number of times it has happened over the past couple of years. Sometimes, you can trace it back to its origin, and other times you have no idea why and how; but it is there, getting stronger and scarier that it feels as if it will break out at any moment. You are fighting a huge battle within, directing all your energy to keep yourself from totally shattering to pieces, that you have not an ounce of energy left for anything else. 

It is like trapping a storm within a tightly closed jar; it threatens to shatter the glass vessel and send the shards flying, some tiny pieces may go missing, never to be found again. And yes, it hurts the people around you. There is one other option, of loosening the lid and letting it slowly ease out; but how do you learn to do that?

Should I call myself lucky to have had a friend or two sit by and loosen my lid? (I really don’t know if lucky is the word, because I was fighting for a very long time on my own before someone ‘saw’ for real, the kind of devastation the storm brought in).

It doesn’t make the storm any less scarier, but it does count to have an anchor to hold on to when you are in the eye of the storm. To put it less poetically, having a hand to hold on to while you are writhing in pain, brings you closer to the outside reality; if it is a hug, let’s say it brings you even closer. This touch of reality doesn’t really ‘bring you back to your senses’, but it brings home the fact that however hard you fight back, no matter the number of troops you bring in to aid you, the storm will go away only in its own time. The more you try to fight, the more you make yourself vulnerable to the devastation the storm is causing. The smart step is to take cover, not to hide, because there is no hiding from a storm but to protect yourself under the safety of a strong shelter and wait it out. It is scary; not knowing if the place is safe enough, the fear of the shelter collapsing on you, the terrifying sound of the destruction around… but no storm lasts forever.

The shelter though might not always be the same, and sometimes the people with whom you entrust your scared self might push you out, collapse on you or even drag you out into yet another storm, hurting you so much that you decide the storm is better than them. But even so, I discovered that there are a handful of them who cover you with all they have without being invited to do so; these people convince you that the storm is not bigger than you.

Slowly, as you grow to feel safe in the shelter of their understanding, you learn to observe the storm. As it is brewing within, growing stronger, suffocating you and sucking out all your energy and happiness, you just look at it and realise for the first time that there is no option but to let it blow out. No prayer, no exercise, no introspection is going to chase it out. The storm leaves only when it leaves, so brace yourself and let it blow through.

To accept that you are helpless in the face of it is not a weakness, but the first step to understanding the storm as a part of you. A slow observation reveals that it is pain and fear and insecurity that is blowing within, and they deserve to. Feel it all— mind you, it isn’t at all easy. You will feel like breaking down, screaming out, running off, taking it out on you… you’ve been doing all that every time the storm set in, and did it help? It helped distract you from the clamour but not to really counter the storm. So this time around, just seep down into the pain and accept it. It has been there all this while, wanting to let you know of its presence, but weren’t you pushing all that pain down? And that is alright, but now your inner self is telling you that it cannot take in anymore, and it’s time to let go. 

You will fail, so many times; you’ll go back to the tears and screams and blades and syringes, and that is alright, because in time you will learn what doesn’t work and why. In time, you will learn to build a shelter of your own mind so that when the storm comes, though it still tears at you with all it has, you let it play itself out, feel it pass through you and slowly ease out through that gap in the lid that you loosened. It is so painful, but you have been through worse.

And they slowly ease out of you, one at a time; you will still be sucked out of all your vitality, you will still feel like you lost this battle too, but very slowly you will learn to smile at yourself again. Maybe it’s still a long way before you can see a clear sky for long intervals, but there are those occasional glimpses of that peaceful blue ablove.

In due time— that’ll actually feel to you like centuries past the deserved due— the storms will cease and you will look up at the clear sky and pure white clouds and laugh, in sheer relief, in victory and disbelief at the fact that you actually survived.

Know that you are a warrior!

©mar:ter