self–administered desensitization

She must stop torturing herself. Whenever she looks at their picture together it’s as if she’s being stabbed. She tells herself that she’s going to be okay but the excruciating pain is almost too much to bear. Self-administered desensitization and other flooding techniques are supposed to make her numb. But they’re not working. Or perhaps they will, after a while, in due time.

She won’t allow herself to cry this time. Because if she starts, she might not be able to stop.

Animal Farm and Soul of the Tango

I was reading, for the first time, Animal Farm while listening to Soul of the Tango when all of a sudden I caught myself wiping away a tear. Was it Boxer’s never failing cry: “I will work harder”? “Nothing kept him on his feet except the will to continue.” Or was it how the cello perfectly fitted into the discordant melody of tango music, evoking nostalgia and a wistful yearning for something irretrievably lost? Perhaps both. But then again, there is something amusing in empathizing with a horse that embodies nobility of sheer endurance.

Horribly Deluded

We can at times be so horribly deluded. It is extremely painful to have our security nets suddenly yanked out from other us, realizing that all along we are merely imagining something as more meaningful than it actually is; unknowingly, we are in for a rude awakening: people and things are not what we expect and believe them to be. The disillusionment that follows is one thing we have to learn to deal with.