Hope is an Anchor

Just a little something I wrote for creative writing at University:

Hope is an Anchor

My mind cracked again leaking like a shipwreck on the rocks. This time it was bad. I was going to have to start all over again. Somehow, I’d lost my way, lost where I was going. Too fast, everything was too fast. So, I hid away in the quiet thinking I was safe in this bubble. But the bubble was my enemy.

Going out grew harder and harder.  I had been able to hide it before but not anymore, it was surfacing, bubbling up and bursting out. The shops evolved into dark and dangerous places where it wasn’t safe. The noises were so loud, the sensations twisted and exaggerated in my mind. Every noise felt like it was piercing my skull. The lights felt like hospital lights, too bright burning my eyes.

Every step felt like I was walking through deep snow, heavy and slow. My husband’s voice tried to reach me but I was lost in a fog. I tried to control my breathing, slowing it down but it wasn’t working. I tried to grip onto something, anything in my mind but it was all at sea. Then the worst of all, the explosion of panic.

This was new to me, I had never felt it like this before. It was as though I was sitting on a bee’s nest, trying to contain the buzz, the building hum of the bees before they exploded out of the nest. Panic gripped me. I had to leave.

After that day, I started walking out of shops, places, church. I gave in to fleeing. Until one day, after so many cyclic tears and meltdowns, quiet whispers from Him— what am I so afraid of? I knew I had to stop running away. So, one shop at a time, one place at a time I started to face it and it got easier. Even though I still get scared, I keep going out and I’ll keep going one step at a time.