1.6 KiB
title: I am back from Burning Man. date: 2015-09-10 09:00 stared: False tags: There's a lot to process.
During the two weeks before the burn, I had sever anxiety issues - very physical symptoms; my chest felt constricted, my heart was pounding hard, my throat block, I was squashed between the walls. I think this anxiety has been building up since at least Australia, but now things got out of control.
In direct comparison, this year's burn was maybe a little less exciting than last year's. But I took two very important things from it:
- a few days in, with no phone reception and nothing to plan or worry about, all of my anxiety symptoms vanished, and I felt light and free. It's not entirely intrinsic to me. Feeling better is possible, and it's close.
- I started cultivating a wonderful friendship with Stef - who is currently dating Simon and Laurel, as a couple. Recap: Simon and Laurel were hitting on Lucy and me pretty hard at a dinner quite exactly a year ago. Small world.
I started a therapy before the burn, and yesterday was my second session. We dug through some of the anxiety that was related to my parents visiting SF. Here’s a realisation: my parents, especially my mother, never really valued academic achievements, and even half jokingly, half dismissively called me a “Streber” when I brought home straight As. I assume that this has to do something with her feeling inferior to my dad, but at any rate this was probably the point where I realised that their world and mine were different, and whatever I wanted to achieve I had to achieve myself.
I didn’t ask them for help until the day I broke up with Beth, two years ago.