Sturmaz

Storm: a disturbed state. Something that passes by, leaving destruction in its wake. But in the centre, there is a calm. Finding the calm is the hard bit. You have to push through the destruction and the mess and the chaos to even find a semblance of calm.

Living with anxious behaviour is a little like living with a storm inside you. You fight to find the calm to get yourself through. It keeps moving, so you restart the search every day.

Noise. Tumult. Thoughts swirling through your head with unfettered power. Trying to catch one is impossible; for as soon as one is formed, it is swept away by the wind in your head to be replaced by another, and another, and another. Quicker. Twisting and twirling. A cacophony of thoughts getting louder and louder. Soaring upwards; so fast you can’t stop. Roaring and reverberating until you can’t take any more. STOP! STOP! STOP! Until something brings you back down, you’re pulled up into this hurricane, like Dorothy and Toto. Except you’re not coming back down to Oz.

But it isn’t a perfect metaphor. Nothing is. A storm is caused by opposing air waves and will always peter out eventually. Living with anxiety or anxious behaviour can last forever. It is a constant battle to find that calm, and some never do. A storm causes more destruction to those outside than those in the centre of it. Anxiety is a singularly insular problem, and often overlooked or unseen by those around the sufferers. So the destruction remains internal, until it builds to a crescendo where it can’t be hidden anymore. Exploding outwards in a rage of fury, the results are devastating, crippling. They can take a lifetime to rebuild, and life can be forever changed.

But periods of still will come and go. It is not always the centre of the calm, but simple ebbs and flows like a natural storm. Reacting and dealing with its waves is something that the sufferer develops over time. Just as people who live in storm-prone places have coping mechanisms to live with the storms and survive, so too do you learn to live with the storm inside of you. And even if you are knocked down, again and again and again, you will rebuild.

The eye of the storm is a place of calm and healing, but also of disassociation. You can watch things being caught up in devastation and change; unable to do anything about it. At some point, you have to come through this storm to find the calm. Emerge. Be still. Serene. And strong. For you are its equal.

By Grace Balfour-Harle

Slow Death of Earth

Where I live, there are extremely high levels of pollution. When we hear the word ‘conservation’, the only thing that comes to mind is global warming, pollution – the fact that our home planet is in crisis. During the first lockdown all over the world, nature had developed in many ways but it became even worse. Conserving our planet must be top priority. As an artist, I’m personally practising the art of zero waste where I challenge myself to use recycled or non-recyclable products in the form of art, whether it’s a painting or a sculpture. To me, this is a creative and very powerful message to the world as I can contribute by showing that you can use a lot of things instead of just throwing them away. These hidden messages are important and inspiring to young and adult minds alike.

By Rifa Tasfia Choudhury, you can find more of Rifa’s work on Instagram.