Unbridled Stress

At some point, the stress becomes noticeable; not so much to others, but to oneself. Enthusiasm ebbs, leaving in its place flashes of dysphoria. A harsh, dry cloud of discontent settles over one’s thoughts like volcanic ash, sucking oxygen out of the lungs and replacing it with chalk.  Nonspecific anger increasingly bubbles to the surface, touching everyone and everything in one’s path.

That anger then ricochets off mirrors and lands repeated body blows on your chest, all the while screaming that YOU are to blame for everything that has gone wrong in your shrinking, suffocating sphere. But you, alone, can see that accusatory reflection. And you feel increasingly angry that your faults seem almost invisible to others around you. You feel a growing sense of guilt that you are somehow hiding the flaws that led to this cataclysmic point. The world feels as fragile and delicate as paper-thin porcelain, as if the slightest touch could cause a catastrophic failure, transforming it into razor-sharp pieces of brittle hopelessness.

You see visions of yourself riding in a subway car, your irritation at a group of three insensitive teenagers playing loud radios increasing with every revolution of the train’s wheels. Suddenly, without a specific trigger, the explosion occurs. You hoist one of the youths above your head and throw him at the others who are sitting with their backs to the window. The force of the boy’s body hitting them sends the other two boys backward, crashing through the window of the speeding train, followed closely by the one you threw at them. The subway car erupts in screams loud enough to jar you out of your trance. The upsetting music and the boys’ chatter continues. Perspiration drenches your shirt and rivulets of sweat pour down your forehead as if sprayed from a tiny fire hose. And, then, you realize you are not in a subway car at all but sitting in your recliner in front of the black screen of an un-powered television. Still, you loathe those boys. You miss the almost super-human strength it took to hoist that kid over your head. You want it back. Because if you had it back you would go looking for those boys, or someone like them, and you would erase them from this ugly, painful world.

Unbridled stress. It is invisible, but its destructive power is almost without equal. Its sharp edges can slice through stone and hope like white-hot steel through frozen butter.