I can't succinctly verbalize how cathartic and necessary of a read this was today, so I will just say thank you. You have definitely made someone feel less alone in this bog-world.
Thank you for your clarity and courage; I fervently wish for you exactly what you so beautifully describe, “a day or a month or a year or a lifetime when the bad math is no longer necessary”.
Talia, your writing alone is a step on the way out for someone (me). It puts the math into perspective. I haven't read the memoir, but perhaps it will help with some more of the equation. Thank you.
“In similar fashion I write about the fear I feel—my mother calls it “airing dirty laundry,” hanging the soiled unmentionables of a diseased mind out to the world—in the hopes that someone who reads it doesn’t feel alone in this bog-world. That impossible marsh in which each step could push you through to drown in murk. Alone in the navigation, the swerves that make no sense to anyone not privy to that inner running calculation. I write to anyone else who craves above all else the homeostasis of normalcy...”
Thank you for writing this. For inviting me look at the landscape I’m always trying to escape.
It sucks to be in the bog, but in a way it's nice to know that other people are wading through the bog, too. Maybe we can find a way through the bog, and show it to everyone else who's stuck.
"The lost places, the lost people, the lost days—the days I wake up with my blood jangling and know no work will be done today—the hours I lose in the red haze of terror—the decade I’m losing to it, ripe in New York in my thirties."
This resonates all too strongly with me, and I'm so terribly sorry. I lost my 20s and some of my 30s to agoraphobia, my world shrinking to the three rooms I inhabited alone. My heart goes out to everyone who finds their world chipped away by terror, person by person, goal by goal, hope by hope.
I am on the other side of it now, mostly. The last 8 years have been a slow, horrible, terrifying climb out, and there are still days - weeks - where the world outside is too bright and loud and full of people ready to acknowledge my existence. But I don't want to lose anything else to the monster in my own brain.
I hope you are able to make that climb one day. In the meantime, I wish you easier days, deeper breaths and patient friends.
Thank you for being
Thank you for this.
Truly hope you make it out, wish you all good things
I just liked this post, but I did so to acknowledge both your bravery in writing and publishing this and the excellence of your writing
I can't succinctly verbalize how cathartic and necessary of a read this was today, so I will just say thank you. You have definitely made someone feel less alone in this bog-world.
Thank you for your clarity and courage; I fervently wish for you exactly what you so beautifully describe, “a day or a month or a year or a lifetime when the bad math is no longer necessary”.
Talia, your writing alone is a step on the way out for someone (me). It puts the math into perspective. I haven't read the memoir, but perhaps it will help with some more of the equation. Thank you.
Brilliant. It had to be painful to write. But, thank you.
“In similar fashion I write about the fear I feel—my mother calls it “airing dirty laundry,” hanging the soiled unmentionables of a diseased mind out to the world—in the hopes that someone who reads it doesn’t feel alone in this bog-world. That impossible marsh in which each step could push you through to drown in murk. Alone in the navigation, the swerves that make no sense to anyone not privy to that inner running calculation. I write to anyone else who craves above all else the homeostasis of normalcy...”
Thank you for writing this. For inviting me look at the landscape I’m always trying to escape.
I have struggled with agoraphobia and anxiety for 20 years and all of this resonated with me and I cried through it. Thank you for writing
It sucks to be in the bog, but in a way it's nice to know that other people are wading through the bog, too. Maybe we can find a way through the bog, and show it to everyone else who's stuck.
This is gorgeous and achingly true and idk what else you could ask for
Thank you for making these experiences clear and relatable to those on the outside.
Oof ... this resonates so strongly with me and put words to some ideas and feelings I haven't been able to. Thanks for your dirty laundry.
This topic reminds me of my favorite Boggle the Owl comic, which can get me ugly crying on the right (wrong?) day.
https://boggletheowl.tumblr.com/post/41509206591/ive-been-getting-a-lot-of-these-lately-and-i
Give me a stick!
Thank you for this. Don't follow the lights...
"The lost places, the lost people, the lost days—the days I wake up with my blood jangling and know no work will be done today—the hours I lose in the red haze of terror—the decade I’m losing to it, ripe in New York in my thirties."
This resonates all too strongly with me, and I'm so terribly sorry. I lost my 20s and some of my 30s to agoraphobia, my world shrinking to the three rooms I inhabited alone. My heart goes out to everyone who finds their world chipped away by terror, person by person, goal by goal, hope by hope.
I am on the other side of it now, mostly. The last 8 years have been a slow, horrible, terrifying climb out, and there are still days - weeks - where the world outside is too bright and loud and full of people ready to acknowledge my existence. But I don't want to lose anything else to the monster in my own brain.
I hope you are able to make that climb one day. In the meantime, I wish you easier days, deeper breaths and patient friends.