Advanced Essay #1 - Thorns
Intro
The goal for this essay was to show that valuable experiences are not always enjoyable, and that personal growth does not always come easy, or feel comfortable. I want the reader to come out of this paper with a new appreciation for bad experiences. I think that sometimes it can be significant to put yourself in situations without expecting things to go swimmingly, and that there is still something to be learned from that. In the future, I would like to become a more descriptive writer that is able to give description concisely.
Thorns
The feeling started off small. In the beginning, it was just as bothersome as the log I was sitting on cutting into the back of my thigh, or the wood chips in my boot that were just out of reach. As time passed, the sky dimmed. The sun began to hide and I grew jealous. I tried to hold it in; I’d handled sleep away camp decently thus far. Up until that night I was able to get by with short sentences and hunched shoulders trying to hide in my chest, but my nerves started to tangle themselves in knots I could no longer untie. With a desperate glance towards my camp counselor and a silent wimper I asked permission to go back to my cabin. She responded with a tender nod, and I pulled myself away.
I made my way through the forest anxiously, but not carefully. I was so surrounded by emptiness it was suffocating. It felt like the forest was trying to coil around my waist and pull me in, Maybe it wanted to hang me in the trees as a warning. My own veins started to give out; it felt like my blood dried up and retreated to my knees. My skin was evaporating rapidly; I could feel it sizzling away, and almost felt whole pieces of me escape into the frightening forest. At that moment, anything was less chaotic than my body. I felt weak; my stomach felt stitched together. Yet I pressed on through the night, and walked faster still. The twigs clawing up my clothes and my skin felt like fireworks ripping holes in my head. When anxiety gets you that vulnerable, even the sound of a clock clicking can eat you alive. In that moment, the sound of snapping leaves felt like firecrackers.
When I made it to the other side of the wooded hell, the branches that had tortured me melted off of my arms and cowered away from the dim light hanging in the gravelled road. But the feeling still did not leave me. I still felt my heart ramming against my ribcage. I still had to endure my stomach twisting into tight, painful knots. I stumbled stupidly forward. Not even the sweet sound of boots crunching gravel brought me comfort. Instead pebbles scraping against each other made noise that gave my bones a dull ache; I thought of how it might catch the attention of a cruel creature of the night. I stunk of fear.
By the time I got to my cabin I expected some sort of relief, but my anxiety whispered that not even screen doors and shuttered windows could keep me safe from her. I scrambled up to the safety of my top bunk. The dirty sleeping bag was cold and crisp against my hot, dry hands. I crawled into my chilly vinyl sleeping bag, and it sucked the heat from my weary skin. I started to sob quietly. Surely the mental state I’m in could only end in death. I tried to search for warmth in the doom filled darkness, but I found sleep sooner. A panic attack was quite enough for me. That night I vowed never to come back to sleep away camp again. I was the one who went to camp, and I was the one who walked through the woods knowing their would be sharp sticks and intrusive thoughts I would trip on. There would be no reason for the scars the thorns left, only extra work when my skin would have to sew itself back together. I dragged myself through mud with no reason to show for it, and I still would have no explanation if I dove back in.
One night I found myself filling out another camp application.
That night I knew deep down the sort of danger I would put myself in signing up for camp. The application process alone was enough of a hassle, not even including the stupid amount of emotional strife it caused me. And yet my fingers did not stop typing my name, no matter how much my anxiety tried to pull them back. I still added pictures to my portfolio. I still trekked through signatures and phone numbers and emergency contact information. I must admit, in those moments I was made of second guessing. The sound of clicking keys were dragging me as close to my doom as the sound of tugging branches had. Yet I still submitted the application, accepted the call back and soon enough I was in a car, on a highway, lugging my life long possessions to a place I’d never been before. My mother would leave me there and not come back for a while yet.
Why was I doing this to myself?
On the way up to the third camp I’d went to, the road was made of this question. The gray sky ahead peeled back to expose those words swirling in the clouds. Why does anyone do anything to bring back their pain, when it is so comfortably buried deep?
But that is exactly it. Anxiety has found a home in my head. She has furnished it and made it her own. She has shuttered the windows and stuffed cluttered secrets under her bed. When I am home, so is she. She is asleep, but still there, waiting to come out and bite when I least expect it. It is hard to kill a beast in hiding. I realized that in the years at camp before, I had come back stronger. I learned that people can only solve their problems when they can see them before their eyes. Now I know that therapy sessions are not to make me feel better, they are to make me better. I work through my troubles to solve them, not to stomp them deeper. People who take breaks from their comfort zones only leave because comfort zones leave no room to grow. Now I know that people trek through thorns so their calloused fingers can’t be cut up next time.
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