trapped screams let loose

The Scream, 1893, Edvard Munch

All day I have felt claustrophobic. I switch from task to task in an effort to not be alone with the sensations in my chest. If I could escape myself right now, I would.

I did a meditation with the hope to understand where this anxiety was coming from. I was led to my throughline, the belief that seems to be my bedrock: I am trapped, unable to leave. My job, my lease, my ties to my family and my home. Things, people, commitments are tying me down.

Beliefs this engrained tend to have a physical sensation for me. Somewhere in my body they find a home. This one - I am trapped, stuck - lives in my throat. It is a scream that cannot come out. It is the sensation of needing to move but being frozen. It is the need to vocalize discomfort, to express something is not right.

None of this is unsurprising. Just last week I found myself screaming in my car on the drive home from work. The sensation to let something out was present then, and in the solitude of my car, I acted on it. I may not have the means to quit, to move, to abandon all my commitments, but I do surely have the ability to scream. And that I will.