I wanted to share a little bit about my poetry collection, Poetry with Erin, and how it’s served as my own tool of healing. This is a discussion of mental health, so please retreat it this type of talk isn’t your thing.
I used to never share about my feelings. It’s not what you’re supposed to do. I lived my life with an open mind, but deep inside, I had shut many doors. The suffering seemed to be far away. When I stopped running, this distance dwindled. Somewhere between being half full and half empty, I became a broken glass, not knowing what broke me. While the pain spilled all over inside, leaking this information was not an option. That was when I became aware that I had no idea who I was. Up to that point, my whole life felt like a cover story. I was my mid-twenties, working a dream job in NYC, and floating out of my body every day to watch a movie of this woman’s identity crisis - me. I decided to hit refresh, but in all the wrong ways. I drowned myself in work, dived into new hobbies, piled up the to-do lists, put myself out there in a place I knew I didn’t belong. I stayed here for awhile - a sequel to years prior.
Numb and alone, I finally turned to therapy. One on one with a human completely removed from my small life, I got to know my trauma. So much more than disruptions from the past that left long ago, these experiences stayed inside my body. Feeding off triggers, they nourish emotions. After the years of running away, I realized that the anxiety was trying to guide me to places that needed my attention. For the first time, I felt present on a path to heal.
As a writer in my professional life, I decided to put my pen to the paper and speak to the wild antics of this journey I know so many of us are on. I opened up my journal to the world, where sharing became a cathartic for my mental health. As I continued to write, I began to see my work as a safe space, a channel for the honesty of healing. My comfort zone has expanded to those places that I used to be so uncomfortable in. I feel okay to feel sad. I’m exactly where I need to be and so are you.
Moving forward, I’m going to be sharing a post about every poem in my current series, diving into the lines in-between and further expanding each theme.
P.S. here’s me just saying hi on the anti-social coach, where I was caught pondering on a poem!
