Melissa Broder, the poet behind the popular Twitter account @SoSadToday, spent 18 years in therapy. But she never told the truth. Here, she explains why she’s now going it alone
I remember the exact moment when I realised my therapist could not stop death. I had just watched a man die – my boyfriend’s step-father, the first death I’d ever seen up close – and it became achingly clear to me that I, too, would one day face the dying process. It wasn’t that I was previously unaware of my own inevitable death. I’d talked about it, written about it, and joked about it as much as any respectable poet should, which is to say, a lot. When I wasn’t pontificating glibly about taking the big dirt nap, I’d been greatly haunted by the reality of my own demise – particularly when coming down off psychedelics or following an all-nighter on speed.
Yet in those other instances, it was as though I had a choice as to whether or not to look death in the face. Even on drugs, I was always eventually able to pull the curtain down and think about something else. But now it was as if the barrier between me and death-awareness had vanished. There was no curtain left to pull down, no blinder left to put on. I feared that it was finally happening: the bats in my belfry had at last taken over and I would be trapped permanently in this state.
Continue reading...
0 comments :
Post a Comment