Pure Potential

And then, and then, and then- Heather stops to catch her breath. She starts choking on her own saliva pooling in the back of her throat. She stops and coughs violently, wheezes an intake of breath and tries to calm herself down.Whenever she gets worked up she loses the ability to speak in full sentences. Her hands start to shake and her feet get ice cold. She has a series of exercises she's supposed to do to quiet the noise and slow her brain down. Cognitive reprogramming, it's called. Her mom's obsessed with neuroplasticity, retraining the brain, so she makes Heather practice and practice and practice patterns and reactions so she can control her outbursts. She's a raw nerve; cries on a dime, becomes righteously indignant when the neighbour scolds her dog. It's too much. Heather's worn out, run down, depleted by the sheer effort required to exist. She feels everything full on, her dial goes up to 11 and then into overdrive. The other kids at school are freaked out by her emotional outbursts so they ostracize her. It's not bullying, per se; more a sense of wary curiosity. Heather's never violent. Operatic, yes. She'll fall into a feint of tears and wailing but tries to talk herself down when she gets too outrageous. She's 8 years old. Heather's mom battles as hard as she can to find a way to balance the crazy with the authentic and keep Heather safe and grounded. She knows that if they don't deal with the swings now life is going to be unimaginably difficult as she grows up. If she makes it through. Puberty terrifies her. The professionals want to medicate her, reign her in. Heather shrivels up inside and fades away. She becomes despondent, unreachable. Dim. Her mom much prefers to deal with her heightened states sober and present than drugged out of her mind and completely disconnected. Heather hums on every exhale. Lately she's begun meditating five minutes a day. It seems to be working; Heather's breathing gets back under control, her thought patterns cohere. Her mom closes her eyes, relieved.  Everything is changeable. Things can be relearned, retrained. There is pure potential inside of her.

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