36 TIME November 8/November 15, 2021
anything to stop myself from being that
woman. Instead, I try to make anger
seem spunky and charming and sexy.
I fold it into something small, tuck it
away. I invoke my most reliable trick—I
project sadness—something vulnerable
and tender, something welcoming, a
thing to be tended to.
When I throw the balloon against
the wall, it pops with a gentle snap,
and I am aware of a vague sense of
annoyance. “I’m not sure this is doing
much,” I remark.
She hands me a small jar. “I don’t
think it is made of glass, so it might
not break.”
I take the jar and throw it. My arm
is like limp spaghetti. I try again. It
bounces. I imagine someone looking
out their window to see a skinny woman
throwing an object at a brick wall. Pa-
thetic, I repeat in my head. I think about
what I must look like to the neighbors
and to my therapist. I understand that
embracing anger means relinquishing
that control, that assessment, that dis-
tance from myself, but I am desperate
for control. I would rather hurt myself—
metaphorically stab myself—than let
anyone else hold the knife. And I do not
trust my own body to take the reins.
“I’m just not strong enough,”
I mutter.GROWING UP, I BELIEVED THAT MY THOUGHTS HAD AN
eff ect on everything, from the role I would get in the school
play, to what my future would hold, to how tall I would grow.
This habit of magical thinking has persisted. Some of my
superstitions: If I plan a trip, I will be sure to get a modeling or
acting job that confl icts. If I dream of someone, I expect to hear
from them soon. If I share good news before it’s offi cial, it won’t
come to pass. My latest belief is that if I keep my son’s name on
my body, on a necklace or a bracelet inscribed with his initials,
he will remain healthy.
If there is something, anything, I can do to steer the outcome
of events, then I am less vulnerable. I am less afraid. Even as I
confess this, I worry about the jinx I am placing on my rituals.
Will my tricks no longer work now that I have shared them?
I often struggle to delineate what is my gut instinct and
what is my hypervigilant, superstitious mind playing tricks
on me. A logical part of me knows that events are not aff ected
by supernatural forces that I control. Still, I want to believe in
some kind of magic, in some kind of power.
FOR YEARS I’VE HAD the same recurring nightmare. I am
screaming, my face sticky with tears. A fi gure looms in front of
me. We are always located in some place from my memories: on
the street where I grew up or in an apartment I left long ago. No
matter the setting, one thing is consistent: my rage. I yell. I sob.
I want this person to recognize my anguish. Eventually, I move
to strike them, but my arms are impossibly heavy as I raise my
fi sts. When a fi st fi nally connects, there’s no impact, as if my
body is made of nothing.
When I repeat this dream to my therapist, she listens
intently and expressively—as therapists do—before she speaks.
“How about you come in and break some things?” she says.
On the roof of her New York City building, she places a glass
bowl fi lled with water balloons on the ground before me. “Oh
no,” I grimace, “I already hate this.” I think about her pouring
the water into the balloons for me before my arrival and
shudder with humiliation.
“I’ve done this before,” she off ers charitably. “You have to
make yourself... big!” She throws open her arms and spreads
her legs, widens her mouth into a large O. Her kindness makes
me feel ridiculous and, more than anything, pathetic. The
level of self- involvement, I think. Has it really come to this? I
am surprised to fi nd hot tears spurting from my eyes. I laugh,
embarrassed, quickly wiping one away.
“Why are you crying?” she asks.
“This is just so silly,” I say.
“I don’t think you’re crying because this is silly.” She
crouches down to the bowl and selects a balloon. I take it,
noting its fragility in my hand.
I read once that women are more likely than men to
cry when they are angry. They are afraid of their anger;
embarrassed by the way that it transforms them. An angry
woman is the worst kind of villain: obnoxious and ugly, full
of spite and bitterness. I do anything to avoid those feelings,
△
My Body
grapples with
womanhood
and powerLetting go
By Emily Ratajkowski
TheView Essay